Kerala Launches India's First State-Level Ecosystem Red List Assessment

Keralam has launched India's first Red List Assessment of Ecosystems project to protect its vanishing natural habitats. Tropical riparian evergreen forests in the southern Western Ghats have lost 83 percent of their area over the past century due to dam construction, invasive plantations, and climate extremes. These forests face potential collapse within the next 20 to 40 years, earning a Critically Endangered status under International Union for Conservation of Nature criteria. Other vulnerable habitats like myristica swamps, shola-grassland mosaics, and coastal mangroves face similar threats from urban expansion and rising sea levels.

Project Details

Funded by the Kerala State Biodiversity Board, the one-year scientific initiative evaluates collapse risks across all 14 districts, from mountain summits to coastal stretches. The Kerala Forest Research Institute and the Centre for Ecology, Taxonomy, Conservation and Climate Change at MES Asmabi College are jointly executing the project. Researchers Dr. Amitha Bachan K.H. and Dr. Deepu Sivadas lead the study. KSBB chairperson Dr. N. Anil Kumar states that the project builds empirical evidence of environmental degradation by examining habitats like forests, rivers, and coastal belts to pinpoint both climate and human-induced threats alongside a red list of species.

Action Plan

Major landscapes such as the Periyar river basin are being evaluated against the five standardized criteria of the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems framework. The research will produce an official Risk Register, an Ecosystem Typology Atlas, and ecorestoration priority maps. These tools will be integrated into State planning portals to empower local Biodiversity Management Committees and panchayats with spatial intelligence for grassroots decision-making.

Context

This project shifts environmental conservation from protecting single species in isolation to managing entire landscapes proactively. Such baseline data helps regional authorities design effective nature-based defenses against extreme weather events like floods and landslides.