Kerala’s environmental history now in encyclopaedia form

Long before the Madhav Gadgil report on the Western Ghats, there was the Balfour report. Through his 1878 report ‘The Influence Exercised by Trees on the Climate and Productiveness of the Peninsular India,’ Scottish surgeon and environmentalist Edward Green Balfour drew the British colonial government’s attention to the harmful effects of deforestation in southern India.

“Balfour was the first to raise scientific arguments against the mindless exploitation of natural resources in the Western Ghats during the colonial times,” reads an entry in Keralathinte Paristhithika Charitravijnanakosham, a new encyclopaedia on the environmental history of Kerala which will be released here on Thursday (May 14, 2026) by the State Institute of Encyclopaedic Publications (SIEP).

Wide range of themes

The 280-page work in Malayalam covers a wide range of themes; from colonial perspectives on the environment to defining moments of the 20th century when people’s struggles to protect nature made history, destructive natural disasters, interesting tales of how invasive species from faraway lands made their way to Kerala and so on. It has sections dedicated to human-wildlife conflict, fragile coastal ecosystems, fragmentation of elephant corridors in the Western Ghats and modern-day impacts of urbanisation, pollution and changing atmospheric conditions.

The entries on invasive species make interesting reading. Many of them became familiar sights in the countryside that they soon acquired local names. The encyclopaedia cites the case of Lantana camara as a typical example. Native to the Americas, it was introduced to India in the early 19th century as a garden plant. “Documents show Lantana camara reached Kerala in 1872,” the SIEP encyclopaedia says. By 1892, ‘Konginipoovu,’ as it came to be called in Malayalam, spread to farmlands, assuming the characteristics of an invasive species.

In the entry on colonial perspectives of the region’s ecology, the work notes how the administration, through comprehensive surveys and new laws, brought natural resources under its control. “The colonial era brought about a structural change in environmental perspectives. These can be viewed as exploitative, but the British also focussed on documenting the natural wealth of the region. Our desire is that this encyclopaedia should serve as a reference or entry point for people interested in the colonial and post-colonial environmental history of the region,” says Sebastian Joseph, the External Editor of the work.

Various entries cover post-Independence land reforms, struggles for land and the fights to preserve the environment such as the Silent Valley struggle. The great disasters that left their destructive imprint on the region find place in the encyclopaedia; among them being the great floods of 1924 and 2018, 2004 tsunami, 2017 Ockhi cyclone disaster and the July 30, 2024 Mundakkai-Chooralmala landslides.

On Gadgil report

The encyclopaedia, according to SIEP, seeks to interpret the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel Report led by Gadgil as one of the most significant postcolonial environmental documents in India “that foregrounded ecological fragility, democratic decentralisation and sustainable development in the Western Ghats.”

In her preface to the encyclopaedia, SIEP director Muse Mary George says that the new book seeks to chronicle the environmental history of Kerala on the strength of historical documents that go back as far as 200 years. Mr. Joseph says it could be the first of its kind work in the country.

“We are publishing the book at a time when climate change, ecological degradation and species conflict have become central concerns. In that sense, this work is to function as a critical intellectual intervention into the environmental anxieties of the present and the uncertain ecological futures of the subcontinent,” says Prathyush Chandran, Co-Editor of the work.

Travancore Devaswom Board president K. Jayakumar will release Keralathinte Paristhithika Charitravijnanakosham on Thursday.