For Chennai residents, nature or wildlife tours usually mean a trip to the Nilgiris, Coimbatore, or Kodaikanal. What misses their minds is the sprawling Guindy National Park (GNP), one of the very few national parks situated in an Indian city. While a portion of the GNP is open to members of the public as the Children’s Park, a large chunk of the protected area is maintained undisturbed by the Forest Department.
The GNP is one of the 106 national parks in the country. As defined by the Union government, an area, whether within a sanctuary or not, is notified as a national park for its ecological, faunal, floral, geomorphological, or zoological importance, and for the purpose of protecting and developing wildlife and the environment. Originally spanning over five square kilometres, the GNP is now spread across 2.7 square kilometres after it was divided for educational institutions and memorials nearby.
A unique ecosystem
Known for spotted deer (chital) and blackbucks, which one cannot miss sighting on any given day, the GNP is one of the last remaining tropical dry evergreen forests in southern India. This type of forest is unique to the Coromandel or eastern coast of India, northeastern Sri Lanka, and northeastern Thailand.
According to a 2018 peer commentary, published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa, the tropical dry evergreen forest occurred only within a very limited range on the southeastern seaboard of peninsular India, extending inland between 30 km and 60 km. This distribution is coincident with a high human population, the long-term pressures of which have rendered them one of the rarest types of forest ecosystem found in the subcontinent, it says.
An opportunistic assemblage
According to ecologist R.J. Ranjit Daniels, the tropical dry evergreen forests in India are not ‘forests’ in the true sense, but a scrub-woodland or an opportunistic assemblage of species adapted to local microclimatic conditions. It is known to have a mixture of trees, shrubs, climbers, grasses and herbs.
Mr. Daniels and his team contend that rather than a climax vegetation type, the tropical dry evergreen forests are secondary stages of highly degraded coastal forests that were designated as paalai by early Tamil societies.
With the debate on the vegetation type left to ecologists, it can be said the GNP is unique in its landscape and provides a habitat to a wide variety of animals, including insects, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals. Stepping into the core area of the national park, which can only be visited with approval and in the company of Forest Department officials, is likely to make one forget that they are, indeed, in Chennai. Beyond the traffic on Sardar Patel Road and the constant whir of vehicles, the forest comes alive with the rustle of leaves and bird calls.
350 species of trees and plants
As many as 350 species of trees and plants, 100 birds, and over 70 butterflies have been recorded at the national park. Blackbucks, which are protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act and listed as threatened species by the International Union for Conservation of Natural Flora and Fauna, hang around in large numbers at the polo ground, an open grassland on the northern side of the park. An annual census of blackbucks and spotted deer are taken to monitor their population.
Walking amid the greenery, one can also find jackals, semi-wild boars, toddy cat, jungle cat, pangolin, hedgehog, star tortoises, rat snakes or cobras. Two main waterbodies — Appalankulam and Kathangollai — sustain the wildlife. Old gigantic banyan trees, palm trees, bangar trees, kaatu elumichai (Atalantia monophylla), kaatu karuveppalai (Clausena dentata), sickle bush tree (Dichrostachys cinerea) with tiny, beautiful pink and yellow flowers, and the arresting flame lily are some of the florae at the park. Mostly dry during the summer, the GNP comes alive after a spell of rain in all its verdant glory.
Last ‘green lungs’
In Tamil Nadu, a few other places have similar ecosystems as the GNP. These include forests in Point Calimere, Pitchandikulam in Auroville, Puthupet, and Oorani. Over half of the GNP was denotified decades ago and there is only a small portion that is continuing to be protected. The national park, the contiguous Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) campus that also hosts a number of blackbucks and spotted deer and the Raj Bhavan are seen as the last ‘green lungs’ of the city.
With the construction of new buildings inside IIT-M, the campus is undergoing changes. A few years ago, citizens appealed to the State government to establish an eco-sensitive zone around the GNP as a buffer. But the campaign did not come to fruition. The wilderness of the GNP, existing in stark difference to the burgeoning Chennai, is wealth that needs to be treasured.
At a time when increasing the green cover is a priority, equal efforts must be made to protect the existing natural spaces in the city, say naturalists.
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