Keralam Launches India's First Ecosystem Red List as 83% of Riparian Forests Are Lost
Keralam has become the first State in India to take up a Red List Assessment of Ecosystems (RLE), a scientific exercise that measures how close entire natural habitats — not just individual species — are to collapse.
The project, launched by the Kerala State Biodiversity Board (KSBB), responds to mounting evidence of habitat loss across the State. According to the Board, the riparian evergreen forests of the southern Western Ghats have shrunk by 83% over the past century, driven by dam construction, the spread of invasive plantations and increasingly severe climate events. Assessed against International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criteria, these forests have been classified as Critically Endangered, with the assessment pointing to a risk of collapse within 20 to 40 years if present trends continue.
Other habitats face comparable pressure. Myristica swamps, the shola-grassland mosaics of the high ranges and coastal mangroves are threatened by urban expansion and rising sea levels, the Board said.
The shift in approach is significant. Conservation in India has largely focused on protecting individual species. The RLE framework instead assesses the condition of whole landscapes — their extent, structure and the ecological processes that sustain them. Officials describe it as a move from isolated species preservation to landscape-wide ecosystem management.
The one-year project is funded by the KSBB and is being carried out jointly by the Kerala Forest Research Institute and the Centre for Ecology, Taxonomy, Conservation and Climate Change at MES Asmabi College. It is led by researchers Dr. Amitha Bachan K.H. and Dr. Deepu Sivadas.
The assessment covers all 14 districts of Keralam, from high-altitude mountain summits and densely populated midlands to vulnerable coastal stretches.
“The goal is to build strong empirical evidence of environmental degradation through a comprehensive, year-long scientific study,” said Dr. N. Anil Kumar, chairperson of the KSBB. By examining habitats across the State — forests, rivers and coastal belts — the project will identify both climate-driven and human-induced threats, he said. “Ultimately, this research powers nature-based climate adaptation by repairing fragmented landscapes, analysing historical loss, and safeguarding natural resilience. True resilience demands that we restore our ecosystems in their entirety, which is why we are simultaneously assessing the red list of species alongside this initiative.”
Dr. Amitha Bachan said major landscapes such as the Periyar river basin had never been classified according to international guidelines, nor had their specific risks of collapse been formally measured. The team, he said, will evaluate core habitats against the five standardised criteria of the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems framework, producing the State’s first standardised baseline documentation of historical loss, habitat fragmentation and hydrological disruption.
The findings are to be published as an official Risk Register, an Ecosystem Typology Atlas and ecorestoration priority maps. These are to be integrated into State planning portals and shared with local Biodiversity Management Committees and panchayats, so that grassroots authorities can use detailed mapping to strengthen natural barriers against floods and landslides, guide development and design adaptation measures suited to their own landscapes.
The KSBB said the exercise also gives scientific structure to Keralam’s stated aim of becoming India’s most biodiversity-friendly State, by guiding community-led restoration and climate resilience across its major ecosystems. The assessment is expected to be completed over the coming year, and its findings will be released as they are finalised.
