{"id":1033,"date":"2026-11-06T00:10:25","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T18:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thenoviq.cloud\/blog\/?post_type=noviq_note&#038;p=1033"},"modified":"2026-11-06T00:10:25","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T18:40:25","slug":"western-ghats","status":"publish","type":"noviq_note","link":"https:\/\/thenoviq.cloud\/blog\/notes\/western-ghats\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Ghats"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Where they are and why they matter<\/h2>\n<p>The Western Ghats, also called the Sahyadri, run for about 1,600 km parallel to the west coast, from Gujarat to the southern tip of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The range intercepts the south-west monsoon winds, which gives heavy rain to the western slopes and shapes the monsoon over peninsular India. Most of the peninsula&#8217;s west-flowing and east-flowing rivers, including the Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri, rise here.<\/p>\n<h2>World Heritage status<\/h2>\n<p>The World Heritage Committee inscribed the Western Ghats in 2012 at its 36th session in Saint Petersburg (decision 36 COM 8B.10). It is a serial property of 39 component parts spread across protected areas and reserve forests. It was listed under criterion (ix) for ongoing ecological processes and criterion (x) for biodiversity.<\/p>\n<h2>Biodiversity in numbers<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>352 of about 650 tree species are endemic (54%).<\/li>\n<li>Endemism is 65% for amphibians, 62% for reptiles and 53% for fishes.<\/li>\n<li>The Ghats and Sri Lanka together form one of the world&#8217;s biodiversity hotspots.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Gadgil and Kasturirangan<\/h2>\n<table>\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th><\/th>\n<th>Gadgil panel (WGEEP), 2011<\/th>\n<th>Kasturirangan group (HLWG), 2013<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Area to protect<\/td>\n<td>Whole Western Ghats, in three zones (ESZ-I, II, III)<\/td>\n<td>About 37% of the Ghats, about 60,000 sq km<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Response<\/td>\n<td>Opposed by states as too restrictive<\/td>\n<td>Basis of the later draft notifications<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h2>The eco-sensitive area drafts<\/h2>\n<p>The Union Environment Ministry has issued draft notifications to declare part of the Ghats an Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA). The seventh draft, reissued in July 2026, proposes 56,825.7 sq km across the six states and is open for objections for 60 days. Inside an ESA, mining, quarrying, sand mining, new thermal power plants and red-category industries are banned; agriculture and local livelihoods continue. Karnataka&#8217;s proposed share is 20,668 sq km, the largest of any state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Western Ghats as a World Heritage site and biodiversity hotspot: key numbers, the Gadgil and Kasturirangan reports and the eco-sensitive area debate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[16,14,13],"noviq_topic":[39],"class_list":["post-1033","noviq_note","type-noviq_note","status-publish","hentry","category-environment-ecology","tag-kpsc","tag-ssc","tag-upsc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenoviq.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noviq_note\/1033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenoviq.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noviq_note"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenoviq.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/noviq_note"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenoviq.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenoviq.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noviq_note\/1033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1036,"href":"https:\/\/thenoviq.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noviq_note\/1033\/revisions\/1036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenoviq.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenoviq.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenoviq.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1033"},{"taxonomy":"noviq_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenoviq.cloud\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noviq_topic?post=1033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}