Exotic trees eating up Western Ghat’s grasslands-But shola forests have remained “relatively unchanged”

• The new year heralds bad news for the high-altitude grasslands of the Western Ghats.
• Over four decades, the country lost almost one-fourth of these grasslands and exotic invasive trees are primarily to blame, find scientists.
• Though grassland afforestation using pine, acacia and eucalyptus ceased in 1996, the exotics still invade these ecosystems, confirms a study published in the international journal Biological Conservation.
• Most of this loss occurred on the mountain tops of the Nilgiri, Palani and Anamalai hill ranges, which comprise more than half of the Ghat’s shola-grassland ecosystems, primarily due to the expansion of exotic trees (pine, acacia and eucalyptus).
• The Anamalai-Munnar areas have also remained stable during this time.

The Hindu