About Silent Valley National Park
- Silent Valley National Park, is a national park in Kerala, India.
- It is located in the Nilgiri hills, has a core area of 89.52 km2, which is surrounded by a buffer zone of 148 km2 .
- The national park is one of the last undisturbed tracts of South Western Ghats mountain rain forests and tropical moist evergreen forest in India.
- Contiguous with the proposed Karimpuzha National Park to the north and Mukurthi National Park to the north-east, it is the core of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve.
- Part of the Nilgiri Sub-Cluster, Western Ghats World Heritage Site, recognised by UNESCO in 2007.
Climate
- Silent Valley gets copious amounts of rainfall during the monsoons, but the actual amount varies within the region due to the varied topography.
- In general, rainfall is higher at higher altitudes and decreases from the west to the east due to the rain shadow effect.
- Eighty percent of the rainfall occurs during the south-west monsoon between June and September.
- The park also receives a significant amount of rainfall during the north-east monsoon between October and November.
Indigenous people
- There is no record of the valley ever having been settled, but the Mudugar and Irula tribal people are indigenous to the area and do live in the adjacent valley of Attappady Reserved Forest.
- Also, the Kurumbar people live in the highest range outside the park bordering on the Nilgiris.
Flora
- The valley areas of the park are in a Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests Ecoregion.
- Hilly areas above 1,000 m are in the South Western Ghats montane rain forests region. Above 1,500 m, the evergreen forests begin to give way to stunted forests, called sholas, interspersed with open grassland, both of which are of interest to ecologists as the rich biodiversity here has never been disturbed by human settlements.
- The flora of the valley include about a 1000 species of flowering plants, 108 species of orchids, 100 ferns and fern allies, 200 liverworts, 75 lichens and about 200 algae.
- A majority of these plants are endemic to the Western Ghats.
Fauna
- Silent Valley Park is known for many highly endangered species such as lion-tailed macaque, tiger, gaur, leopard, wild boar, panther, Indian Civet and Sambhar.
Source: PIB
