Through this map, it is clear that forest in South India rarely represents more than the all-Indian average of 19% of the total area. (Remember that this figure corresponds to the lands under the administrative status of "reserved forest", whatever their actual cover). Two location factors appear clearly.

1.Hills and mountains: the line of the north-south Western Ghats ridge is clearly visible. So are the more scattered hills of the Eastern Ghats (Nallamalai, Vellikonda and extension of Bastar highlands). Shifting cultivation, mainly practiced by local tribals, has enabled some forest to be maintained, contrary to the plains where sedentary farming needed total clearing. Note however that many hilly areas are hardly considered as "forest": the administration has eventually formally recorded the extent of deforestation by declassifying some former forest lands.

2. Inland border areas (which often happen to be also mountain areas): it is not by chance that the Nilgiris have remained a forest area (their core is even a biosphere reserve) since it constitutes a buffer zone between Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala - and their preceding States (Madras and Mysore). The legacy of this situation of buffer zone, with little control and and little colonisation by the ruling power, is to be seen in the case of Veerappan, a poacher-cum-bandit, who since the late 1980s has been succeeding in escaping the police by finding shelter in the Nilgiris.

In opposition to this, littorals seem to be entirely deforested. This is a proof of the steep decline of the mangrove. A sizeable exception, however, is northern coastal Karnataka (Uttar Kannad) where in some places forest goes down even to the sea. A partial historical explanation may be the former border zone status of this area when it was part of the Bombay province.

F.L.