One approach to protecting the Western Ghats has been to identify ecologically sensitive areas and restrict activities that could cause significant damage. The proposed Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA), for example, seeks to restrict activities such as mining, quarrying, highly polluting industries and large construction projects in identified areas.
But successive ESA proposals have faced resistance, including in Karnataka. Concerns have been raised about livelihoods, development, which areas are included and what the designation could mean for people who live there.
In July 2026, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change issued a fresh draft notification proposing Ecologically Sensitive Areas across the Western Ghats. The draft is once again open for public comments, even as Karnataka has recommended rejecting the Kasturirangan Committee report and withdrawing the earlier 2024 draft notification.
This raises an important question: Could conservation also recognise and support the people who live in and help sustain these landscapes?
A 2012 study from Kodagu explored this question through Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) and other incentive based approaches. It examined whether communities and landholders could be supported for maintaining forests, coffee agroforestry systems, water sources and biodiversity that provide benefits far beyond Kodagu. A big thanks to Kodagu Model Forest Trust and Dr. Kushalappa Cheppudira for sharing this report.
The study identified biodiversity, carbon sequestration and hydrological services as important ecosystem services provided by the Kodagu landscape and explored different mechanisms through which conservation could be incentivised.
Key Takeways from the Study
1. A landscape that provides benefits far beyond Kodagu
The study argues that Kodagu’s forests, farms and agroforestry landscapes provide ecosystem services that extend well beyond the district, particularly through water and climate regulation for communities downstream in the Cauvery Basin
2. Water regulation is an important ecosystem service
In Kodagu’s high-rainfall and sloping landscape, forests and other vegetation play an important role in soil and water conservation and regulating the hydrological cycle. The study identifies hydrological services, biodiversity and carbon sequestration as three key ecosystem services provided by the landscape.
3. Working landscapes matter too
The study does not look only at protected forests. It highlights the ecological role of coffee agroforestry, sacred groves, paddy fields and other human-managed landscapes, arguing that conservation needs to consider the landscape as an interconnected whole.
4. The landscape was already changing
The study documents pressures including declining tree density and diversity in coffee plantations, replacement of native shade trees, pressures on natural forests and sacred groves, and the conversion or abandonment of paddy lands. It warns that these changes could affect biodiversity, carbon storage and water services.
5. Paddy fields may have a role beyond food production
The study draws attention to paddy landscapes as seasonal water-holding systems and considers their potential contribution to groundwater recharge and the hydrological cycle. Their decline therefore raises questions about impacts that extend beyond the loss of agricultural land.
6. What happens upstream can matter downstream
A central argument of the study is that changes in Kodagu’s forests, coffee landscapes and paddy lands could affect groundwater recharge and flows into the Cauvery, with consequences for downstream water users.
