The road winds through a disfigured landscape of tea plantations. It skims the contours over the open reservoir with its sloping banks of naked red earth. It passes the checkpost with the inevitable tea stall, and only then does it plunge down. Down towards the rainforest, our destination for the evening. The Nilgiri langurs, on the tree near the tea stall, watch us go.

There is a hint of rain in the air. And the clouds hang dark over the landscape.

The fallen trees by the road.

We come upon the fallen trees a short while later.
…

Read this essay in The Wild Heart of India: Nature and Conservation in the City, the Country, and the Wild.

This post first appeared in the NCF blog, EcoLogic, on 4 May 2009.