One plot at a time: A strip of land where native grass species were replanted by a restoration practitioner is surrounded by large tea estates in Nilgiris district. — AP
SCATTERED groves of native trees, flowers and the occasional prehistoric burial ground are squeezed between hundreds of thousands of tea shrubs in southern India’s Nilgiris region – a gateway to a time before colonisation and the commercial growing of tea that reshaped the country’s mountain landscapes.
These sacred groves once blanketed the Western Ghats mountains, but nearly 200 years ago, British colonists installed rows upon rows of tea plantations.
