This new website integrates knowledge about India’s tree wealth into one platform

Dr Sankara Rao is clearly obsessed with the arboreal world. His narrow desk at the Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), is covered with botanical texts, including Pradip Krishen’s Jungle Trees of Central India and Trees of Delhi,Endemic Vascular Plants of India published by the Botanical Survey of India and his own two-volume field guide, Trees of Bangalore.

“Trees are my natural abode,” laughs Rao, dapper in a tweed jacket, recalling how, as a child, he would often spend his time amidst canopies, nestled between leafy branches. Not only are trees “nature’s exceptional creations”, but they also support immense biodiversity, explains the Visiting Professor and Distinguished Fellow at CES. “They shelter 80% of terrestrial biodiversity. On a tree, there are birds, butterflies, insects, lichens, mosses, and small mammals,” he says. And yes, trees also protect understory vegetation, giving shrubs and herbs a chance of survival, he says.

While being amid trees gives him an incomparable high, he is also deeply disturbed these days ― not just by the stupendous loss of green cover in the country, but also by the “afforestation” practices currently being pursued by policymakers.

“Tree planting schemes have lately become carbon-centric, particularly single-species plantations, which are further threatening tropical biodiversity,” he says, pointing out that although there is a large pool of native arboreal species available, only a few indigenous species are commonly used for planting.

Mass planting of a single tree species, such as nutmeg, clove, eucalyptus, conocarpus or areca nut, is not afforestation as it threatens biodiversity. “Afforestation is needed, but it has to be on strictly scientific grounds. As somebody once put it, all woods are not forests,” he says.

In Rao’s opinion, a better understanding of tree species, particularly native ones, should be the foundation of afforestation initiatives. “Where we plant a particular species matters. Planting has to be done where a given species once grew,” he says.

His knowledge of the subject and his concerns about the kind of afforestation being practised in India have motivated him and his team to develop India Trees and Vegetation Types, a brand-new digital resource that attempts to “integrate knowledge about the tree wealth of the country into one digital platform,” says Rao.

He hopes that the website, which provides scientific and vernacular names, herbarium specimen scans and field photographs, morphological descriptions, and information on the habitat, geographical distribution, and threat status of the species, will not only provide information about trees to anyone interested but also help with “practical reforestation and restoration blueprint so that planting is done on a scientific basis…with hope of rebuilding our native forest.”

While the website, which has captured details of around 4,380 tree species, was formally released on June 20 this year, the groundwork for it stretches back to almost two decades. Though Rao had always been interested in plants, he was a scientist at the Biochemistry Department at IISc. Four years after he retired from the department, he joined CES in 2006, rather serendipitously. “One day, I was just passing by the CES department when I ran into Raman Sukumar, then its Chair,” he recalls. Sukumar, he says, invited him to join CES and put him in charge of the department’s herbarium. “He told me to do what I liked with it.”

Realising that simply having a collection of dry specimens in the herbarium was of little use to people who are not botanists, he decided to hop on the digital bandwagon. “The idea to make a virtual herbarium came to my mind,” says Rao, who is also behind the online databases Digital Flora of Karnataka, Digital Flora of Eastern Ghats, Flora of Peninsular India, and India Flora Online.

He clarifies that he did not rely solely on the herbarium to create these databases; he also revisited and explored many of the places where these plants had been found, as recorded in the herbarium. “I referred to books and literature to better understand the vegetation types that we had and have been having for some time. It is understanding the past history that will tell us what to do in the present.”

Rao, not surprisingly, takes pride in his team’s remarkable achievement. This is the first time something like this has been done in over 120 years, he says, pulling out a copy of German-British botanist Dietrich Brandis’ Indian Trees, published in 1906, which attempted something similar.

“This is the only treatise that comprehensively brought all the trees together, at the time of the British. So much has changed since then, and the change has been drastic,” believes Rao, adding that having this information in the digital realm rather than a book simply makes it more accessible. After all, “today, who looks at a book?” he remarks wryly.

To know more, log in to indiatrees-ces.iisc.ac.in