00:00Here in this mountainous region of southern India, known as the Western Ghats,
00:06the monsoons are a time of dark clouds, mist and uninterrupted rainfall.
00:13A short break in the downpour allows forest conservationist Anand Osuri and his collaborator Sohan Shetty to plan their day's work.
00:22If you look around you'll see that the canopy is a little bit open.
00:28When you look around there will be not many large trees, you'll mostly see smaller individuals.
00:35If you look at the forest floor, you'll see that it's covered in grasses, it's covered with not much leaf litter.
00:43You will see invasive plants like Lantana, like Chromalina, which are growing in the understory without too many native species that are growing.
00:51One of India's most biodiverse regions, the Western Ghats, are home to hundreds of endemic tree species that each play an important role in maintaining the delicate ecosystem.
01:02However, increased commercial exploitation of once pristine forest has reduced the number of native tree species and threatens to permanently disrupt the natural flora and fauna.
01:14The hills have seen a steady rise in the lucrative coffee growing industry due to the unique climate they offer.
01:21The cultivation and the expansion of coffee is one of the reasons why lots of forests were lost in the Western Ghats historically over the past couple of centuries.
01:32Since 2023, Anand Osori and his team have been studying the dispersion of native tree varieties and their natural cycle of flowering.
01:43At the Nature Conservation Foundation, their mission is to replenish the region's biodiversity.
01:48If we went into a forest patch and we found seeds of a species that we are interested in and we collected large numbers of seeds from there,
01:59now that can be defined as unethical because by taking out those large numbers of seeds,
02:04we might potentially be reducing the natural regeneration of that species in that location.
02:09Over and above the fact that we are taking away food sources for animals, insects, etc. that depend on those seeds.
02:15A solution to this may be found in coffee agroforestry, a farming method in which coffee plants are grown under the shade of larger trees.
02:24We have divided our entire property into smaller micro-blocks of five acres or less.
02:29So what happens is that every micro-block will then give you a different flavour profile simply because of the trees that are growing there,
02:36the animals that are there, the smaller things, you know, the soil composition changes.
02:41And the minute the soil composition changes, the flavour in the cup itself changes.
02:48At the Harley Estate Coffee Plantation, a wide variety of tall growing native trees are planted among the coffee to protect it from the sun and the rain.
02:57After every seasonal harvest, the workers cleared the forest floor, weeding and pruning ready for the next year's growth.
03:06Normally, everything found on the floor is cleared away.
03:10But the workers here keep an eye out for seeds and saplings that might be of value for conservation purposes.
03:18This is one of the trees, you can see it's a jock fruit, Artocarpus atrophilus.
03:24Also, you can see lots of seeds that have fallen here.
03:29So, you can see lots of seeds are getting damaged as well.
03:35I think it's very important to collect these kind of seeds that are going to get damaged and we'll grow them in our nursery.
03:46Saplings are planted on parts of the coffee estate that have become degraded.
03:51They are numbered and left to grow on their own in the rich soil and fresh rain.
03:56Ensuring that the seeds grow is often a question of proper timing.
04:03We have around 70 to 75 species that we grow in our nursery.
04:12All these rainforest trees has less viability and dormancy.
04:18So, that has to go to the soil as soon as possible.
04:21We can't keep it for a long time.
04:23Sometimes we have a labour shortage or sometimes we don't get the soil in time.
04:27So, we'll have seeds and we don't have a soil to sow.
04:32Agroforest coffee farmer Sohan Shetty takes us to see the forest that has grown on a piece of land that was barren not too long ago.
04:42So, this is a one acre plot at the edge of Narmada estate and last year we removed the coffee from here and we planted about 250 forest saplings.
04:57But what's very interesting is we found close to about 300 native species that have regenerated on their own through bird droppings and other forms of dispersal.
05:09That kind of is like an equal match, so to speak, which kind of doubles the progress.
05:18While the scientists are busy slowly returning the ecology of the region to its former balance, local coffee growers are starting to appreciate the value of sustainable practices that feed into the surrounding forests.
05:35We tell our buyers that the coffee they are buying or they are consuming is contributing or is preserving the habitat for these many species of birds and animals.
05:47I think this will have an impact and they will value it more, they will support us even more.
05:52The collaboration between coffee growers and conservationists could provide a model for the region to ensure that a fresh cup of morning coffee doesn't leave a bitter taste in the places where it grows.
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