Forest Ecology & Biodiversity Conservation Division

Forest Ecology & Biodiversity Conservation

Departments of Forest Ecology, Botany, Wildlife and Non-wood Forest Products constitute the Division. The thrust areas of research of the Division are ecosystem and landscape analysis, rehabilitation and restoration, population ecology, biodiversity evaluation and conservation of fragile ecosystems, traditional knowledge system analysis and biodiversity-informatics. Inventorisation of biodiversity of different forest types and protected areas, evaluation of below-ground biodiversity, taxonomic studies and conservation of RET species of flora have been some areas of research in the Division.

Besides, the Wildlife Department deals with inventorisation of fauna, endangered animals, man-wildlife interaction and wildlife census. Nursery and plantation technology of selected indigenous timber species, phytochemical analysis of medicinal plants, ethno-biological studies and cultivation of medicinal plants and other NWFPs such as bamboos and rattans, are other activities of the Division.

Departments

Forest Ecology

The Department of Forest Ecology at KFRI focuses on developing strategies for in situ and ex situ conservation of rare, endangered, and threatened (RET) species, monitoring climate change impacts. Also work on restoring endemic endangered trees in Kerala's Western Ghats due to biological issues and resource overexploitation.

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Forest Botany

The Forest Botany department dedicated to studying the taxonomic identity, nomenclature, classification, species diversity, and distribution of plants in the forests in Kerala. Department maintains a herbarium covering Kerala's flora, which has collected over 10,000 plant specimens and a live collection of important medicinal plants.

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Non-Timber Forest Produces

The NTFP department studies ethnobotany, sustainable extraction, Phyto-chemical analysis, and systematic studies on NTFPs. Ethnobotany converges with related subjects like ethnomedicine and ethnopharmacology. Department maintaining a reference collection of authentic raw drugs for ex situ information generation.

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Wildlife Biology

The Wildlife Biology Department of KFRI monitors wildlife populations of forests in Kerala, records their distribution, studies species ecology, manages habitats, manages human-wildlife interactions in protected areas and in order to safeguard sustainable relationships between wildlife and other human interests.

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