Silent Valley National Park
From Open Encyclopedia
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Silent Valley National Park is a National Park in Palakkad district, Kerala, India. It is located in the Kundali Hills of the Western Ghats. It is locally known as 'Sairandhrivanam'. The park is called Silent Valley because of a perceived absence of noisy cicadas. It is a relatively small national park with an area of 89 km².
The park is one of the last representative tracts of tropical evergreen forest in India which has survived the influence of man. The park is very important to biologists and other researchers due to its rich biodiversity. New plant and animal species are being discovered here every year. Rare bird species found here include Ceylon Frogmouth, Great Indian Hornbill, and the Nilgiri Laughingthrush. The elusive and rare Lion-tailed Macaque is also found here. The mean annual rainfall is over 3000 mm.
The park became the focal point of India's s fiercest environmental debate in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the Kerala State Electricity Board decided to build a dam across the river Kunthi which runs through the valley. Since then a long-term conservation effort has been undertaken to preserve the Silent Valley ecosystem.
Trekking in the park requires special permits from the Kerala State Forest department.The nearest town is Mannarkkad.
