Sand mining, brick kilns threaten India’s first sanctuary for slender loris in Tamil Nadu

Walking along a pebble-strewn footpath to the Valayarumbu Aruvi waterfall in Tamil Nadu, we see two earth movers in an open field, standing ominously close to the forest. The green hills are marred by the rumble of mining and quarrying.

As we neared the waterfall, the sparse vegetation gave way to Acacia, Anogeissus, and Euphorbia tree species in degraded forest patches. The landscape alternated between farmland and scrub forest, while the higher ranges were blanketed with lush, green semi-deciduous and deciduous forests.

“Come to see thevangu (slender loris in Tamil)?” asked a woman we met on the path, where she was living in a lone shack. “They emerge only at dusk. Their whistling songs announce their presence.” She mentioned varieties of lorises, including “Ramar thevangu”, named for its forehead marking resembling that of the Hindu deity Rama. However, she noted that the loris sightings were dwindling of late.

We are within a 1 km-1.2 km radius of the Kadavur Slender Loris Sanctuary, India’s first sanctuary for the grey slender loris. Established in October 2022, the sanctuary spans 11,806 sq km across the state’s Karur and Dindigul districts and lies at the confluence of the Western and Eastern Ghats. In recent times, illegal red sand mining and brick-making…

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