20
of, and interactions with, one highly signifi cant natural resource that the forest pro-
vides: honeybees and their honey. The Solega recognise four major groupings of
honeybee, corresponding to four biological species. Even though they have never
been beekeepers , their knowledge of bee biology rivals that of societies that have
engaged in beekeeping for centuries. This last chapter also draws from debates in
biological evolution to ask whether it makes sense to talk about languages ‘evolving’
more ‘complex’ structures over time.
1.6 Field Situation
The Solega live in the Biligiri Rangaswamy Hills (henceforth B. R. Hills ) south-east
of Mysore and south-west of Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka state. The B. R.
Hills are a minor branch of a large mountain chain, called the Western Ghats, that
runs along much of the western coastline of peninsular India. The Western Ghats are
recognised as a ‘ Biodiversity Hotspot’^5 by international organisations such as
Conservation International and the World Wide Fund for Nature. I spent a total of
around 11 months at this location, split over three fi eld trips (November 2008 to May
2009; August to November 2010; May to July 2011). The visits were planned to fall
on non-overlapping months of the year, so as to allow me to record the widest range
of biological phenomena occurring in a single annual cycle. During each trip, I was
based at a fi eld station (11.98741 N, 77.14396 E) run by the Bangalore-based non-
profi t conservation organisation Ashoka Trust for Research into Ecology and the
Environment (ATREE). The fi eld station is easily accessible by bus from the nearby
towns of Yelandur (40 min) and Kollegal (60 min), the district capital Chamrajnagar
(60 min), and the major urban centres Mysore (3.5 h) and Bangalore (5.5 h).
The Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Wildlife Sanctuary (henceforth BRT) was
established at this site in 1972, and is part of a chain of protected areas called the
Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve.^6 This Reserve straddles the confl uence of the Western
Ghats with its mirror-image counterpart, the Eastern Ghats. BRT lies at an elevation
of 750 m to 1800 m above sea level, and covers an area of approximately 540 km^2.
It encompasses a range of vegetation types, including moist evergreen rainforest,
tropical deciduous forest, scrub forest, grassland and shola forest , the latter being
unique to the Western Ghats [ 80 ]. The sanctuary is home to at least 27 species of
mammals, over 100 species of butterfl ies [ 81 ] and around 250 species of birds [ 82 ,
83 ]. In addition, around 800 species of plants have been recorded here [ 84 ].
(^5) Hotspots are areas featuring exceptional concentrations of endemic species and experiencing
exceptional loss of habitat. To qualify as a hotspot, an area must contain at least 0.5 % or 1500 of
the world’s 300,000 plant species as endemics [ 79 ].
(^6) Biosphere Reserves are places offi cially recognised under UNESCO’s Man and Biosphere
Programme. They are defi ned as “places that seek to reconcile conservation of biological and cul-
tural diversity and economic and social development through partnerships between people and
nature”.
1 Introduction