Keystone Foundation

Keystone Foundation is a not-for profit organisation that was established in 1993. At the early stages, the organisation focused on poverty alleviation by supporting and promoting traditional livelihoods with indigenous communities of the Nilgiris. Nurturing traditional honey hunting practices of the Kurumbas and the Irulas were initially the focus of Keystone’s projects. Gradually, this led to other avenues of work, such as  apiculture for pollination and income generation through the production of honey, water conservation and retention, appropriate technology for rural development, social enterprise models through value addition of NTFPs, biodiversity management through restoration, land rights for indigenous communities, fostering traditional agriculture and other livelihood practices, etc.

Although our primary work only involved indigenous communities, for more than a decade now, Keystone has also been working with marginalized communities in urban parts of the Nilgiris and the Coimbatore District. Over 27 years, our programmes have been developed in a manner that focuses on all spheres of achieving well-being for all – the environment, the communities, and the flora & fauna.

Keystone Foundation is based in Kotagiri, Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu. Our work spans across the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve (NBR) with a particular focus on the Western Ghats region. Currently, Keystone carries out its work in 135 villages (Rural & Urban) across the NBR and Coimbatore District.

The NBR is a declared UNESCO World Heritage site that is home to numerous endemic flora & fauna. It includes a host of forest ecosystems. These range from seasonal rain forests in the lower hills, tropical montane forests, and grasslands in the higher reaches and moist deciduous forests, scrublands and dry-deciduous towards the plains.

The Nilgris Biosphere Reserve is home to six Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG): the Toda, the  Kurumba, the Irula, the Kota, the Paniya and the Kattunaicken peoples. The urban parts of the Nilgiris are home to other communities, including Sri Lankan repatriates, who are predominantly engaged in the informal work sector.

The goal is to work on issues of Natural Resources and Rural Development, with Indigenous People in mountainous and adjoining regions. The issues addressed are the challenges of conservation, livelihoods and enterprise development, through appropriate  knowledge action, technologies, socio-economic innovations and institutions.

The Western Ghats are one of the top biodiversity hotspots in the world. Like elsewhere, the plenteous resources available are attracting forces of unsustainable development that have led to rapid urbanisation, degradation of land and forest systems, displacement of indigenous communities, increased pressure on natural resources to service millions of tourists, improper solid waste management and so on.

Ultimately, the consequences of these unsustainable practices are an erosion of century-old indigenous cultures, their traditions and forests and loss of biodiversity through disruption of natural systems. These land-use changes will have adverse effects on the poorer communities, making them more vulnerable to natural disasters and lead to a depletion of important ecosystems which directly provide water, food and energy  to 120 million people.

See www.keystone-foundation.org, www.lastforest.in and contact at communications@keystone-foundation.org