The Periyar - Srivilliputtur and Agasthyamalai hills in the southern Western Ghats have some seemingly vast unbroken forest stretches in the entire Western Ghats. These hill ranges are contiguous except for a small break at the Shencottah gap. Not surprisingly, because of the extent of forests, these hills contain a veritable biological diversity with several endemic species of flora and fauna. Considerable forest stretches exist outside the current network of Protected Areas in this landscape.

Application of spatial data for conservation planning requires both its availability as well as capacities to utilise it. The investments being made by the Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund (USA) in the Western Ghats portal will partly address the first part of this problem. This project intended to address the lack of capacities in conservation groups by conducting a minimum of four 5-day workshops on open-source GIS, remote sensing and spatial statistics. Twenty persons are expected to be trained in each of the workshops.