The Western Ghats, also known as the Sahyadri mountains, are a mountain range and a globally recognized UNESCO World Heritage Site. Geologically older than the Himalayas, the range is the faulted and eroded edge of the Deccan Plateau, formed during the break-up of the supercontinent Gondwana around 150 million years ago. Stretching approximately 1,600 km from the Tapti River valley to Kanyakumari, the Ghats traverse six states: Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu.
The range's primary function is its role in the Indian monsoon system, where it intercepts southwest monsoon winds to cause heavy orographic rainfall on the western slopes, making it the principal watershed of peninsular India. It is one of the world's eight "hottest hotspots" of biological diversity, home to exceptional levels of endemism.
The conservation of this region is connected to two major policy reports: the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), headed by Dr. Madhav Gadgil (formed in 2010), and the High-Level Working Group (HLWG), headed by Dr. K. Kasturirangan (formed in August 2012). Both committees were tasked with demarcating the region as an Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. The Gadgil report, which proposed declaring the entire range as an ESA, was largely rejected by the states. The subsequent Kasturirangan report proposed a less restrictive approach, recommending that only 37% of the area be classified as an ESA, with a complete ban on mining and quarrying in those zones. The most significant recent change was the inscription of 39 serial sites within the Western Ghats as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012.