Are mountains alive, like how trees and animals are? If they are, can they sense the destruction of the planet that is happening now, and help guide us? In this book, Godwin Vasanth Bosco presents ground-breaking evidence of these capacities existing in a remarkable mountainous landscape in India, called the Nilgiris. Based on nine years of in-depth research, Voice of a Sentient Highland captures the colossal story of the Nilgiris. Underlying geological processes are found working in volition, along with a myriad of plant ecological dynamics, to depict crucial patterns for the whole world. The story and explication of the stark patterns are woven together with images and illustrations into a rich visual narrative. The evidence presented is scientific, yet simple, and thus widely comprehensible. Vasanth finds that the voice of the mountain goes deeper than much of the current efforts for environmental and social change. Claiming that many of the `solutions' are inadequate and exacerbate decline, he translates this voice into five guides and solutions that are crucial for our collective future.

Our minds have a secret passage into this life unlived. It’s beautiful how we design an entire universe with such little experience where consequences are just moments. Here, memories drawn from our fantasies come true. We are the people whom we have always wanted to be; the relationships that don’t exist there, exist here. At the confluence of everyone’s paradigms is where reality begins, and we accept it. The longing to live is surreal. Art helps you get there quickly. The photographs arrayed in this book are windows to the soul of the writing, and they will only make sense when placed together. I invite you to come along with me on this journey, a journey where I will pull you back through the crevices of my wall to show you how I broke it, we will walk with our fingers entwined into a world and feel what time could not heal. With your permission, let me make you feel some love, some passion and some hurt today. You were created to feel all of that too.

The present book has been designed to bind prime knowledge of climate change-induced impacts on various aspects of our environment and its biological diversity. The book also contains updated information, methods and tools for the monitoring and conservation of impacted biological diversity.