About us
Melkkadu is a conservation project of Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary, named in honour of an ancient forest, a true melkkadu. Melkkadu, the upper forest, is not only the tall trees but everything that lives in their canopy and beneath.
For over forty years, we have acquired denuded lands, secured them, and left them alone, so that the rainforest could expand. Because the land came to us in pieces over these decades, we can now observe every stage of recovery side by side. Living beside an old forest has taught us how a forest expands, and how that expansion can be tended.
More than 400 species, from mosses to trees, grow here. Our longest focus has been the shade-dependent plants that live in and beneath the canopy, such as orchids, impatiens, mosses and ferns. We also raise endangered plants in our nurseries and out-planted habitats, a conservation garden in service of the plants, and of the forest too.
In 2023, a three-year conservation grant from The Habitats Trust helped us bring this work together, an effort that culminates in this website in 2026.
Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary
Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary (GBS) lies in the hills of North Wayanad, in the Western Ghats of Kerala. The land was once degraded ridges and valleys, except for a small area that was still forested and connected to a larger protected area.
Wolfgang Theuerkauf came to live here in 1971, and within a decade, seeing native species vanish from the region, he began protecting them, and soon after brought more land under his stewardship. He was neither a botanist nor an ecologist. Over the years, this work grew into ex-situ conservation, rewilding of habitats, and community-centred ecological interventions. Wolfgang died in 2014.
Today the land holds young, maturing and old rainforest, grasslands, wetlands and riparian habitats. A small group of gardeners, educators, and naturalists is collectively responsible for the place. GBS, or the Sanctuary, has become an informal centre for botanical studies, horticulture, conservation, and nature immersion for children, youth, and adults.
GBS calls its practice rainforest gardening: the patient work of tending a forest back into being.
This project also honours the following humans, no longer with us: Wolfgang of Gurukula, Karthamma of Aynickal Paniyas, and Sherly Joseph and K. J. Baby of Nadavayal, for showing us the many ways of seeing and being in this land called Wayanad.