One morning, after a storm had torn through the rainforest, Laly Joseph (56) walked through the sanctuary she has spent her life caring for. Fallen branches and broken trees lay across the forest floor. And there, clinging to a snapped bough, was a native orchid — still alive, still holding on. She carefully removed it, carried it over, and tied it to a standing tree.

Moments like these happen often at the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary, tucked into the Western Ghats in northern Kerala. But they’re rarely seen. There are no ceremonies, no headlines — just quiet work done over decades by the women who have turned this patch of forest into a living refuge for endangered species.

In a world that often treats forests as resources or carbon sinks, this team of local and Indigenous women sees something else entirely — a home worth protecting, plant by plant.

How it all began

In 1981, Wolfgang Theuerkauf, a German conservationist, was given three hectares (seven acres) of old-growth rainforest by a spiritual teacher in Kerala. At the time, the surrounding land was being cleared for plantations — tea, ginger, and lemongrass. He watched the forest disappear and decided to act.

He began collecting rare and endangered native plants from nearby areas and brought them to the sanctuary, hoping to save them from being lost entirely. Over the years, that small act of care grew into a large-scale mission.

Today, the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary spans 32 hectares, housing over 2,000 native plant species — and functioning as a refuge for nearly 40 percent of all plant species found in the Western Ghats.

A team grown from the land

Theuerkauf passed away in 2014, but before that, he mentored a group of 20 women — most of them local, some from Indigenous communities — who now lead the sanctuary’s conservation work.

These women aren’t trained botanists or scientists. They learned everything by working in the forest — by touching, transplanting, watching, and trying again. Their tools are not lab instruments but time, memory, and deep familiarity with their surroundings.

Laly Joseph, who now leads the plant conservation work, joined the........

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