The Shola grasslands are tropical montane forests found in the high altitudes of Western Ghats separated by rolling grasslands. These unique ecosystems act as the home for many of the floral and faunal endemic species and also serve as the water reservoir for the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. The grassland let the rainwater to flow through the sholas into the stream and provide water to the region throughout the year. The region once covered with tropical montane forest and grassland was transformed into a land of plantation over the centuries. As the grasslands are easy to clear off, tea estates, coffee estates and timber plantations were established by the British and later by the Indian forest department to satisfy the various need of the growing economy. Majority of this region are being replaced by the invasive tree species and agricultural plantations. This led to the loss of major proportion of the shola forest and grassland. Many developmental works have been carried out in the region and these developmental activities results in the gradual disappearance of the ecosystem. These ecosystem need to be conserved and hence, identifying the knowledge gap and application of current state of knowledge is necessary.

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Tribal communities have deep connection to environment because they have a greater dependency on natural resources. When the natural environment is altered, it disproportionately affects the tribal life. Overburdened with the environmental issues, they have problem of change in culture and further facing lot of health hazards. Hence, the present study was taken up to document the cultural changes occurring due to the changes in natural environment and to identify the probable causes of factors responsible for each issue. For documentation of the issues, the Nilgiri district of Tamil Nadu was selected considering the highest proportion of tribal population in the district. Ex-post facto research design was used. Totally there were seven major cultural changes have been identified viz., changes in the regular food habits, changes in the health management practices, changes in the dressing pattern, remarkable changes in the celebration of family festivals and ceremonies, changes in the housing pattern, disappearance of traditional utensils and changes in the water use tradition.  For the above identified cultural changes, probable responsible factors were also identified and ranked by employing Garrett ranking method.