Rooted in the ancient cadence of the Nilgiri Biosphere, The Nilgiris Earth Festival (TNEF) returns in 2025 with a replenished commitment towards ecology, community, and cultural effluence. This festival is an annual confluence of people, stories, food, and ecological consciousness bound against the backdrop of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve in Southern India. Organised across Ooty, Coonoor, and Kotagiri, the festival has become one of India’s most compelling eco-cultural gatherings in India. The festival traces its humble beginning in “Nilgiris Wild Food Festival”, and has eventually evolved into a four-day celebration, embracing the multi-faceted relationship between humanity and the earth. TNEF 2025 commits to honour the rich heritage and ecological significance of the “Blue Mountains”.
Celebrating the Blue Mountains
This festival is organized by The Nilgiris Foundation (TNF), a sister concern of the esteemed Keystone Foundation. It provides a democratic platform for discussing urgent, global issues like climate change, food sovereignty, and sustainable agriculture. Much like global earth festivals that centre living landscapes, such as the New Zealand Matariki celebrations or Scotland’s Cairngorms Nature Festival, TNEF stands out for foregrounding indigenous communities of the Nilgiris, particularly the Badaga, Toda, Kurumba, Irula, Kota, and other settler groups who continue to shape the region’s identity. It seeks to highlight and preserve the region’s organically grown native foods, traditional knowledge systems, and culturally rich heritage.
The Experience of TNEF 2025
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The festival is scheduled to run from December 18 to 21, 2025, and is fastidiously curated to cater to a wide range of learning and culinary delights as well. The event trespasses the traditional tourism, offering participants a way to explore the region’s vigour and richness while acknowledging its biospherical fragility and the sensitivities of the indigenous communities. It transforms the Nilgiris into a living archive where people do not interact with nature alone, but also reap a bigger intellectual prize. The whole event focuses on projecting how food, flora, and folklore intertwine.
Event Details
| Important Points | Description |
|---|---|
| Dates | December 18th – 21st, 2025 (4th Edition) |
| Locations | Across Ooty, Coonoor, and Kotagiri, Nilgiris |
| Core Themes | Food, Culture, and Ecology |
| Organizers | The Nilgiris Foundation (TNF), in association with The Keystone Foundation |
| Central Event | The Habba 2025 at Keystone Foundation, Kotagiri (Free Entry) |
| Organising Ethos | Ecological mindfulness, community-led knowledge, sustainable practices |
| Booking Detail | Registration is mandatory for free events. Register here |
The Discourse of The Festival
Day 1 of the event includes a native horizons walk led by restoration ecologist Vasanth Bosco. In this segment, participants will explore endemic species and conservation practices shaping the Nilgiri ecology. On Day 2, Shruti Tharayil & Devi Lakshmikutty will guide a hands-on foraging and seed heritage session. This will be complemented by a sensory workshop by Afshan Mariam exploring food as a vessel of memory and migration. Day 3 schedules a session with Archaeologist Dr. Suresh Sethuraman, who will decode Ooty’s archaeological landscape through guided walks. Simultaneously, there will be a day-long celebration of settler cuisines, artisanal stalls, and regional storytelling. Day 4, the epilogue, will house the heart of TNEF, The Habba, a vibrant indigenous convergence with food, craft, music, and dialogue featuring more than 15 communities from the Nilgiri Biosphere. This will include screenings, keynote addresses, and interactive discussions with leaders like Supriya Sahu IAS and Kalyan Varma. This will be complemented by a poetic, haiku-led walk with writer Shobhana Kumar.
This year also promises a special Chef’s Table event in collaboration with a celebrated restaurant, bringing high-end culinary artistry into dialogue with local Nilgiris ingredients. Furthermore, the screening of the documentary “Wild Tamil Nadu” followed by a conservation discussion adds a compelling visual and political dimension to the ecological thread.
Key Highlights
- A rare confluence of food heritage, ecological science, and indigenous leadership
- Conversations led by practitioners deeply rooted in the Nilgiris
- Focus on endemic biodiversity and sustainable land practices
- Immersive sensory experiences tied to memory, migration, and belonging
- Workshops bridging Bengal and Nilgiri culinary histories
- Revival of heirloom grains and foraged foods
- The Habba, one of India’s most important indigenous gatherings
- Hands-on artistic, archaeological, and ecological explorations
- A commitment to community-led, slow, mindful cultural tourism
Why The Nilgiris Earth Festival Matters — An Opinion
TNEF is a counter-narrative to extractive tourism and a template for how cultural events can centre ecology and community without diluting either. By making local knowledge, indigenous communities, and regenerative practices the stars of the show, rather than mere footnotes, TNEF successfully elevates the conservation discourse from an academic concept to a tangible, delicious, and deeply personal experience. In a time when hill stations across India are grappling with climate stress — from water shortages to biodiversity loss TNEF’s model of learning through “indigenous-first” conversations is highly necessary.
The festival is genuine, holistic, and is laid down on a nexus of interconnected approaches. The food that will be served, the tea people will sip, and the trails that will be trodden are all brilliantly linked to the ecological hotspots. It preaches that preserving our environment is not a sacrifice, but a celebration. What makes the festival truly exceptional is its refusal to treat indigenous knowledge as nostalgia. Instead, it foregrounds living traditions, insisting that the future of the Nilgiris must be co-authored with the people who have stewarded these landscapes for centuries.
While the early bird discount has a limited window, the value of connecting so deeply with this unique ecosystem and its people is priceless. As more visitors seek meaningful, slow cultural experiences, the Nilgiris Earth Festival stands as proof that the most powerful way forward is also the most ancient: listen to the land, and listen to those who know it best.
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