Blanchflower Consultants Botany · Landscape · Restoration Get in touch
Aerial view of a restored quarry landscape: native forest and garden beds beside a water-filled pit, with farmland beyond
Pandalgudi mines, 5 years after the restoration began

Ecological consultancy · Tropical & subtropical landscapes

Landscapes built from the native flora that belongs there.

Ecological landscape design, biodiversity assessment and training, and botanical consultancy for tropical and subtropical landscapes worldwide, grounded in more than thirty years of restoration work in South India.

What we do Selected projects
30+years of ecological restoration work
30+large-scale ecological landscape projects designed and implemented
1,000,000+native trees and shrubs raised and planted in restoration projects
180trees and shrubs described in the recently published book Trees of South India

Services

Three strands of work that feed each other. Knowing what grows where, and why, is the basis for landscapes that look after themselves once the contractors have gone, and for judging whether a restoration project is really working.

01 · Design & restore

Landscape design

Ecological landscapes for settings ranging from mine rehabilitation to high-end hotels and resorts, planted with species that belong to the place.

  • Resort & hospitality landscapesPlanting design, site lighting plans and coordination with architects and MEP consultants.
  • Eco-restorationRehabilitation of quarries, mines and degraded land back to native forest.
  • Environmental planningGreen infrastructure and planting strategy at town and district scale.
  • Corporate & CSR programmesDesigning and running restoration projects for companies and their CSR work.

02 · Assess & train

Environmental consultancy & TGBS

Ecological assessment and capacity building for organisations facing biodiversity and sustainability requirements.

  • TGBS site assessmentsIndependent assessment of restoration and tree-planting projects against the Standard's criteria.
  • Upskilling consultancy firmsBuilding in-house capability for consultancies and corporate teams in biodiversity uplift, baseline assessment and monitoring, biodiversity offsets and carbon accounting.
  • Ecological assessmentsBaseline biodiversity surveys and monitoring for restoration and development sites.

03 · Survey & identify

Tree & botanical consultancy

Field surveys and species assessments for governments, companies and conservation bodies, from a single site to a whole region.

  • Tree-species assessmentsWhich native trees suit a region, a soil and a purpose, as in the Trees for Tamil Nadu assessment.
  • Vegetation surveysIn-situ survey of specific taxa, plot design and plant identification.
  • Rare species conservationLocating, propagating and reintroducing rare, endangered and threatened (RET) species.

Selected projects

Recent and ongoing work in India and internationally, from resort landscapes to state-wide restoration planning.

  1. Landscape design

    Ayatana Resorts

    Landscape and site lighting for a portfolio of high-end resorts, starting with Chikmagalur, Karnataka, where cottages sit among retained forest trees.

    Resort sitesOngoing

    Visit website
  2. Environmental consultancy

    Mapping Mines in Tamil Nadu

    A state-wide assessment of mine sites and their restoration potential, combining geospatial mapping and field evaluation to set priorities for biodiversity, water security, agroforestry, recreation and solar energy. Supported by the Tamil Nadu State Land Use Research Board.

    Statewide2025

    Read report
  3. Eco-restoration

    Pandalgudi mine rehabilitation

    Restoring worked-out limestone mines in Tamil Nadu to native vegetation, with water held in the old pits.

    800 acresSince 2019

    Watch video
  4. Botanical consultancy

    Drypetes porteri conservation

    Finding, propagating and replanting a critically endangered tree known from only two hill sites in South India, with fewer than 500 mature trees left. Supported by Botanic Gardens Conservation International.

    RET speciesSince 2019

    Watch video
  5. Environmental planning

    Rajapalayam town planning

    Environmental planning for Rajapalayam and its surroundings, at the foot of the Western Ghats in Tamil Nadu.

    215 km²Since 2021

    Visit website
  6. Environmental consultancy

    The Global Biodiversity Standard

    Assessment, training and mentoring under the Standard coordinated by BGCI, with courses delivered in Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, the Philippines and France.

    InternationalSince 2024

    Visit website
  7. Landscape design

    Ashok Leyland Nature Park

    Flat land at the Ashok Leyland Technical Centre in Chennai that flooded and dried out each year, reshaped into a wetland forest that holds water all year and offers a range of habitats.

    26 acresChennai

    Watch video

About Paul Blanchflower

Ecologist and forester, founder of Auroville Botanical Gardens.

Portrait of Paul Blanchflower in a cap and denim shirt, with forest foliage behind

Paul came to Auroville after university expecting to stay two or three years. He has spent more than thirty years there, working with one of the longest-running reforestation projects in India.

In 2000 he began building Auroville Botanical Gardens on 50 acres of bare land, as a garden dedicated to conserving the Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest. It grew into a team of more than 60 people, a native plant nursery and an environmental education programme reaching around 100 local government schools.

Alongside the gardens he built up a consultancy promoting ecological landscapes, working with government bodies, industry partners such as the Ramco Group, Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland and the TVS Group, and high-end hotels and resorts such as Ayatana, Hyatt and Mahindra Resorts. Blanchflower Consultants carries that experience forward to tropical and subtropical landscapes worldwide, including assessment and training under The Global Biodiversity Standard.

His survey work has fed into public references on the region's flora, including auroville-tdef.info and Plantekey.

Copies of Trees of South India lying on grass, showing the green forest cover

The book

Trees of South India

Native trees and shrubs of the South Indian plains and hillocks

A tree identification book from Auroville Botanical Gardens, describing 180 native trees and shrubs and distilled from some twenty years of botanical survey, collection and propagation work. Each species entry gives its common and local names, photographs of leaf, flower and fruit, and notes on habitat, landscape use, propagation and traditional uses. Written for foresters, landscape designers, students and anyone who wants to plant the right tree in the right place.

Ask about copies
An open spread of the book showing entries for Manilkara hexandra and Mimusops elengi
Species pages for Manilkara hexandra and Mimusops elengi, both Sapotaceae.

Start a conversation

Tell us about the site, the brief and the timeline. We work across tropical and subtropical landscapes around the world.

Email

paulblanchflower66@gmail.com

Working base
Auroville, Tamil Nadu, India
Registered office
Oakmoore Court, Kingswood Road, Hampton Lovett, Droitwich, Worcestershire WR9 0QH, UK