This report provides the foundational evidence required for a future application to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for designating the Mahendragiri – Indigenous agricultural practices of Saura tribes (Bogodo Chasa, Bari Chasa and Bila Chasa)- as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS). The landscape exemplifies the core GIAHS principles through its long-evolved agroecological traditions, rich biodiversity, resilient subsistence systems, and deep-rooted cultural heritage. Located in the Gajapati district of southern Odisha, Mahendragiri rises to 1,501 metres and forms a striking component of the Eastern Ghats. Its dense forests host exceptional biological diversity, including hundreds of medicinal plants and endemic species— attributes that position it as a vital ecological corridor and gene pool of the region. The Mahendragiri Mountains are home to the Saura (Saora) tribes, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) known for their profound ecological ethics, unique agricultural traditions, spiritual worldview, and heritage of living harmoniously with forests and mountains. Their cultural traditions—ranging from ancestral spirit worship, sacred groves, ritual art forms, and community guided decision-making - reflect a sophisticated system of values grounded in reciprocity, ecological balance, and collective identity. Saura healers preserve extensive ethnobotanical knowledge, preparing herbal medicines from different species of medicinal plants. Their cultural landscape, shaped over centuries, represents a living biocultural system where agriculture, culinary traditions, livelihoods, spirituality, and ecological stewardship remain deeply interconnected. Agriculture forms the backbone of Saura subsistence, complemented by rich forestbased livelihoods. They follow unique traditional practices based on crop genetic resources, evolved in this agro-ecology over a long period of time. Their farming system is mountain-adapted, biodiverse, low input, and ecologically sustainable, relying on a mosaic of land use practices. There three different landuse models observed – Bogodo chasa – age old land use system where forests are cleared through burning for cultivating food crops like paddy, pulses, millets, vegetables under shifting cultivation practices; Bari Chasa – rainfed permanent cultivation around homesteads for growing tree crops and food crops like pulses, vegetables, millets etc; Bila Chasa – wet terraced paddy cultivation.