This week’s environment and conservation news stories rolled into one.
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With floods and COVID-19, Assam faces a dual threat
As the state stands on the brink of monsoons, people fear the double onslaught of more severe floods and COVID-19, as the number of positive cases show an upward swing with eased travel restrictions.
Cyclones on Indian coasts are a reminder to put climate agenda ahead
The extreme weather events that have come to Maharashtra and West Bengal highlight the urgency for climate adaptation and resilience in India’s coastal cities.
Climate change favours locust swarms, India increasingly at risk
The warming of the Indian Ocean due to climate change is cited as the main reason for the proliferation of locusts that are now ranging from the horn of Africa to the Arabian Peninsula to the Indian subcontinent.
[Explainer] Locust swarms in India
Alongside a global pandemic, India prepares to fight a new threat to national food security, which is millimeters in size but millions in number: the desert locust.
Leverage improved forecast to deal with disasters
India’s improved and timely forecast for cyclones gives the government opportunity and time to prepare. Better linkages between sectoral ministries and NDMAs are needed.
No increase in forestry budgets of states due to ecological fiscal transfers, says study
Though Indian states budgeted 19 percent more money for forestry in three years after the introduction of ecological fiscal transfers, the share of the states’ budgets allocated for forestry was 16 percent less than before, finds a study.
Kashmir’s retreating glaciers could also be influenced by local land use change
The change in the climate system over Kashmir is driven by global factors and larger atmospheric circulations while the local climate, driven by the local land use changes, also has some influence.
Reared by their father, tiger sisters take forward conservation in Sariska
In a rare case, close to a decade ago, a male tiger in Ranthambore, the father of two tiger cubs, took the responsibility of nurturing the cubs after their mother died.
India can build back better from COVID-19
The World Environment Day 2020 celebrations amid the COVID-19 pandemic is a reminder to the world under recovery, to avoid unsustainable exploitation of nature, writes Atul Bagai, head of UNEP India Office, in this commentary.
Rethinking land for the 21st century
Land is intertwined with the human trajectory and powers of access to land come from social, political or other kinds of dominance, writes Nikita Sud in this commentary.