This week’s environment and conservation news stories rolled into one.
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Hunted & traded for body parts, Bengal slow loris needs a conservation strategy
Researchers recommend community awareness drives comprising schoolchildren in villages surrounding protected areas and more scientific studies.
Captivating carnivores: Saving India’s only pitcher plant
Found mainly in the state of Meghalaya, India’s only pitcher plant species Nepenthes khasiana is endangered, facing threats from mining, shifting cultivation, and excessive collection.
Silent Valley to soon get a conservation ring around it
The Kerala government has decided to declare the buffer zone of Silent Valley as a wildlife sanctuary to augment conservation efforts.
Sub-surface boreholes offer clues to past warming in the Western Ghats
The Western Ghats has experienced an increase in temperature of about 0.8 degrees Celsius in the past 100 years due to climate change.
States propose minimal eco-sensitive zones around protected areas
States are proposing that eco-sensitive zones around protected areas should be of zero-extent, claiming that the ESZs will hamper infrastructure development.
[Commentary] Why the plane could, yet the country can’t, run on biofuel?
Given the production capacity of biomass, the available technology and the incentives and investment might not be able to push forward the biofuel as part of the policy targets.
Is India’s first round-the-clock renewable energy contract really what it claims to be?
The government has amended the terms multiple times such that in the final form, all the conditions that required round-the-clock supply have been deleted or diluted.
Low fish catch along India’s western coast hints at impacts of climate change
The marine algae that is the base of aquatic food web has been disappearing in the western Indian Ocean owing to rising sea temperatures.
Conserve large intact & small degraded habitats to maintain biodiversity
Only 18.6 percent of global high-value habitat that supports biodiversity is protected; both intact wild areas and degraded, human-modified landscapes are crucial to maintaining biodiversity.
Plastic waste from post Amphan relief material could add to pollution in Sundarbans
Officials claim that much of the plastic pollution is caused by irresponsible discarding of waste in Kolkata, which flows to the Sundarbans.