Scientists are undivided on the need to conserve natural habitats to maintain biodiversity, but divided on which ones to prioritise: intact wild habitats, or fragmented, degraded lands that are becoming…
To anyone else, the dried herb pressed neatly into crisp white paper would have been just another herbarium specimen. But for scientists at the Indian Institute for Science Education and…
It was October 2013. Armed with special permission, researcher Dinal Samarasinghe was peering at preserved animal specimens at Kolkata's Zoological Survey of India. While the ZSI is a repository of…
Leopards are what ecologists call 'generalists'. These big cats can thrive in a wide range of habitats – from lush, undisturbed evergreen forests to sugarcane fields and other human-dominated landscapes…
Wild tigers are hard to study. That's why India's tiger census uses camera traps to take photographs of tigers as they walk unsuspectingly by; geneticists pick up tiger poop or…
The sun beat down mercilessly. Being in the vicinity of south India's highest peak, in one of the coldest months – December – made no difference. After a tiring morning…
India became a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 1994. The CBD is a multilateral treaty aimed at conserving biodiversity, its sustainable use and ensuring “fair and…
“Our book is a treasure of wild places, and words.” That is how Prerna Singh Bindra, one of the three editors of Wild Treasures: Reflections on Natural World Heritage Sites…
Five trillion US dollars. That's how much the overall international trade in medicinal plants and their products alone is expected to amount to by the year 2050. Estimates, as far…
The tiny village of Doddamargonahalli in south Karnataka's Tumkur district, less than a three-hour drive from the state capital of Bengaluru, is a predominantly agricultural landscape. On August 31, 2014,…
