Consider this sentence: Many urban areas have depauperate flora and fauna due to anthropogenic disturbances. If we replace the words 'depauperate' with 'very few species', 'flora' with 'plants', 'fauna' with…
In conservation practice, how are protected areas identified and delineated? The first step in this is to be able to describe a protected area. According to the International Union for…
When members of two species have a relationship that is beneficial to both, the interaction is called mutualism. The term was first used by zoologist and paleontologist Pierre Joseph van…
At noon, on a hot March day, in the flat semi-arid plains of Kachchh, a lone figure stood on a slight rise, fiddling with the controller of a drone that…
Greenwashing refers to "the practice of making products, activities, or policies seem more environmentally friendly or less environmentally damaging than they actually are," according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, one of…
Biodiversity finance is the practice of raising capital and managing funds for biodiversity conservation. It comes under the umbrella topic of conservation finance, which aims to financially support the conservation…
Floods occur when water overflows from water bodies – seas, oceans, ponds, lakes, canals, or rivers – and submerges land which is usually dry. Floods, especially in India, are some…
Fossil fuels kickstarted the industrial age for humanity. However, humans now face the possibility of running out of these fuels by the end of this century. So, where do industries that…
As the world is struggling to combat climate change, one idea – planting trees – seems to be taking hold as a panacea for curing the ills of pollution, soaring…
Forest fires, also called wildfires and bush or vegetation fires, are described as uncontrolled, often widespread burning of plants in forests, grasslands, brushland, and tundra. These fires can be of…
A study published last month in The Journal for Nature Conservation reported the presence of plastic and other human-made materials in elephant dung in the forests of Uttarakhand. The study…
Carbon sinks are places and/or products that sequester and store carbon as organic or inorganic compounds for different periods of time. Essentially, anything that absorbs more carbon than it emits…
Wildlife trafficking, which is the illegal trade of wild animals and plants, either as dead or live specimens, or their parts, has a huge negative effect on the world’s environments,…
Every year, around the first week of June, a vast expanse of roiling grey clouds advances from the Arabian sea and makes landfall in Kerala to the tune of rumbling…
In the 1920s, a British economist, Arthur Pigou, highlighted the social benefits of making industries pay for the costs of the pollution they caused. In time, this concept was taken…
The Indian summer monsoon is a vast weather event that is crucial to the 1.39 billion people that live in India, as most of the rainfall (70-90%) that the country…
Urban heat islands or UHIs are metropolitan areas that are significantly warmer than the surrounding rural areas. The occurrence of a UHI was recorded as early as 1810 by Luke…
Plastics, which are infinitely useful materials, are ever present in our lives today. A quick look around one’s house, whether in a city or in a village, will confirm this…
Plastics are the Anthropocene era’s ultimate convenience. The more mundane uses of plastics in our lives range from kitchenware, storage containers, and packaging materials to toys and small tools that…
As the COVID-19 pandemic brought sweeping changes to lifestyles, it also altered an important but seldom thought-of aspect of human existence – trash. The pandemic has drastically changed the types and…
