On the bank of the horseshoe-shaped Safrai river in the Chala village of Assam’s Charaideo district, stands a lush evergreen forest of over 680 hectares. Nearby, the rectangular shaped structure…
A report by scientists from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) outlines how the endangered western hoolock gibbon population in Hollongapar Gibbon Sanctuary (HGS), Assam is fragmented because of a…
Dehing Patkai National Park, located in Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts of Assam, is known for its exceptional diversity of flora and fauna. About 48 mammals have been recorded here including…
Clouded leopards have developed nuanced coexistence strategies to survive in the wild by having a peak activity time that does not overlap with other carnivores and by potentially playing “hide-and-seek”…
Findings from a recent study conducted in Assam suggest that bats can have a positive impact on rice ecosystems. In the study, conducted over the Sali (winter) rice season of…
With more than 70 people and 80 elephants dying every year in the state, Assam is known for its very high record of human-elephant conflict incidences. The dwindling natural habitat…
In a major breakthrough, a poaching syndicate that extended from Gadchiroli, Maharashtra to Guwahati, Assam was recently busted. This was achieved by a joint effort by the forest departments of…
Pahi Bhumij shudders to recall that day, and says she is grateful to have escaped death. On May 5, as part of her routine, Bhumij went to work in a…
In Assam, Bohag Bihu and the kopou phool — the Assamese new year and the foxtail orchid — have an intimate connection. The blooming of this beautiful, pinkish-purple orchid on…
Rajiv Mahanta reminisces about his childhood memories of fishing in the Sumdiri river, about 200-300 metres from his home in the North Lakhimpur district of Assam. He had not been able…
Armed with the idea that shifting cultivation is primitive and unsustainable, based on a certain narrative she was exposed to in the academic world, Assam-born researcher Joli Rumi Borah had…
The 2022 Assam floods, following record-breaking rains, were the worst that the state has seen in the last decade. Soon-after, some districts faced a drought-like situation forcing farmers to work…
“It was around seven in the evening. During a routine inspection in my field, I discovered a herd of seven-eight wild boars. They were big, some 2.5-3 feet in height.…
Nipon Bora, 40, hoists his son onto his shoulders near the village of Pokhiajar in the Sonitpur district of Assam. A large herd of elephants with several tiny calves is…
In the first week of November, 2022, at around 5:30 in the morning, news spread that an elephant calf had probably died in a village paddy field in Udalguri district…
The water-loving evergreen tree, hijol, adapted to floodplains, has been traditionally managed over millennia as family and community forest in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin. A new study that works out the impact…
On a sunny December afternoon in Medhipamua village along the banks of the Brahmaputra river in Assam’s Dhemaji district, men, women and a few children gathered under a tin-roofed, open,…
“Nobody wishes to be a killer. To be held responsible for any being’s death can be traumatising. Let alone an elephant, even the death of a dog, a goat or…
Alarm bells ring for the white-winged wood duck (WWWD). Declared the state bird of Assam in 2003, the on-ground conservation situation of the bird has not improved in recent years.…
A majestic and charismatic mega-herbivore, the one-horned rhino (Rhinoceros unicornis) now numbers around 4,034 individuals found only in the grasslands of India and Nepal, Due to significant human-induced pressures like…
