Pangolin smuggling to China thrives as rhino poaching declines in Assam
The global focus on the smuggling of rhino horns and tiger parts from India to China has led to a drop in smuggling, but that has been replaced by a…
Sikkim rail project: Is it development or disaster waiting to happen?
Bishnu Rai gets emotional every time he tries to speak about his home. Especially since he’s on the verge of losing it. Thirty-one-year old Rai lives on a hilltop in…
Sacred sites in Bengaluru: Where heritage helps conserve biodiversity
In India’s IT capital Bengaluru, sprinkled within its concrete jungle, are shady peepal trees adorned with serpent stones, bells and sacred threads, standing majestically atop gated raised platforms. Often a…
Bid for greater protection of star tortoise at the ongoing CITES conference
In June 2019, law enforcement agents stopped a car to check four trolley bags that passengers had loaded in a rush at a railway station in Kolkata. In July, officers…
Enormous alien fish spotted in Kerala’s rivers after the 2018 floods
It was September 7, barely a month after the floods of 2018 had wrecked large parts of Kerala. Though life was far from normal in Thrissur's coastal Kodungalloor, 48-year-old Jaison…
Spotlighting the rising stars: Neglected crops in saline areas in a changing climate
As salt-spoiled soils increase across the world, can neglected and underutilised crop species be the rising stars in sustainable agriculture in salinisation-hit countries such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh? Spotlighting…
[Interview] “Addressing climate change and biodiversity loss is in India’s best economic and developmental interests”
A landmark report released earlier this year by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, or IPBES, was a stark reminder that life on this planet, in all…
Citizen scientists to scout for wildflowers across four countries
A cross-country crowdsourcing campaign aims to map wildflowers in four countries -- India, Ethiopia, Turkey and Indonesia. The countries have an incredibly high richness of plant species. But updated data…
Lack of alternative livelihood linked to Nagaland tribe’s affinity to shifting cultivation
The lack of alternative livelihood options is reinforcing the attachment of the Konyaks, a Nagaland tribe, to the practice of shifting cultivation (jhum), highlights a new study. This perceived economic…
Chennai water crisis once again exposes the city’s climate vulnerability
It is noon and the scorching heat of Chennai’s sun hits across S. Punitha’s face. She has just filled her first pot for the day from a hand pump in…
