Stephen Midzi, the biodiversity conservation manager of South Africa’s iconic Kruger National Park, thinks it is a good thing to allow rivers to be what rivers should be. Midzi is…
Sukhpal Singh Tomar, 53, a resident of Lohari village in Uttarakhand and a teacher by profession, narrates the incident that led to the the loss of his home. “It will…
Though located geographically in Kerala, the 126-year-old Mullaperiyar Dam is owned, operated, and maintained by the Tamil Nadu government and has been a point of dispute between the two neighbouring…
The transboundary Brahmaputra basin needs to be viewed as a single entity so that collaborative and cooperative actions will help the region to move gradually towards sustainable development, say researchers…
River Tillari originates at an altitude of 750 metres (2461 feet) on the gently west-tilted flatland at the Karnataka-Maharashtra border. It is dammed on the plateau and the water is…
While Kerala's contentious Athirapilly dam may be temporarily on hold due to peoples' resistance, a smaller 7.5 megawatt hydropower project in the vicinity has got both environmentalists and indigenous communities…
In 1991, the year when India launched its economic reforms, I travelled to the Narmada valley. The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) – the anti-Sardar Sarovar dam movement – had organised…
In the past few weeks, four districts of eastern Vidarbha region in Maharasthra flooded. This is a region with four major rivers, dozen-odd dams, almost 50 percent river basin area…
Umesh Kumar is a young farmer at Pithra village in Simdega district in Jharkhand, a picturesque village surrounded by hills and green forest cover. The 26-year-old owns around 12 acres…
Over the last four decades, the forest cover in the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka has declined due to the rising number of unplanned infrastructure and agricultural activities. Studies have…
Tribal leader V. K. Geetha from Vazhachal forest village has inherited a unique family legacy -- of getting displaced in the name of development. The proposed Athirappilly Hydro Electric Power…
Effluent carrier of the Sivakasi-Virudhunagar-Toothukudi industrial belt in southern Tamil Nadu, Vaippar now looks almost like a river on a deathbed. Numerous chemical factories dot both banks of the east-flowing…
The national elections dominated the happenings of 2019. So did a string of floods, drought and cyclones. In our second year of publication, we at Mongabay-India extensively covered how environmental…
Highlighting the Indian government’s slow progress on water-related works, a parliamentary panel in its latest report has expressed disappointment over the pace of flagship projects like Namami Gange programme and…
As you enter the Athirappilly-Vazhachal-Nelliyampathy forests in the southern Western Ghats, you're welcomed with a heavy whooshing sound from the canopies of large trees. For a moment, you might mistake…
The proposal for 3,097-megawatt Etalin hydropower project in Dibang valley of Arunachal Pradesh in India’s northeast region has been pushed back yet again as questions regarding the project’s impact on…
Joy Sing Tisso had started working in the Kopili Hydro Electric Project (HEP), in Assam in 1986. He was only 23 years old then. The 59-year-old had given his all…
The rush of water ripped through the valley like an excavator. On August 6, 2019, unusually heavy monsoon rain drenched the mountainside above the Punatsangchhu river in Bhutan, causing an…
On September 17, 2019, when Gujarat’s Sardar Sarovar Dam reservoir was filled to its highest level of 138.68 metres to celebrate Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday at the dam site,…
At a time when election fervour is at its peak in Maharashtra and political parties are sweating it out to lure voters with tall promises, residents of the Manibeli village…