Conservation is serious business at this private nature reserve in Uttarakhand
Every year, Mansi Sharma and her sister Surabhi take at least two trips to Landour (next to Mussoorie) where, for a few days, they just spend their time wandering in…
The evolving story of India’s forests
From covering 640,819 square kilometres (19.49 percent) of India’s total land area in 1987 to covering 712,249 sq. km. (21.67 percent) of the country’s geographical area in 2019, India’s forest…
[Explainer] What is a forest?
What is a forest? At present, in India, there is no clear nationally-accepted definition of ‘forest’. States are responsible for determining their definition of forests. In its meeting in September…
Climate change, land-use change may enhance plant species loss in the Eastern Ghats
Climate and land use change are likely to alter plant species richness in the Eastern Ghats in the future, scientists have said, pressing for urgent conservation attention on the region…
All forest fires may not be bad fires
It’s the forest fire season and the officials at the Bandipur Tiger Reserve in Karnataka have stepped up the ante on fire preparedness. With fire watchers assigned to look out…
Forests that heal: Medicinal plants as an ecosystem service
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…
Growing trees on farms a win-win for farmers and sustainability
Come monsoon, Sardara Singh looks forward to planting Melia composita trees (a wild relative of neem) in his seven-acre plot embedded in an agroforestry mosaic in the north-west Indian state…
Small but precious: small forest patches act as islands and corridors of biodiversity
Indian forest officer Rai Singh Jhala skirts the edge of the Monsoon Palace at Sajjangarh, perched high in the Aravalli hills just outside Udaipur city, in the west Indian state…
India urgently needs to streamline multi-billion rupees worth NTFP market
Every year millions of Indians, who belong to scheduled tribes, collect Rs. two trillion (Rs. 200,000 crore) worth of non-timber forest products (NTFP) from the country's forests. However, in the…
Spillover: encroachment into forests increases risk of contracting diseases from animals
Over the past two decades, scientists have been alarmed by the rapid spread of an infectious disease transmitted by tick bites that afflict forest-dwellers in the verdant, biodiverse tropical forests…
