A majority of bird species in India are on the decline – an alarming indication of biodiversity loss and anthropogenic pressures on the environment, a new report assessing bird diversity…
"Rainfed agriculture in India is a risky enterprise, owing to uncertainties in rainfall,” reads a World Bank article published in February 2023. More than half of India's net sown area…
Just days before the Lok Sabha passed the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023 — with little heed paid to the genuine concerns raised about its provisions by ecologists, bureaucrats, tribal…
India is now home to at least 3,682 tigers – a new record that surpasses earlier estimates, according to the latest government data. The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate…
The commercial value of products coming from rarer wildlife species has increased because of their growing demand among the middle class across Asia. The profitability of wildlife trade is high…
“We are independent from Lantana’s fury,” beams Basant Jharia, a local community member in Central India, a region overwhelmed by the spread of the invasive Lantana plants. Atop a mound…
The Lok Sabha passed the Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill, which proposes to fast-track the patent application process and encourage foreign investment when it comes to the use of India’s biological…
A Bill proposing radical changes to India's forest law came closer to becoming legislation on July 26, when it was passed in the lower house of Parliament with barely any…
The Miyawaki forestry method follows the practice of cultivating fast-growing groves of native vegetation in an area lacking trees. While the method has found keen restorers all over the globe,…
The onset of summer months means a bumper harvest of cashews in the Nayagarh district of Odisha. A cash crop, cashew is highly profitable for farmers, but this was not…
Five decades ago, findings of the first tiger census set alarm bells ringing in the government. The count of tigers had plummeted to 1,827, which was a sharp decline from…
Buoyed by a “geographer’s heart”, environmental geographer Ruth DeFries started using satellite data in the 1990s to generate global vegetation maps to feed climate models. Unraveling drivers of deforestation in…
The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill 2023 was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 29th March, to amend the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 (FCA). It was sent to the Joint Committee…
Certain categories of forest land will no longer be legally protected, as proposed by the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023, that the union government introduced in Lok Sabha on March 29.…
The Western Ghats of India are broadly divided into three subdivisions — the northern, central and southern — separated by the Goa gap and the Palghat gap respectively. Due to…
Fencing is a key conflict mitigation strategy in the Mysore Elephant Reserve in Karnataka, which sees regular cases of human-elephant conflict. Putting up fencing accounts for a significant proportion of…
For the first time in the history of the Conference of Parties (CoP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) the cover decision text – increasingly seen…
In a relief to environmentalists and local indigenous population concerned about India’s hydropower ambition in the Dibang river valley region of Arunachal Pradesh, the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the…
“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.…
India's finance minister has announced two major programmes for mangrove plantation and wetlands conservation in the country's latest annual budget, drawing a mixed response among the conservation academics who welcomed…
