“No one was willing to buy the argument that mangroves buffer against tsunami,” environmental economist Saudamini Das recalls the research and debate surrounding storm protection services of mangroves following the…
On June 1, Bangladesh implemented a total ban on entry into the Sundarbans mangrove forest for three months. The ban applies not only to tourists but also the communities that…
Satellite images of the Sundarbans mangroves along the Bay of Bengal, that capture changes before and after tropical cyclones, are helping make sense of mangrove damage from extreme weather events…
Baby mangroves with leathery leaves peep out through lush meadows of grass that greet the Bay of Bengal. Soon enough these densely clumped blades and tufts of salt-tolerant grasses, in…
The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami devastated mangroves across Southeast Asia. In the Nicobar archipelago, consisting of 22 islands situated close to the epicenter of the 2004 Sumatra Andaman earthquake, mangroves…
Tropical storms, in the last 21 years, have had an overall positive impact on the ability of mangroves in India to fix carbon dioxide, a key climate-warming greenhouse gas, says…
When cyclone Yaas hit on May 26, it inundated several coastal villages in the Sundarbans region in West Bengal. Jharkhali, a low-lying village in South 24 Parganas district of West…
As Mangalore resident Spandana walked on to Padukere beach in the first week of April, a menacing sign restricting the entry of anyone connected with the marina project on to…
Kendrapada district in Odisha hosts the famous Bhitarkanika National Park, home to a mangrove forest which is one among the two Ramsar sites from Odisha. The site, spread in an…
Just as forests are called as the ‘lungs of the earth’, wetlands are the 'kidneys' that regulate water and filter waste from the landscape. The kidney comparison aside, wetlands are…
The Mandavi Creek in Vengurla had always been a place that drew wonder from Shweta Sachin Hule. She would gaze at the glistening waters under the clear blue skies and…
Sankar grew up listening to stories of rain. For in Muthupet, where the 54-year-old’s family has been residing for about 250 years, it was the rainfall which nourished an extensive…
In Guneri, Kutch, there is a belief that many years ago, when the Indian subcontinent was not as fragmented, a Sufi saint had come to the region and planted two…
This week’s environment and conservation news stories rolled into one. To receive a weekly email with a roundup of our stories, please sign-up for our newsletter. [Commentary] Onam is a day…
The impacts of cyclone Amphan on millions of people in eastern India and Bangladesh, particularly in the ecologically fragile Sundarbans region, have reinforced the urgent need to build resilience into…
As officials assess the damage caused to the Sundarbans mangroves by cyclone Amphan, a new study says the ecologically fragile region in India and Bangladesh has lost 24.55 percent of…
The Indian part of the Sundarbans, the vast mangrove forest in the Bay of Bengal, consists of 102 islands, about half of them inhabited. That may not be the case…
Don't lose hope. This is probably not the cliché you want to hear after what the past year has been like. Extreme weather events, wildfires, water crises, rampant deforestation, record…
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…
Imagine semi-decayed plant material accumulating for thousands of years under water-logged conditions. This thick and condensed layer of soil that packs a large amount of organic carbon is called peat.…
