With more than 70 people and 80 elephants dying every year in the state, Assam is known for its very high record of human-elephant conflict incidences. The dwindling natural habitat…
In 2017, a camera installed on the fringes of Corbett Tiger Reserve in northern India photographed an unsuspecting woman. The local forest staff had set up the device discreetly to…
At the break of dawn in Taplejung in eastern Nepal, as a rooster crows, two men grab their slingshots and head out to work. They have a long day ahead…
Crop raids by wild animals are increasing in Sri Lanka, and with them, the human-animal conflicts and related discourse. But a fresh debate on wildlife exploitation has arisen in the…
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…
Armed with the idea that shifting cultivation is primitive and unsustainable, based on a certain narrative she was exposed to in the academic world, Assam-born researcher Joli Rumi Borah had…
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 metaphor of the butterfly effect, for how tiny, almost imperceptible changes may lead to massive outcomes, is often used in the discussion of chaos theory: a butterfly flaps its…
The old houses of the Kashmir Valley are living examples of climate-resilient and sustainable architecture. When a massive flood hit the valley in 2014, a major part of downtown Srinagar,…
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…
As soon as reports of cracks developing in houses started pouring in from Uttarakhand’s Joshimath town, in early January, the state and central governments swung into action and quickly set…
The implementation of nature-based solutions, or NbS — a hotly debated concept that has gained traction in recent years — is seen by many policymakers as a potential means for…
Away from the city noise, the Sallar forest in southern Kashmir’s Anantnag district retains an essence of spring even in the harsh December winter. The diffused sun rays with fog,…
Reflected in key goals and targets, ecological connectivity will be decisive, as countries move to implement the freshly minted Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which, among its key targets, calls for…
Tucked amidst lush green hills, Panchanthangi, a hamlet in Dindigul district, Tamil Nadu, is remote, and nearly inaccessible. For four generations, Kanagaraj and his neighbours have lived a quiet life,…
Thirty-five-year-old Ramaprasad Maiti, a resident of a Sundarbans island, has moved houses 17 times in his lifetime as erosion tore them down and washed them into the river one by…
The Konkan region, along India’s west coast, has been a tourist attraction for several years now. Nestled between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea, this region has beaches, waterfalls,…
Prabhat and Prabin Sharma own a cattle farm of 85 buffaloes in Paschim Boragaon village near the Deepor Beel, the only Ramsar site in Assam. This is their native village…
The Sherpa Indigenous community in Nepal has lived in the lap of the world’s tallest mountains for centuries. Ever since Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay and New Zealand climber Edmund Hillary…
A model for an effective melange of mangrove conservation and development has emerged in a new study along the coast of the western state of Gujarat in India, which offers…