A new study that examined the plant diversity and carbon stock of 39-year-old human created forest, Molai Kathoni in Assam, and a natural forest of comparable age, shows that a…
Thirty-one-year-old Nagarathna gingerly maneuvers a trolley-like contraption across the dairy shed with solar panel fixtures gleaming in the sun. The contraption – a solar-powered milking machine – saves Nagarathna, a…
It is 7 a.m. but inside Borvan city forest, the last vestiges of the night still hang heavy. Birds chirp relentlessly and a few morning walkers try to sweat it…
A "whole-farm" approach or integrated farming systems that supplement traditional crops with farming vegetables, fruits, poultry or fish is re-emerging as a nature-based solution to boosting productivity in climate-stressed regions.…
In the village of Nongtraw in Meghalaya, one of the world's wettest region, honey is quite sought after by the Khasi indigenous community who go to the forest to collect…
Most of the sandy beaches and bays of Goa, India’s smallest state, are dominated by tourism and fishing. Yet in the low tide pools along the a 100 km long…
Believed to have been introduced by the British in pre-Independence India for its showy flowers, ox-eye daisies that adorned ornate gardens in Kashmir rapidly spilled out and effortlessly invaded the…
Thiophilus Khojol has been a farmer in Assam's Cachar district on the hill slopes along the Assam-Manipur border, for over 20 years. The district's pineapple production hit an all-time high…
Born into a marginalised family in 1937 in Kerala, his umbilical cord looked almost like a bloated seed of a common mangrove tree. So, his parents who worked as farm…
Extreme rainfall deficiencies were not the only causes of famines in semi-arid regions of southern India in the 18th to 20th centuries, according to research that blends paleoclimate reconstruction and…
Long before global warming became a topic of hot discourse worldwide, certain traditional practices of humans, like homegardens, have served as natural ways to maintain environmental equilibrium. Homegardens are defined…
Mega herbivores undertake vast migrations across large landscapes in several parts of the world. Wildebeests migrate in the millions through the Serengeti-Maasai Mara ecosystem of East Africa — the largest…
In a scene in Sherni, a recent Hindi film depicting the complicated politics of wildlife conservation in the tiger forests of Madhya Pradesh, when District Forest Officer Vidya Vincent confronts…
One hot 2019 afternoon in Lakshadweep, as marine mammal scientist Divya Panicker sat engrossed in listening to recordings retrieved from underwater sound recorders, she came across low blue whale moans,…
Gliding through the water, a diver searches for small fragments of Turbinaria mesenterina or table coral, found in abundance near the islands of Goa in the Arabian Sea. Another diver brings…
City parks and residential gardens have a unique functional microbiome with more potential human and plant pathogens, and fewer plant-symbionts than neighbouring natural ecosystems, according to a study that unpacks…
Unless there are immediate and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting global warming to close to 1.5 degrees Celsius or even 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times will be…
Aesthetically, they may not quite cut it, but these two-tiered sanitation structures, set against the sprawling cold deserts of the Indian Himalayas, have supplied organic manure to local communities for…
More than 1.6 million (16.61 lakh) people in 11 districts of Bihar have been affected by the floods this year that started in June. Of these, 110,000 (1.10 lakh) people…
Biological invasions are a major global challenge for the conservation of biodiversity, maintenance of ecosystem health and sustainable livelihoods. India is not new to the concept and consequences of invasive…