The latest amendments to the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, have been widely criticised for diluting the legal safeguards applicable to forest lands. Incidentally, this coincides with the union government’s ascendant…
What does a forest mean to the forest-dwelling adivasi communities in India? Do they see forest ecosystems the way those outside the forest see it? How much of their interpretation…
Elephants frequent the wet forest tract of the Wayanad plateau during summer owing to the riparian forests and swamps in the landscape that make the habitat cooler and wetter than…
The Nilgiri Hills — A Kaleidoscope of People, Culture and Nature, edited by anthropologist Paul Hockings begins with what's now a pressing concern in the landscape, its changing nature. So…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
After marathon negotiations and a clutch of protests, including a “die-in” by global youth and a walk-out by developing countries over a funding stalemate, nearly 200 nations struck a historic…
When diatom hunter Karthick Balasubramanian was invited to a research expedition on the Blue Mountains of Mizoram, little did he know the trek would result in producing the first dataset…
As fragmentation of forests, commercial plantations and uncertain weather conditions threaten the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve on the Western Ghats highlands in southern India, a community of indigenous honey harvesters say…
The Longwood Shola, the last and the only urban shola forest in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu was recently granted the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy (QCC) accreditation, a forest conservation…
Who can forget the image of Tarzan swinging from tree to tree, crossing streams hanging on woody vines? Tarzan's natural bridges and ladders in the forest are a category of…
At an altitude of 3,900 metres, in the mountainous Himachal Pradesh, thin Bhoj trees (Himalayan birch or Betula utilus), dominate the landscape, an area known locally as Tapa-phraun (tapa meaning…
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…
The Palani Hills, located in the east of the Western Ghats, is about 80 km wide and 25 km long. Approximately 71 percent of the Palani Hills is covered by…
Gujarat’s diverse geographical landscapes are home to several indigenous communities pursuing traditional occupations. The hilly terrain in the state’s eastern, northern and southern belts comprise significant tribal populations. The western…
As much as 36% of 47 protected areas in the eastern Himalayas, especially those isolated higher up in the mountains, are highly vulnerable to climate change, a study has said.…
For every dollar that goes into tree plantation programmes, at least half is wasted, according to an analysis of tree planting data in India’s Himachal Pradesh. The study sheds light…
Thirty-year-old Bhagbali has vivid childhood memories of life in his village Bokrakachhar, amidst the forests of Chhattisgarh. Reminiscing about the time before his family and many others were displaced from…
