It was a cigarette butt that turned Tariq’s life around. Tariq A. Patloo remembers the moment like it were yesterday. “I was taking a German tourist through one of our…
A nondescript village in Malavalli taluk in Mandya district of Karnataka, Dasanadoddi, is a little over 100 km from the capital city of Bengaluru. With narrow tarred roads snaking through…
In 2019, budding ethnobotanist Momang Taram and her friend Ojar Taku were scouting the Siang river valley in Arunachal Pradesh for flowering plants belonging to a specific family. “Then suddenly…
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…
Mayem is a village in Bicholim taluka of the north-eastern hinterland of Goa. It is most famous for its lake, a popular tourist spot called the Mayem lake, which underwent…
Flanked by the Outer Ring Road, where unceasing traffic spews noxious fumes, and a concreted canal where heaps of plastics float amid sewage, the Hennur Lake biodiversity park in Bengaluru…
Chandrasekhar Shirodkar, 48, returned from Saudi Arabia in the early 1990s. When he came back to Maem, a village in the north-eastern mining belt of India’s western state Goa, he…
Anamika Oraom, 16, of village Dungridih, around a kilometre away from Narwa Pahar uranium mine in Jharkhand, wants to study. But she cannot, owing to severe headaches that come up…
The pristine forests of Chhattisgarh's Hasdeo Arand region can breathe a sigh of relief – at least for now. The five coal blocks in the biodiversity-rich Hasdeo Arand and adjoining…
A pencil sketch shows an elephant trying to dismantle a thatched roof. Another depicts a pachyderm helping itself to succulent sugarcane stalks from a farm as people brandish fire torches…
Dusk settles over the city. On cue, the sky brings out its colour palette. As deep oranges and reds take over, the day - with its creatures - shifts. It's…
“Forests are protected areas in name only. Sometimes we see better protection of biodiversity in the adjacent agricultural lands,” said C.S. Saneesh, a research fellow at Spatial Interaction Ecology Research…
The Gee’s golden langur, endemic to Bhutan and Assam in India, is one of the world’s most endangered primates. Less than 7000 of the animals remain in the wild today…
A thick, orange-yellow bill with a slightly longer lower mandible (jaw) is one of the most striking features of the Indian skimmer (Rynchops albicollis). This bird with pointed black wings…
Tribal leader V. K. Geetha from Vazhachal forest village has inherited a unique family legacy -- of getting displaced in the name of development. The proposed Athirappilly Hydro Electric Power…
Twenty-three-year-old Radheshyam Pemani Bishnoi in western Rajasthan is one of the fortunate few who has seen the critically endangered great Indian bustard (GIB) in the wild. But it was not…
The recent incident of a female wild elephant in Kerala falling prey to crude bait meant for wild boar sheds light on the widespread issue of human-wildlife conflict in the…
A heartwarming picture of a small tiger cub playing with its mother at Sariska Tiger Reserve (STR) published recently has caught the attention of wildlife lovers across the globe. The…
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…
In early April this year, a video was being circulated amongst animal rights activists in Karnataka. A mahout spoke to the camera, stating that since the lockdown, his 55-year-old captive…