The tricky business of commercializing invasive plants to death
In 2009, a village in southern India became a part of a long experiment. The Shola Trust, an NGO, trained the village’s Indigenous communities to harvest stems of a vibrant…
Ancient ocean water found in Himalayas could offer insights about evolution
A team of scientists from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Japan’s Niigata University have unearthed water droplets trapped in mineral deposits in the Kumaon mountains in the central…
Can India’s Forest Rights Act deliver? Odisha state is trying to find out
Pramila Pradhan, 51, embraced thengapalli, a form of forest stewardship, because of her mother-in-law, who took her along on forest patrols. Thenga means stick, and palli means turn or rotation.…
Video: Rice as a peace offering in India’s human-elephant conflict capital
The state of Assam in northeastern India has one of the highest incidences of human-elephant conflict in the country, with more than 70 people and 80 elephants dying every year…
‘Sustainability is a continuous journey’: Q&A with RSPO’s Joseph D’Cruz
Joseph D’Cruz has more than 20 years of experience in sustainability, having worked for various international organizations like the United Nations Development Programme and the World Economic Forum, on issues…
When wildlife surveillance tech ‘watches’ people
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…
As tourism booms in India’s Western Ghats, habitat loss pushes endangered frogs to the edge
Nestled within the lofty Cardamom Hills, which forms part of the Western Ghats UNESCO World Heritage Site, lies the picturesque town of Munnar in the southern Indian state of Kerala.…
Nepalis’ love of momos threatens endangered wild water buffaloes
KATHMANDU — A popular dish in Nepal, momos are small, bite-sized dumplings filled with spicy minced meat and wrapped in dough. Served piping hot, they are often accompanied by a…
Blue jeans: An iconic fashion item that’s costing the planet dearly
Likely the world’s most popular garment, jeans use huge amounts of water to grow irrigated cotton, a major factor in destroying the Aral Sea. Today, the industry, though making sustainability pledges, still does much harm.
Wild cats threatened by ‘underrecognized’ risk of spillover disease
Diseases affecting domestic animals, such as canine distemper, are increasingly infecting tropical wildlife, including wild felids, presenting a threat to biodiversity; so far solutions are few and funding is scarce.
Better management of shared waterways could benefit economy in Bangladesh, India
Although Bangladesh’s waterways carry tremendous economic and geostrategic significance for both Bangladesh and India, environmental management issues have rendered most of these routes useless. Bangladesh and India signed a protocol…
Humans are dosing Earth’s waterways with medicines. It isn’t healthy.
In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic consumed humanity’s attention, our species ran through 4.5 trillion doses of myriad pharmaceuticals. In India alone, one drug, paracetamol — a pain reliever used to treat…
Latest water-sharing deal between Bangladesh, India is ‘drop in the ocean’
Water management experts have derided as “a drop in the ocean” an agreement between Bangladesh and India to share water from the Kushiara River, a minor waterway out of the…
Farmer-to-farmer agroecology: Q&A with Chukki Nanjundaswamy of Amrita Bhoomi Learning Centre
Nestled in a verdant valley in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, about a four-hour drive southwest of Bengaluru, the agroecology learning center Amrita Bhoomi is one of dozens of…
Authorities and Yobin communities clash as deforestation spikes in Indian national park
In the sprawling Himalayas, amidst snow-peaked mountains, is a vast swathe of evergreen forest home to majestic tigers, elusive clouded leopards, charismatic hornbills, mystical giant squirrels, enchanting butterflies and bizarre…
Asia’s troubled trees need better conservation to reach restoration goals: Study
An international team of scientists studying the distribution and threats facing some of South and Southeast Asia’s most economically important tree species has confirmed that current environmental protections fail to…
Shining a light on Sri Lanka’s little-studied pangolins: Q&A with Priyan Perera
COLOMBO — For decades, the small population of Indian pangolins found in Sri Lanka has faced a single consistent threat: the domestic meat market. Pangolin meat is considered a delicacy…
Study: Farmland birds in Nepal, India in dire need of conservation action
KATHMANDU — When Nepali ornithologist Hem Bahadur Katwal reviewed the existing literature to prepare a proposal for his Ph.D., he came across a subject barely explored, not just in Nepal,…
Sloth, giant armadillo, and fishing cat conservationists win Future for Nature Award 2022
Three people known for their work with sloths, fishing cats and giant armadillos were announced this week as winners of the 2022 Future for Nature (FFN) Award, given annually to…
Record seizures mark Sri Lanka’s rise as a smuggling hub for star tortoises
Inside an opulent shopping mall in the Thai capital Bangkok, a casually clad man meets a potential customer. They discuss how to bring live tortoises into the country to sell…
Researchers puzzle over sea-crossing migration of crimson rose butterflies
COLOMBO — Travel bloggers and butterfly enthusiasts Paulmathi Vinod and Vinod Sadasivan were at Dhanushkodi Beach in southern India’s Tamil Nadu state for some bird-watching on Feb. 14. It hadn’t…
Bringing back large mammals boosts restoration of entire ecosystems: Study
The reintroduction of gray wolves to Yellowstone National Park in 1995 triggered a cascade of knock-on effects. The wolves kept herbivores like elk in check and on the move, reducing…
Top 15 species discoveries from 2021 (Photos)
With humans sending probes to Mars and the sun, one might think we’ve already explored the full extent of our own planet. But scientists say we’ve only begun to find…
An Indigenous community in India’s Meghalaya state offers lessons in climate resilience
In the village of Nongtraw in India's northeastern state of Meghalaya, one of the world’s wettest regions, honey is a sought after resource by the Khasi Indigenous community. They go…
Tree-planting goals miss the forest for the lack of diverse, good-quality seeds
Ambitious targets by Asian countries to restore tens of millions of hectares of degraded land by 2030 could be foiled by one fundamental problem: a lack of good-quality and genetically…
New Himalayan snake found via Instagram
Researchers have found a snake species never before described by science — on Instagram! During the COVID-19 lockdowns in India, Virendar Bhardwaj, a master’s student at Guru Nanak Dev University,…
From Shanghai Knights to gecko life: The Jackie Chan gecko among 12 new Indian species
Researchers have described 12 new gecko species from India’s Western Ghats mountains, 10 of which are found nowhere else on Earth. One particularly stealth gecko, described as “nearly impossible to…
A bridge of trees reunites gibbons separated by a railway line in India
Jorhat, INDIA - A lone hoolock gibbon jumps from one tree branch to another before taking a big final leap across the railway tracks that fragment its forested home into…
Bridge the North-South divide for a UN Biodiversity Framework that is more just (commentary)
This month, the leaders of nation states from around the world have been gathered in New York City to attend the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. Covid,…
Novel chemical entities: Are we sleepwalking through a planetary boundary?
Our pollution of the planet with heavy metals, plastics, industrial chemicals, pesticides and more is pushing Earth systems to the limit, and us closer to crossing a dangerous planetary boundary we don’t understand.
