Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of R.D. Singh Bandral Vs Union of India & Others dated 17/04/2023. The matter related to protecting the flora and fauna of the Kailash Kund-Seoz Dhar region by declaring the same as protected area and not to allow construction of the …
in a unanimous move, the House of Commons has sought protection for the endangered red squirrel, the second-fastest declining mammal in the uk. The red squirrel is the native of the country and was a common sight in British woods. But the American grey squirrel has encroached upon its habitat, …
as the koala (a marsupial resembling a small bear) population surges ahead, desperate measures are being called for. The latest one includes contraception where the male koalas will be given vasectomies and females provided with hormone implantations to stop them from ovulating. The three-year trial is to start this month …
LIVING in conjunction with nature and not in opposition to it, is what the people of Masvingo province in southern Zimbabwe are doing. They are using indigenous methods to manage the natural resources of the region. A grass roots organisation, the Association of Zimbabwean Traditional Environ- mental Conservationists (AZTREC), formed …
AROUND 2,000 teddy bear-like, adorable koalas, which could have possibly been killed, have won a reprieve. A boom in, the koala population on Kangaroo Island, 160 kin southwest of Adelaide, forced South Australia's national parks and wildlife service to tome to a painful decision of either having to kill the …
CAN IT: Rotten foodstuff in sealed tin cans will now be a thing of the past. Elbicon, a Belgian company which produces equipment for food processing industries, has developed a new quality control technology which uses laser, infrared or X-ray to detect bone pieces in canned meat, bits of wood …
PROVEN methods of Chinese torture can make a victim go crazy trying to speculate what will happen next. Some Indian scientists seem to be constantly subjected to similar treatment. This came to light when, on January 26, zoologist Girish Garg, senior research scholar with the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology …
WE TEND to forget that Steven Spielberg's celluloid extravaganza Jurassic Park was inspired by a book of the same name by Michael Crichton. In the novel, when Dodgson of the Biosyn Corp learnt that the rival bioengineering concern, InGen Inc, were secretly developing a park packed with dinosaurs, brought into …
THE Sri Lankan economy is being threatened by the evils of privatisation, according to environmentalists. They maintain that this has resulted in large-scale deforestation in several tea and rubber estates in the country, especially in the Horton plains and Namunukula in the south. The wanton destruction not only threatens the …
THE Bellanwila-Attitdiaya marsh, near Colombo in Sri Lanka, is in deep trouble, reports Mallika Wanigasundara. Despite being declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1990, its survival is threatened by the dumping of wastes, water pollution caused by the discharge of industrial effluents from nearby factories, and the reckless exploitation of its …
CAPITALISING on more than 100 years of expertise in plant product chemistry, Dabur, one of India's largest Ayurvedic formulation manufacturers, has now ventured into modern pharmaceutical research and product development. Dabur recently announced that it had perfected a method to extract taxol -- a potent drug used to treat ovarian …
MECHANICAL mining rights are being considered on the flood-prone Kalu Ganga south of Colombo for the South African gem trading company, Colombo Sapphire Ltd. According to Panos Features, this will increase the threat of floods as dredging by CSL might weaken the banks and cause them to collapse. Besides, siltation …
Elders of the Navajo tribe still recount the legend of how the Bear, a great medicine being (What on earth does this mean?), instructed them to use a forest root for treating parasites, stomach problems and infections. There is now growing scientific evidence that this and other legends are based …
DINOSAURS in Stephen Spielberg's Jurassic Park may look authentic, but the sounds they make would not have been uttered by their long-dead ancestors. The best they could do was sound like a foghorn, says Matsumi Suzuki, director of Tokyo's Institute of Sound, who combined the sciences of palaeontology and acoustic …
BANGLADESH'S second largest waterbody, Beel Dakatia, once a 31,566-ha tract of flourishing agricultural land and balanced ecology, has been flooded with brackish water for the past decade. A dyke built to contain the 24-km-long and 16-km-wide waterbody, as part of an ambitious coastal embankment project, is to blame for choking …
THERE'S a maxim in Sanskrit that states peacocks in the forest are happy to see clouds in the sky. It's a pointer to the irrefutable fact of life that one cannot keep away from what is dear to one. Something similar happened to Madeleine Slade, popularly known as Mira Behn, …
THE SPLENDOUS of a tropical rain forest invariably make a profound impression at first sight. "Here I first saw a tropical forest in its sublime grandeur- nothing but the reality can give any idea how wonderful magnificent the scene is..." exulted Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution significantly shaped modern …
WILDLIFE biologists no longer have to risk life and limb to catch a glimpse of elusive animals eager to protect their privacy. Thanks to technology, biologists can now sit back in the comfort of their offices and track the movements of seals and the rapacious foraging of elephants (Science, Vol …
EVERY living thing was born at some time and must die, sooner or later. True, but the traditional assumption is that animals in the wild never live long enough to grow old. And, while old age is a "natural" cause of death for human beings, animals die earlier of "unnatural" …
Arms outstretched on the edge of the cliffs Stand a few trees Ready to fly away with the clouds. They say these deodars once Kissed the Koku nala And embraced the skies so tight That the stars were startled By the village glow-worms every night. Now when the corn touches …
