Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Nayar river is vanishing - a yatra reveals conservation goes beyond science and policy" appearing in ‘The Down To Earth’ dated 03.06.2025. The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Nayar …
COME winter and the debate over saving the Siberian crane intensifies. Even as the Keoladeo National Park in Bharatpur, Rajasthan, is preparing to welcome these rare birds, international crane experts are planning to build a new home for the cranes in islands on the Brahmaputra river in Assam. The Siberian …
among the 30 to 40 species of seahorse identified worldwide, many face an uncertain future due to the increasing numbers claimed by traditional medicine, pollution and habitat loss. It is estimated that at least 20 million dried seahorses are sold every year for traditional Chinese medicine and as curios, while …
Thousands of broad-winged species of hawk known as Swainson's hawk, which make their appearance on the dry plains of Argentina every winter, may get a reprieve. Ciba-Geigy, the Switzerland-based chemical manufacturing group has agreed to recall monocrotophos, the pesticide which caused the hawks to die, from the markets surrounding the …
The new policy of the National Foot and Mouth Disease control programme in Bhutan lays down that migrating animals will now need to be compulsarily vaccinated and will be provided movement permits. The disease affects a number of livestock and reduces animal productivity to a large extent. According to J …
peregrine falcons have bewildered researchers by giving them the first-ever comprehensive account of their autumnal sojourns. The use of tiny satellite transmitters
BIRD-LOVERS will after all have a chance to gather more information about the highly, endangered wild Siberian cranes. After dragging its feet over the rnatter, the ministry of environment and forests (MEF) recently permitted conservationists to install a satellite transmitter on the back of one of the cranes spending their …
MIGRATORY birds may not find their return journey to their homelands in Europe as hazardous as before. The European Parliament, after a heated debate, has finally agreed for the hunting season to close on January 31 each year. 'Environmentalists and anti-hunters won the day after the amendment to close the …
Once home to a rich variety of migratory birds from Russia, Siberia and Central Asia, Gamaghar Lake near Lahore, Pakistan, has been driven to the verge of extinction by an ill-planned irrigation system. Inadequate drainage systems had led to high levels of waterlogging and salinity in nearby agricultural areas. To …
For an avid birdwatcher, the annual migration of birds from cold Siberia to warmer climes has all the ingredients of a of a high-tension drama."It's exciting," says a wide-eyed Iqbak Mullik, director of Shrishti, a NGO which espouses the avian cause. Shrishti organises bird counts across the country. It has …
A HANDFUL of people gathered together on a cold wintry evening in a remote Himalayan village in Arunachal Pradesh, seeking to conserve the only winter habitat of the blacknecked crane in India. They included two village elders, the headmaster and a teacher of a village school and the deputy director …
THE FAILURE of the Siberian cranes to pay their annual migratory visit, in mid-November, to the Keoladeo Ghana National Park in Bharatpur is fuelling anxiety that these birds may be on the brink of extinction. The number of Siberian cranes coming to Bharatpur has declined steadily since 1969. In 1964, …
EVER SINCE a 3-km straight-cut was dug into the Upputeru channel to speed up draining of water from Kolleru lake into the Bay of Bengal in 1972, soil erosion has plagued the tiny island of Chinna Gollapalem, situated where the lake waters meet the sea. The gushing waters of Upputeru …
EVERY DAY at 5 am, Sridevi picks up all the pots in her house in the Mandaveli slums of Madras city and places them at the end of the street, as she has been doing for the past 12 years. She must ensure that her pots are among the first …
IN APRIL 1983, the Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu governments signed the Telugu Ganga project agreement, under which Madras would get 15 tmc ft of water from the Srisailam reservoir between February and September. Government indifference and lack of funds delayed the project, but it has been revived recently. A …
CHILIKA LAKE, Orissa: Remote-sensing studies indicate the area of Chilika has shrunk from 2,200 square kilometers originally to about 915 sq km now. The northern mouth of the brackish lake, reported to be India's largest inland lake, has been choked by heavy siltation. Nearly 200 sq km of the waterspread …
IN THE Vaddi villages of Kolleru, life is almost totally monitered and controlled by a Kula panchayat. The panchayat is headed by a pedda vaddi (sarpanch), who is assisted by a maximum of seven peddalu or peddas (members), depending upon the population. The kula panchayat enjoys total power and can …
KOLLERU lake is no ordinary wetland. Located in Andhra Pradesh, it is one of the country's largest freshwater lakes and a bird sanctuary, hosting 193 species of birds and a variety of flora and fauna, including medicinal plants. However, Kolleru today is threatened by economic and industrial development, expanding fisheries …
THE NILE delta lies trapped between a dammed Nile and a rapacious sea that is constantly threatening to swallow it up. The death of the delta, which constitutes two-thirds of Egypt's habitable land, will be catastrophic because with 1.33 million births every year, Egypt's dependence on the river and its …
BIRD MIGRATION patterns can change dramatically over decades and scientists say global warming can increase the incidence of such changes. Drastic changes in climate and landscape during the ice ages led to many birds altering their migratory routes. Such changes occur at present as well, but too gradually to be …
IF YOU cannot agree to something right away, the UN has a simple solution: call a conference later. That is precisely what the Rio conference did on the vexatious question of straddling fish stocks. These are stocks of fish that migrate into one country's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) from another's …
