Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of News item titled "Ahmedabad Surat landfills among worst three methane hotspots in India" appearing in the Times of India dated 07.02.2024. The application was registered suo-motu on the basis of a news item titled "Ahmedabad Surat landfills among worst three …
The Western Ghats of India are known to be a major biological hotspot that supports plant diversity and endemism. On the Kas Plateau, a lateritic plateau of the northern Western Ghats, we examined mesoscale distributions of endemic, rare, or locally significant plant species in forest habitats or on the plateau …
Urban land-cover change threatens biodiversity and affects ecosystem productivity through loss of habitat, biomass, and carbon storage. However, despite projections that world urban populations will increase to nearly 5 billion by 2030, little is known about future locations, magnitudes, and rates of urban expansion. Here we develop spatially explicit probabilistic …
PANJIM: Giving up its initial reluctance to include Goa region of Western Ghat in the World Heritage Site of UNESCO, Forest Department has finally admitted that Goa along with contiguous forests of Karnataka and Maharashtra, is one of the best potential tiger habitat in this bio-diversity hotspot. It has been …
Shillong: Despite being identified as one of the biodiversity hotspots in the world, the North Eastern part of the country has undergone a regression in its effort to protect and preserve the biodiversity resulting in the extinction of species both flora and fauna, said Additional Chief Secretary PBO Warjri. “There …
Shillong: The threat looming over the state’s rich natural resources, documented and non-documented, being wiped out from the face of the earth can be attributed to urbanization and other forms of development thereby paving the way for the depletion of biodiversity in the state, says the Head of Botanical Survey …
Report of Madhav Gadgil-headed Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel The report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) headed by Madhav Gadgil has generated much heat and dust in Kerala, with environmental activists and pro-development experts adopting diametrically opposing views. But meaningful debate on the issue has been hampered …
The Western Ghats have been labeled a world heritage site, but scientists from the city-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology have found that biodiversity is not well conserved in the region’s vast terrain and forest tracts. Scientists from CCMB have studied Annamalai and Madumalai tiger reserves in the Western …
Supreme Court’s interim order banning tourism in core tiger areas raises debate whether there are any guidelines for it and how harmful it can be to the wildlife and its habitat in protected areas. What exactly constitutes ecotourism is the question thrown up by the Supreme Court’s interim order banning …
Rlys game for 2 of 3 proposals to minimise green damage The Hubli-Ankola railway project has cleared another hurdle with the Railways accepting two of the three recommendations of a committee comprising engineers of the Indian Institute of Science. The committee had been set up to suggest alternative routes for …
The ministry of environment’s decision to get Prof. Madhav Gadgil’s report reviewed by a separate panel has drawn up criticism from unexpected quarters. Tim Badman, heading the International Union for Conservation of Nature (ICUN) World Heritage Programme, has issued a statement that international monitoring took place to ensure that the …
The State government is in no mood to give the Western Ghats-Unesco tag matter a rest. It has raised serious contentions against the Centre for taking the matter into its own hands and renominating the Ghats in this year’s Unesco Convention at St Petersberg, Russia, ignoring the ‘stiff opposition’ by …
Commission a report and when it is ready, place it on a high shelf so that no one can reach it or read it. This seems to be the time-worn norm followed by successive governments in this country. So it comes as no surprise that after having asked the distinguished …
The National Green Tribunal has sought the reply of Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) on a plea against grant of any clearance to any new project in ecologically sensitive Western Ghats. The Tribunal also issued notices to the state governments of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa, Kerala, Gujarat and Tamil …
SHILLONG: The bio-diversity hotspots in the State are vanishing at a faster rate, cautioned State Principal Secretary of the Department of Forest and Environment MS Rao. Giving an overview of the bio-diversity of the State during an official programme to mark the International Bio-diversity Day in Shillong, Rao said today, …
With rich forest and wildlife the Northeast is known as ‘Green Lungs of India’. The region is one of the seven original biodiversity hotspots in the world, but most of its animals and birds are increasingly ending on food tables not only of the tribals who traditionally take such food …
The Delhi High Court has upheld the Central Information Commission (CIC) order to make the report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) public by publishing it on Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) website. The court on May 17 dismissed an MoEF petition seeking not to disclose the …
Human-driven land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) is one of the most important causes for depletion of biodiversity. Few studies have been undertaken to spatially identify the natural areas prone to LULCC and hence biodiversity loss. This article describes a geospatial modelling technique using a combination of drivers of LULCC, spatial …
CHENNAI: This weekend, the lake at Mudichur in Tambaram, which usually wears a deserted look, saw an unusual clean-up crew at work. Along with students in T-shirts and caps scouring the water like treasure hunters, were 42 Marines from the guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker that is currently docked at Chennai …
The World Heritage Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will take a decision on including the Western Ghats as a World Heritage Site soon. The committee is expected to announce the decision at its session to be held at Saint Petersburg in Russia in June. …
