Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Are missing palm trees causing more lighting deaths in Bihar appearing in ‘The Times of India’ dated 29.05.2025". The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Are missing palm trees causing …
Agricultural expansion and climate variability have become important agents of disturbance in the Amazon basin. Recent studies have demonstrated considerable resilience of Amazonian forests to moderate annual drought, but they also show that interactions between deforestation, fire and drought potentially lead to losses of carbon storage and changes in regional …
Pointing to the rich biodiversity of the Andaman and Nicobar islands, a team of researchers from the city has identified a new species of earthworm. Jaya Manazhy and Aja Manazhy, senior research scholars in the Department of Zoology, Mar Ivanios College, under the guidance of K. Vijayakumaran Nair, identified the …
Deforestation in the tropics is an important source of carbon C release to the atmosphere. To provide a sound scientific base for efforts taken to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+) good estimates of C stocks and fluxes are important. We present components of the C balance for selectively …
The total area of 9,400 sq.km. of forest cover in the State needs to be expanded to at least 20,000 sq. km . This was among the foremost recommendation that was evolved at the national seminar on ‘Greening the Forests for Safe Living' held as part of the science fair, …
In the Amazon rainforest, there is a fine balance between efforts to prevent deforestation and the desire to clear the trees for agriculture. It says much about this tension that spikes in forest loss in Brazil earlier this year have been attributed to nothing more tangible than a perceived shift …
Ecuador's Yasuni-ITT initiative, a pilot project to protect the climate and the rainforest has failed miserably. How might international agreements on environmental protection be achieved in the future?
Scientific evidence suggests that increasing amounts of carbon in the atmosphere are causing climate change that will result in global warming, sea -level rise and more extreme weather events. In response to anthropogenic climate change, market-based mechanisms have been proposed to mitigate these rising carbon dioxide emissions. One of these …
A new satellite-based survey released by the FAO provides a more accurate picture of changes in the world's forests, showing forest land use declined between 1990 and 2005. The findings of a global remote sensing survey show the world's total forest area in 2005 was 3.69 billion hectares, or 30 …
Human-driven land-use changes increasingly threaten biodiversity, particularly in tropical forests where both species diversity and human pressures on natural environments are high. The rapid conversion of tropical forests for agriculture, timber production and other uses has generated vast, human-dominated landscapes with potentially dire consequences for tropical biodiversity. Today, few truly …
Tropical forests are recognized as rich, diverse and highly productive ecosystems of the world. The present study was carried out to assess carbon and nutrient storage of a dry tropical forest ecosystem in Barnawpara Sanctuary, Raipur district of Chhattisgarh through satellite remote sensing techniques and GIS.
The spores survived and germinated after being exposed to 115 degree C for two hours Can the mesophilic fungal spores that normally grow at 20 degree C to 35 degree C survive higher temperatures and still be able to germinate when the conditions are right? Believe it or not, laboratory …
Raping the forest for ephemeral fashions The alleged rape in Brazil of an 18-year-old teacher by Paulinho Paiakan, chief of the Kayapo tribe, may be seen as symbolic of the rape of the Amazon rainforests using as a lure the theory that marketing forest produce is more economically beneficial and …
A tough-minded law has boosted Brazil's environmental record in recent years by helping to drive the rate of destruction in the Amazon rainforest to historic lows. But a backlash in the hinterlands is threatening to weaken the country's forest code and push deforestation rates back up again.
Protected areas (PAs) cover a quarter of the tropical forest estate. Yet there is debate over the effectiveness of PAs in reducing deforestation, especially when local people have rights to use the forest. A key analytic problem is the likely placement of PAs on marginal lands with low pressure for …
This book by Kondas is a fine exposition of the basics of forestry and principles of tropical forest ecosystem management, with special reference to south India. A forester with four decades of field experience, he connects theory with practice easily and, in the process, brings out the essence of sustainable …
The world's forests can play an even greater role in fighting climate change than previously thought, scientists say in the most comprehensive study yet on how much carbon dioxide forests absorb from the air. The study may also boost a U.N.-backed program that aims to create a global market in …
HealthDirty truth If you stop your children from eating mud, read this. Craving for earth—geophagy—can be one of the natural ways to protect stomach against pathogens. After studying 480 reports and analysing theories that geophagy is driven by hunger and for nutrients in the soil like iron, zinc or calcium …
Ecologists have long hypothesized that fragmentation of tropical landscapes reduces avian nest success. However, this hypothesis has not been rigorously assessed because of the difficulty of finding large numbers of well-hidden nests in tropical forests. Here we report that in the East Usambara Mountains in Tanzania, which are part of …
MANGROVES are known to be reservoirs of carbon. While it is known that widespread degradation of the mangroves by 30-50 per cent over the past half century due to coastal development, aquaculture expansion and over-harvesting may be responsible for an increase in carbon in the atmosphere, nobody has been able …
