Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of News Item titled "Telangana: Deepening pollution crisis in Godawari threatens lives livelihoods appearing in the Telangana Today dated 13.05.2025" dated 29/05/2025. The application was registered suo-motu on the basis of the news item titled Telangana: Deepening pollution crisis in Godawari …
Tests conducted by us scientists on sea sponges collected from Fiji's waters have brought to light their potentially cancer fighting properties. But Fijian scientists are worried that the country's marine life will be wiped out if researchers from scientific institutions and pharmaceutical firms worldwide flood in to collect samples for …
INDUSTRIAL pollution in Peru's Paracas reserve area is leaving beaches littered with thousands of fish rotting under clouds of flies. Under threat is the country's major national sanctuary -- Paracas, an important stopover point for many of the world's migrating birds. Contamination problems started some years ago with the ministry …
THERE is something down under Down Under that has scientists of prehistory busy revising their notions of a lost past: off the coast of Tasmania has been found a colony of living coral and other marine life pegged at a pedigree of 45 million years, or abouts. Scientists call it …
Slaughter goats to save the exotic Galapagos tortoises, says Julian Fitter, chairperson of the newly constituted Galapagos Conservation Trust. The cluster of islands in the Galapagos Sea survives on its tortoise- smitten tourism industry. But goats, breeding in their thousands every year on Mount Alcedo, are destroying the cloud forest …
IN THE days when "information superhighway" is the buzzword, one may find it hard to believe that fungus may have already been leading the communication network of life on land, some 400 million years ago. Mark A S McMenamin, professor of geology at Mount Holyoke College and Dianna L S …
DEVIANT behaviour is not limited to humans: a sponge found in the Mediterranean Sea is a killer carnivore. Unlike other sponges that feed primarily by filtering small particles from seawater, this creature preys on small crustaceans (Nature, Vol 373, No 6512). French scientists J Vacelet and N Boury-Esnault of the …
IN THE economy versus ecology conflict now troubling Ukraine, it is amply clear that economy is coming first. Undeterred by vociferous protests from environmentalists apprehensive about the future of the Black Sea, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma has declared "categorical" support for an oil terminal to be built near the port …
AFTER three decades of dogged research, biologists have discovered how the sea urchin, a relative of the starfish, mates. They now hope this will help them solve some fundamental problems in developmental and evolutionary biology. The sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus), like its other marine cousins, jettisons its eggs into the …
A GLOBAL system for sustainable management of the world's fish stocks, which are being rapidly depleted by heavily subsidised national fishing fleets, is essential to prevent their extinction, participants in a recent UN conference have urged. The session in New York, a follow-up to the Earth Summit in Rio de …
DESPITE the International Whaling Commission turning down in May a request by Norway and Japan to lift its ban on whaling, Norway has announced its intention to resume commercial whaling soon (Down To Earth, June 15, 1993). Responding to the IWC decision, Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland said it …
ACCORDING to the department of ocean development there are 40 heavily polluted areas along the Indian coast. Marine pollution problems, though localised, occur off most metropolitan cities and thickly populated coastal towns. Untreated domestic and industrial wastes are a serious problem in Bombay, Vishakhapatnam, Porbandar, Veli near Thiruvananthapuram, Tuticorin Kakinada, …
A PROPOSED sewage treatment plant has trapped the 6.49-sq-km temple town of Guruvayur in controversy, pitting its residents against the villagers of nearby Chakankandam, where a 1.5 million litres per-day sewage disposal plant is to be located. Guruvayur residents held a seven-day sit-in recently to press for early implementation of …
STRUTTING and swimming through the Antarctic, some emperor penguins are working on a scientific mission: monitoring the sea resources of the polar region. Every winter, emperor penguins -- the largest of the species -- travel long distances searching for food in open water, called polynias, that punctuate the sea ice. …
DUGONGS, a marine mammal that inspired the mermaid legends of ancient seafarers, may soon vanish from Indian waters if their large-scale slaughter is not stopped in Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar. Sea cows, as they are also known, are believed to number a mere 100 now. Despite the …
NO SOONER had the Shetland Islands oil spill been brought under control, reports came in of oil tankers running aground off Indonesia and the Nicobar islands. And it was not all that long ago, that oil wells were wrecked as a weapon of war during the fighting in the Gulf. …
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 …
WIDESPREAD deforestation and heavy siltation are steadily destroying the beautiful, but ecologically fragile, coral reefs of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago. The islands experience high rainfall, 50 per cent to 90 per cent of which runs off into the sea. Bad land use practices result in high turbidity which then …
AN octopus can learn tasks simply by watching other octopuses at work. This observation has surprised researchers who believed such mental capacities to be the sale preserve of higher vertebrates like mammals. The octopus belongs to the family of molluscs which are invertebrate. Research on Octopus vulgarid, the common octopus …
