Endangered Species

Order of the National Green Tribunal regarding deterioration of Nayar river, Uttarakhand, 05/06/2025

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 …

Size does not matter, but the species specific habitat needs in planning protected areas

You rightly suggest that the Protected Areas (PAs) at present do not cover much of the biodiversity that survives around the tropics. Yet, would the area that needs to be brought under the PA regime be disproportionately high to cover the species with small ranges sizes or high degree of …

Shelved!

the standing committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (cites) has deferred the one-time sale of 60 tonnes of stockpiled ivory by South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. The decision was taken at the panel's meeting, which took place in Geneva from March 15-19. Earlier, in November 2002, …

Clipped wings

Click here to view the factsheet

Under fire

the United States Environmental Protection Agency (epa) has been hauled to court for allegedly trying to weaken the rules that protect endangered species against pesticides. Conservation and pesticide watchdog groups filed a lawsuit against the agency on January 15. The activists contend that epa is acting on the advice of …

Crowded out

god's own country is on the brink of a biodiversity disaster. A third of Kerala's flora and fauna faces the threat of extinction by 2030 due to the high density of human population. This grim scenario is depicted in the state planning board's Economic Review, 2003. The report observes that …

The ape debate

The survival of the orangutans seems to be the bone of contention between the World Wide Fund for Nature (wwf) and Malaysian environment experts. The uk chapter of wwf alleges that 91 per cent of the orangutan population in the Indonesian islands of Borneo and Sumatra has disappeared over the …

Severe impact

with efforts to combat global warming doddering, the rising temperatures may lead to the extinction of as many as 380 animal and plant species. These are the findings of an international team of researchers, who used global warming projections for 2050 to assess extinction risk for species found in areas …

Wild trouble

the multimillion-dollar trade in herbal medicines is threatening numerous plant species, as per a report of the World Wide Fund for Nature (wwf). "At least 4,000 to 10,000 plants are endangered. With demand increasing drastically, the future of these species is now more uncertain than ever before,' says Alan Hamilton, …

Records of Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphins (Sousa chinensis, Osbeck, 1765) along the coasts of India and Sri Lanka: An overview

The Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin (Sousa chinensis, Osbeck, 1765) is found in coastal waters throughout the Indian and western Pacific Oceans, but the species has not been studied in detail along the coast of India. Records of stranded specimens, occasional sightings, incidental catches, and museum specimens are reviewed here, and these …

A profane proposal

The sacred does sell. A community in Mawphlang, Meghalaya is showing the way. It has put up a toll barrier on the road leading to the Ka Law Kyntang or sacred grove. You pay a minor but valuable sum to enter the grove. Close by in Makarwat, which falls in …

Red listed

island plants and animals are the focus of the latest

Saved!

The endangered cheer, a pheasant found only in a few pockets in the western Himalaya, has been successfully reared in captivity for the first time in India. Lalit Mohan, a zoologist cum forester in the Himachal Pradesh wildlife department, managed the feat at a pheasantry in Chail, a hill resort …

Overusing water

here is the message of a recent piece of research: we are extracting too much water from rivers, streams and lakes. The implication is significant: unless there is enough water in the world's rivers to maintain freshwater ecosystems, many economies would collapse, affecting over 1.4 billion people who live in …

Forest grump

myristica swamps are one of the most unique ecosystems in the Western Ghats. They are called so as they mainly harbour species of the Myristicaceae family of flowering plants that provide nutmegs. Unfortunately, due to human activities, the swamps are today highly fragmented and hence threatened. Subhas Chandran, a lecturer …

Tasteless plan

Conservation groups are up in arms against a move to resume trade in Caspian Sea caviar. In 2001, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (cites) had placed a moratorium on caviar trade by Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan. Iran, though not subject to the ban, had also joined …

Troubled island

Eloor, a river island in Kerala, is in the midst of a health crisis, thanks to 247 chemical factories operating within the vicinity of residential areas. Residents of the island are more susceptible to diseases than those living in other places of the Kochi district, indicates a study. The health …

Gap species

analysis of 11,000 mammalian, amphibian and bird species shows major gaps in conservation practices. At least 709 bird, mammalian and amphibian species, threatened with extinction, currently have no protection whatsoever within their habitats, according to the most comprehensive analysis of the world's protected area system. In addition, many existing protected …

Yet another hypothesis to explain decline in vulture population

another theory has implicated a commonly used veterinary medicine for the large-scale disappearance of vultures from the Indian sub-continent. The theory proposed by Lindsay Oaks of the Washington State University, usa, however, raises more questions than it answers. Ornithologists estimate that more than one lakh vultures have disappeared in India …

Net loss

the destruction of the world's oceans by industrial fishing is quite evident in a shocking new report. The analysis suggests that 90 per cent of the large predator fish have been lost in the past 50 years. The era of

  1. 1
  2. ...
  3. 161
  4. 162
  5. 163
  6. 164
  7. 165
  8. ...
  9. 189

IEP child categories loading...