-The Hindu The National Biodiversity Mission can help mend the dysfunctional relationship between humanity and nature On this World Environment Day (June 5), with the novel coronavirus pandemic raging across our vast country, we must reflect on the ways to rebuild our relationship with nature. India’s vast and rich biodiversity gives the nation a unique identity, of which we can be proud. The varied ecosystems across land, rivers, and oceans, feed our...

-Down to Earth Study highlight need to use sustainable management to preserve and enhance soil carbon storage of Grasslands. A new study shows that emissions of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) from Grasslands increased by a factor of 2.5 since 1750 mainly due to increased emissions from livestock. This has more than compensated for reduced emissions from the shrinking number of wild grazers, said the study published in Nature Communications. The net...

-Scroll.in The trend is also linked to recent locust outbreaks, as large quantities of vegetation provide food for locust swarms. Ravindranath lives in the heart of the Thar desert in India. He and his family are agropastoralists – people who grow crops and rear livestock – in the village of Kalu in Bikaner district, Rajasthan. But the dry Grasslands that people like Ravindranath have depended on for centuries for pasture are slowly being...

-TheWire.in In an interview for The Wire, the former ICRISAT scientist says the damage could have been contained if the government had acted promptly to warnings. The desert locust is a deadly agricultural pest that has been on a feeding spree across North Africa, West Asia and South Asia. Lore and mentions of locust swarms exist in the Mahabharata, the Bible and the Quran. But it has been largely absent from the...

-The Indian Express IPCC report shows how land use affects climate change. It must not be used to target developing countries on global warming A report released on Thursday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that better management of the world’s farms and forests is necessary to tackle climate change. Land use has always been part of conversations on climate change and activities like afforestation have held...