-Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Delhi The report Regulating Urban Trees in India: Issues and Challenges by Kanchi Kohli and Manju Menon (published in July, 2022), highlights the scope and functions of a dozen tree laws implemented in different states in India. The implementation of these laws has come to public focus in recent years due to the growing number of cases of large-scale tree felling in Indian cities. The government use of mechanisms...

Forest fires are not just confined to countries like the United States of America (California, 2020), Brazil (Amazon forest, 2019-2020) or Australia (2019-20); they happen every year across many states in India too. Media reports suggest that forest fires have taken place in the recent months in Odisha's Simlipal National Park, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, among other states. Forest fires have also been reported this year in Nagaland-Manipur border (Dzukou...

-Down to Earth The issue is about carrying capacity of the fragile region, which is even more at risk because of climate change The flash flood in high Himalayas, which has claimed lives and wiped out two hydroelectric plants on the Ganga, should be a grim reminder of the mistakes we continue to make. There is no rocket science here about why this devastation happened. The Himalayas are the world’s youngest mountain...

-The Hindu The projects, including mining and a highway, were brought up during virtual conferences; but site inspections are ‘a crucial component’ of project evaluation, say scientists Dibang Valley in Arunachal Pradesh has a decidedly other-worldly feel. “Yeh kaunsi duniya hai,” my colleague exclaimed as we climbed the towering mountains — home to the endemic goat-antelope Mishmi takin, the ‘bright-eyed’ butterfly Callerebia dibangensis, and the Mishmi wren-babbler. I had read about the...

-Livemint.com The line, connecting Hubballi and Ankola, poses a risk to 2,500 endemic species. On March 20, the controversial Hubballi-Ankola railway line project was cleared at the Karnataka State Wildlife Board meeting in Bengaluru amid protests from members. The proposed 164.44-km line will pass through the Western Ghats, a United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation World Heritage Site, and see felling of 2.2 lakh trees, a move that has been opposed...