Environment

Summer in India has been merciless this year, with many states recording temperatures above 42 degrees Celsius and rising reports of fatalities. Despite these harsh conditions, urban support continues for development projects that clear trees, wetlands, mangroves, and forests near cities. A recent Article 14 report provides data on thousands of trees that will soon be sacrificed nationally for infrastructure projects. Those opposing such unscientific large-scale tree felling are often labelled 'tree-huggers', 'anti-development' and 'anti-nationals'. While capitalism accelerates environmental degradation and the world faces a growing climate crisis, societal divisions deepen.  Yet, we give trees too little credit: Beings necessary…

Late each winter, Bengaluru briefly transforms into an Indian Kyoto, as roads blush pink, office parks turn photogenic, and social media buzzes with claims of a local “cherry blossom” season. But the star of this spectacle is not cherry at all. It is Tabebuia rosea, the pink trumpet tree, a neotropical ornamental whose native range runs from Mexico to Ecuador. What seems like a harmless aesthetic win is, ecologically, far more complex. The history Bengaluru’s pink canopy is not new. Much of it can be traced back to the 1980s under forester S G Neginhal, who drove a major greening…

Across cities, official Air Quality Index (AQI) readings often overlook local hotspots. Chennai has eight Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS) that function 24/7 throughout the year. But this isn’t enough to map particulate matter. Air changes every few metres, as researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras tell us. Seasonal variation, construction, vehicular movement, and proximity to industries also change the air we breathe, In 2022, over 17 lakh people died in India due to air pollution (PM 2.5), according to a Lancet study. With better hyper-local air data and public awareness, citizens and policymakers can target pollution…

​“What happens when we remove this natural infrastructure of the city? What happens if it floods? What happens if the air quality (index) goes really high?” asks Pooja Domadia, a member of the Save Mumbai Mangroves campaign. These are questions that many Mumbaikars have as work begins on the Versova-Bhayandar Coastal Road, which is set to affect 45,000 mangrove trees. In March this year, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition challenging the Bombay High Court order to greenlight the cutting of mangroves for the project. Is the SC decision a fatal blow to the movement? The BMC has already begun…

Urban biodiversity is often discussed in terms of tree cover, lakes, or flagship species, but far less attention is paid to pollinators—the insects and birds that quietly sustain urban ecosystems. In Bengaluru, a rapidly urbanising city with a strong culture of citizen science, large volumes of biodiversity data are now being generated by the public. But what does this data tell us about pollinators in the city? This article draws from a data jam hosted by OpenCity in Bengaluru that explored pollinator observations using publicly available, citizen-generated datasets. By analysing long-term observation records and spatial data on land use and…

When we discuss urban nature, we often forget about real natural habitats. In Bengaluru, widely called the Garden City, most talks about urban nature focus on landscaped parks, roadside trees, and manicured gardens; in other words, artificial ecosystems designed for looks and human comfort. As lay citizens, we usually notice only such nature as we see around our homes, workplaces or other areas we generally pass by. While these places do have some ecological value, they mostly support a few highly adaptable species. This has strong negative implications for native flora and fauna that depend on open scrublands, grasslands, rocky…

Imagine you’re out on a morning walk, phone in hand, when you spot a butterfly you’ve never seen before. You snap a photo, log it into a citizen science app, and voila! You’ve just contributed to crucial biodiversity monitoring. This isn’t just a hobby; it’s part of a global movement where ordinary people collect, record, and sometimes analyse data about plants, animals, and ecosystems. Citizen science stretches the reach of ecological research. Every observation adds to unique longitudinal datasets that reveal phenology — periodic events in the life cycle of a species — along with species distribution shifts and population…

Indian cities are struggling to breathe. Air pollution is a year-round governance challenge. In 2024, 35 of the 50 most polluted cities globally were in India, with PM2.5 concentrations above 66.4 μg/m3. This is at least 13 times the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines and at least 1.6 times the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) in India. Citizens continue to bear the brunt of worsening air quality, and urban local governments (ULGs) are at the forefront of the problem, being primarily accountable for their citizens' first mile. While they do have a role to play in addressing this threat,…

​Two decades ago, Gandhi Nagar in south Chennai was a shaded green canopy, recalls Meera Ravikumar, a resident. “Now, in the name of development, many incidents of tree felling have occurred in the past 15 years on avenues and across private properties. In highly populated and polluted urban areas, green lung spaces are important,” says the member of Swacch Gandhi Nagar, a citizens group.   Since 2000, India has lost 2.33 million hectares of tree cover, according to the 2024 Global Forest Watch. Tamil Nadu has fared better than most states — its forest cover has remained “largely stable” since…

Bengaluru is often described as having “better air” than North Indian cities, yet new evidence shows this perception may be misleading. Data from 40 low‑cost air quality sensors set up by the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP) reveal sharp variations in pollution across time and place, patterns that citywide averages completely miss. In this interview, Abhishek Penchala, Senior Analyst in CSTEP’s Air Quality team, tells Citizen Matters how hyperlocal monitoring uncovers hidden pollution hotspots, from waste burning to construction dust and traffic, that the sparse official network fails to detect, forcing us to rethink how urban…