Environment

The grass rustled suddenly about four feet from where I stood. I watched in surprise as a glistening, button-sized pink nose nudged aside the greenery on the marsh bund. Then the ball of rust-grey fur spotted me, shot out of the undergrowth, and scampered away. From a safe distance, the creature studied me and my fellow birding enthusiasts for a few seconds more, its fur glinting in the early morning sun. Was it a ruddy mongoose? I wondered. ­­­ The juxtaposition was unreal. We were standing on the busy 200 Feet Radial Road that cuts across the Pallikaranai marshland, Chennai’s…

Meerasa’s story is one of displacement. The son of a boat maker and a resident of Dhonirevu (Karimanal island), one of many villages around the Pulicat lake, Meerasa and his parents were evicted from their home in 1985 during ISRO’s Sriharikota expansion. Meerasa now lives in Jameelabad and has worked in conservation since he graduated from school. But with industrial expansion around Pulicat lake threatening the land and the mangrove forests that surround them, Meerasa fears that history might be repeating itself. About 50 km north of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, is Pulicat lake, the second largest brackish water ecosystem in…

The Wetlands in India, Mumbai and Navi Mumbai included, are under severe threat. Time to take action is now. "According to the environment ministry, 35 per cent of wetlands have disappeared since the 1970s and 87 per cent have been lost since the 1700s. Causes of wetland loss are drainage and infilling for agriculture and construction, pollution, overexploitation of resources (like overfishing), invasive species and climate change." - Hindustan Times Read more: How a Navi Mumbai citizens group fought for the flamingos World Wetlands Day World Wetlands Day, that is observed on 2nd February every year, was celebrated by several…

There was someone tapping on our gate. Two gentlemen were seeking permission to enter; to rescue a bird trapped on our silver oak tree. People in neighbouring buildings had seen the bird, a kite, struggling since that morning. Its wing had been caught in manja (twine used to fly kites) that must have got entangled in the tree during the kite-flying season. A young man working in an office nearby had been monitoring the bird. He saw that though other kites had been attempting to free it, the raptor remained trapped several hours later, into the late afternoon. And he…

The big mountain of trash on the Gurgaon - Faridabad road, now higher than the surrounding Aravalli hills witnessed loud cries of ‘Remove this Polluting Landfill from our Aravalli Forest’ and ‘We do not want a Toxic Waste-to-Energy Plant in our Aravallis’ by more than 60 adults and 30 children on Sunday, 24th January 2021. The motley group gathered at the Bandhwari landfill hailed from the cities of Gurgaon, Faridabad and Delhi as well as the surrounding villages of Manger and Bandhwari.  “The theme of our campaign is Green vs Black. The adults have come dressed in green attire to…

How to enhance green cover in Chennai -- this is a question being mulled over for decades now. But despite various attempts in that direction over the past two decades, the conversation around greening Chennai really gained momentum only after Cyclone Vardah uprooted thousands of trees in December 2016. Organisations working on biodiversity conservation initiated research projects on the city’s shrinking greenery, the number of tree plantation drives rose sharply and nodal agencies of tree management in the city were seen teaming up with organisations and individuals to find effective solutions.  Nevertheless, there seems to be a huge disconnect between…

For the third time in the past five months, ESCOMs (electricity supply companies) in the state have sought an increase in power tariff,  to make up for a revenue gap of Rs 3,556 crore.  The hike will be a double whammy, as the BWSSB (Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board) has said that a hike in water charges will be inevitable (BWSSB spends Rs 70-80 crore of its Rs 115 crore revenue on electricity charges). While the power hike pinches one and all, it is particularly so for apartment complexes. Besides personal consumption, residents in apartment complexes also share the…

While the city had a narrow escape during the recent landfall of Cyclone Nivar, K Srikanth, who runs the Chennai Rains blog, spent about eight hours tracking the movement of the cyclone, understanding its nature and updating his followers. “In general, the time spent on tracking the weather depends on the need. During Cyclone Nivar, I spent about three hours in the morning to share daily updates and five hours for follow-up posts and analysing the weather,” says Srikanth, who has been blogging for a decade. Srikanth is just one among a flourishing, passionate breed of weather bloggers in Chennai,…

It is magic at the DPS Lake these days. Located near Palm Beach Road behind Delhi Public School, Nerul in Navi Mumbai, the lake is home to many different species of birds. At this time of the year, the flamingos stand out and they are there in thousands! Flamingo City. (Pic: Malcolm Stephens) (Pic: Malcolm Stephens) Greater and Lesser flamingos fly in to Mumbai every winter from Kutch, Gujarat and Sambar Lake, Rajasthan. They are also known to come from other countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. The winters are harsh there, and apart from the warmth, the shallow…

When 25-year-old Vivek Gurav, working in an IT company in Pune, came across a video of Swedish native Erik Ahlström on YouTube, it struck him that this might provide a way of reducing plastic waste and be a way to bring youth to become volunteers of change. “I come from a small village near Kolhapur and I used to swim in the river flowing near my village,” recalls Vivek. In Pune, it saddened him to see the city’s water bodies covered in garbage and plastic waste. “While a student of MIT institute of Computer Engineering in Alandi, Pune, I was…