Environment

On August 9, a leopard made its way from Aarey forests to an abandoned warehouse in Andheri East. The animal was mapped, trapped and released back to the forests. This was one of the happier stories of man-animal interaction in a city like Mumbai. Six leopards have been rescued from Mumbai Metropolitan Region since 2017 and dozens have strayed into human habitats. In July 2018, a man was hurt by a leopard, when he tried to save his pet dog in Mulund’s Rahul Nagar, on the periphery of SGNP. In January 2018, a leopard had entered a ground floor flat…

We’ve likely seen coloured garbage bins in malls, airports and so on. The bin colour indicates, of course, what kind of trash we should put where, based on whether it's food waste or recyclable waste. Many a time, I have stood in front of these bins and wondered where to put the coffee cup and the little styrofoam container. Are they the same material? Are they both recyclable? Manufacturers must step up! For years the burden of dealing with plastic disposal has been with the consumer. We are told to reduce, reuse, and recycle while the manufacturers who sell us…

It's that time of the year in Mumbai now. If you visit the mangroves of Mumbai these days, you will see clouds of dragonflies (Pantala flavescens) dancing above them. Dragonflies helicoptering above the mangroves at Thane Creek (Photo: Gopal) Dragonflies undertake one of the longest migrations known among insects. They fly all the way from the Deccan to South Africa riding the North-East monsoon winds. In Kerala, the dragonflies appear just around or after the festival of Onam in September, when the South West Monsoon loses steam and are called Ona-thumbi or the dragonflies of Onam. In Mumbai, we do not have a…

Farmers in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh are peeved at being blamed for Delhi’s smog. “We have been burning crop residue for the past 50 years now,” said a leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union from Haryana, who does not want to be named. “If anybody is affected it should be the surrounding villages. We don’t face any such problem. So why is this problem in Delhi seen just during these past few years?” Every winter, not just Delhi but the entire northern region is frequently enveloped in a thick blanket of smog, caused by air pollution from vehicular and…

In 2008, Nandini N, professor at the Department of Environmental Science at Bangalore University, started documenting Bengaluru’s biodiversity for its first People’s Biodiversity Register (PBR). She was a member of BBMP’s Biodiversity Management Committee (BMC), which is mandated to prepare a PBR under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002. Professor Nandini inaugurated the exercise at JP Park in Mathikere where, she remembered, “very few Matti trees were surviving”. For the next two years, Professor Nandini, then the Director for Student Welfare at Bangalore University, involved approximately 20 colleges across the city to collate information on biodiversity. They first divided the city…

Tens of thousands of flamingos congregate annually in Talawe Wetlands, in Navi Mumbai on India's west coast. These annual visitors comprise Lesser and Greater Flamingos, the two varieties that migrate to India. Flamingo congregation at Talawe, May 2020 (Photo: Surabhi Agarwal) With India's coronavirus lockdown, this year saw a 25% increase in numbers of these migratory birds. Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), estimates that number this year may be more than 1,50,000 vis-à-vis 1,34,000 counted last year. Flamingos at sunset (Photo: Surabhi Agarwal) These wetlands, habitat of flamingos, are in danger of being taken over for development for a golf…

This article is part of our special series Environmental Sustainability & Climate Change in Tier II cities supported by Climate Trends. Chandigarh: The Beautiful City, located in the foothills of Shivalik range, was originally a cluster of 58 villages. When the site was chosen to build a modern capital for the then state of Punjab in 1948, it resulted in relocation of 21,000 people, mainly farmers cultivating crops such as wheat, corn, and maize. The city lies in the Indo-Gangetic plains, between two seasonal hill torrents – the Sukhna and Patiali rivers. Presumably, back then it was a much cooler…

This article is part of our special series Environmental Sustainability & Climate Change in Tier II cities supported by Climate Trends. In May 2018, 51-year old Shail Bala Sharma, an Assistant Town Planner (ATP) was shot dead at Kasauli –a popular hill station and cantonment in Solan district, known for its quaint colonial buildings and landmarks. She was out to enforce a Supreme Court order to demolish half a dozen illegal constructions in the town, mainly hotels, lodges and guest houses. Hotelier Vijay Singh, whose hotel was slated for demolition, allegedly opened fire on her and the accompanying town and country…

“If nothing ever changed, there’d be no butterflies.” - Unknown Everyone learns about the life cycle of the butterfly right in primary school. Incredible isn’t it? – how it metamorphoses from a crawly caterpillar into a beautiful fluttery creature. With a short life cycle of about 30 days, it responds quickly to climatic and habitat changes, and therefore the presence of butterflies is increasingly being used as an environmental indicator. Butterflies are useful pollinators, and there are several plants that rely on them to propagate. There are about 20,000 species of butterflies in the world, and 1,400 of these are…

The long suffering residents of Chennai have been living with two dead rivers, the Adyar and the Cooum, flowing through the heart of their city. These two rivers meander sluggishly through the city carrying sewage and dangerous pollutants. Besides these two rivers, there is the third one – the Kosasthalaiyar, which flows in the northern end of the city and not as polluted as the other two. These three rivers flow east towards the Bay of Bengal. A river is considered dead when it is incapable of sustaining any form of life – fish or aquatic plants, in it. This…