The state forest department and the wildlife wing have done little to save endangered and threatened species in AP, according to conservationists.

Local bodies are preparing a Greater Hyderabad City biodiversity Index, on the lines of the Singapore biodiversity index, with all details of green cover, flora, fauna and urban ecosystems and their management.

Several agencies like the GHMC, State Biodiversity Board, National Remote Sensing Agency and Osmania University are involved in the preparation of the biodiversity index.

SHOPIAN: The potential places along the historical Mughal road would be soon developed as eco-tourism sites under a special Rs 1.50 crore project.

The project to be jointly implemented by the Forest, Tourism and Wild Life Departments envisages massive aforestation, conservation of wild life habitats and rich eco-system of the area , besides creation of sustainable tourism infrastructure. The information was given by the Minister for Forests and Environment, Mian Altaf Ahmed during his tour to Shopian district.

India yesterday handed over a copy of the Detailed Project Report (DPR) of Tipaimukh Hydropower Project to Bangladesh as the two countries finalised the Terms of Reference for a joint study on the

Shillong: Despite being identified as one of the biodiversity hotspots in the world, the North Eastern part of the country has undergone a regression in its effort to protect and preserve the biodiversity resulting in the extinction of species both flora and fauna, said Additional Chief Secretary PBO Warjri.

“There has been no progress, infact, there is regression of the biodiversity and we are actually going backward in this aspect, increasing the chances for rare species to become extinct, threatened or endangered,” Warjri said.

Nearly 35,000 trees will have to be felled to make way for widening of the 223-km long National Highway 218 that passes through Bijapur, Humnabad and Gulbarga, affecting the already thin forest cover in the region.

Bijapur, Gulbarga and Bidar have a negligible forest area of three per cent. In such a scenario felling of trees will have an adverse effect on the annual rainfall, temperature and flora and fauna in the three districts, say environmentalists.

The Supreme Court directive asking the government to build a road to the Amarnath cave shrine and improve infrastructure along it is likely to snowball into a controversy.

District Secretary of Sri Lanka's hill country Nuwara Eliya D.P.G. Kumarasiri pointed out that the wild fires in the forests have damaged around 1,500 acres of indigenous forest cover.

The Cauvery eco-system is in deep trouble with the current year being one of the worst drought years that the river has witnessed.

The delta region, known as ‘Marudha Nilam’, can no longer have that nomenclature as it is now shorn of Marudu trees, a native plant. The ‘minimum viable population’ (MVP) size of this tree has gone down and has become virtually an ‘endangered species’. Frequent loss of flows in the river over the past four decades has resulted in gradual degradation of the eco-system, laments K.V.Krishnamurthy, former Head of the Department of Botany, Bharathidasan University, considered an authority on the Cauvery’s flora and fauna.