Thanks to forest personnel who have successfully checked poaching

Here is really a heartening news for nature lovers as the Indian gaur population at Kalakkad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (KMTR) has increased significantly during the past few years as the forest personnel have successfully checked poaching by hunters from Kerala through continuous vigil from their permanent camps in the highly inaccessible evergreen forests.

Arunodoy Sangha, NGO, and the forest department of Cachar, on Tuesday launched save nature campaign on the occasion of the World Environment Day at Udharband, 13 km from here.

The campaign began with the conveyance of the message of the day and through mass plantations of trees, both general and herbal. With the active participation of the students of various schools around the Udharband block as well as from the Diet located there, the celebration was made quite eventful.

The Lakshadweep group of islands, one of the most biologically diverse and fragile environments in India, is under pressure from population, urbanisation, development of tourism, unregulated construction, pollution, and land use changes.

A study on the state of the environment of the union territory, conducted by the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE), has found that rising sea level and climate change are as much of a threat as human activities to the archipelago comprising corals, lagoons, sea grass, beaches, and sand dunes.

Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) has decidedto undertake a detailed survey on cultivation of medicinal plants inJharkhand. ICFRE director general V K Bahuguna said there has beenconsiderable scope for production of medicinal plants in Jharkhand inview of their use by tribals in their daily lives.

He said ICFRE scientists will identify 7-8 species of medicinal herbsand plants used by the tribals of Jharkhand to develop them further.

Kerala's plant biodiversity faces a severe threat from 89 alien invasive species, which were recorded in a survey commissioned by the Kerala State Biodiversity Board.

Of these, 19 present a high risk; many were found displacing and destroying a large number of native species, causing environmental and economic loss. Around 40 per cent of the varieties belonging to Brazil, Trinidad, Costa Rica, Chile, and Mexico were believed to have reached the State mostly through timber and food grain imports,

A variety of birds flock the recovered stream within 48 hours

For the past couple of weeks Rakesh Kumar with his borrowed binoculars and relentless patience has been busy tracking and keeping record of the varieties and number of birds that have begun to flock to a small water body inside a park in Dwarka's Pochanpur village. The water body that has become home to the winged visitors has been revived in a park maintained by the Delhi Development Authority.

Protection of five river valley basins tops its agenda

The Western Ghats Task Force has submitted a proposal to recruit 1,000 forest personnel required to protect the natural forests of the Western Ghats. This was announced by Ananth Hegde Ashisara, chairperson of the Task Force, at a meeting on the protection of environment, forests and bio-diversity and pollution control at the Deputy Commissioner’s office in the city on Wednesday.

To offset the effects of climatic change and global warming in the country, the Pakistan Forests Institute (PFI), Peshawar has completed a comprehensive study to determine the climatic change scena