TODAY'S TRENDING ENVIRONMENT NEWS INDIA
Poacher Racket With Leopard Teeth, Claws, Pangolin Scales Held In Mayurbhanj: Odisha
The Special Task Force (STF) of Odisha police busted a major wildlife smuggling racket with the arrest of a 25-year-old poacher in Mayurbhanj district on Wednesday. Two leopard teeth, 29 leopard claws, 3.5kg of pangolin scales, and 46 parakeets were seized from the possession of the arrested person, identified as Nanda Bage.
He hails from Padagada village under Jasipur police station jurisdiction of Mayurbhanj. As per sources, the wildlife crime was unearthed after a team of STF, acting on reliable information, carried out a raid along with Karanjia forest staff this morning at canal embankment near Padagada village and apprehended the accused.
Electrocution of Himalayan vulture in 2020 highlights threats posed by high-tension power lines in Mudumalai
The electrocution of a juvenile Himalayan vulture in 2020 in the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) due to a high-tension power line, has highlighted the need to work on eliminating the threats posed to the vulture populations in the Sigur plateau in the Nilgiris, due to electricity infrastructure.
The findings of the electrocution of the vulture, believed to be the first such instance of a Himalayan vulture being electrocuted in South India, were published in the IUCN’s vulture specialist group’s newsletter.
The vulture was found dead in January of 2020, near the Maravakandy powerhouse. S. Manigandan, a wildlife biologist working with Arulagam, a conservation NGO working on studying and protecting vultures in the region, said that he had spotted a Himalayan vulture, possibly the same individual, two days prior to the discovery of the carcass near the powerhouse.
In the past, other vulture species, non-resident to the Sigur, such as the Cinereous vulture and the Eurasian griffon have also been recorded in the Sigur, he added. The researchers recommend the installation of non-lethal infrastructure and retrofitting existing infrastructure linked to the power grid to prevent such incidents in the future.
India’s ‘missing’ forests: DTE analysis exposes big gap in latest national forest survey estimates
The India State of Forest Report 2021 (ISFR 2021), released recently, has a huge hole in its estimations, according to a new analysis done by Down To Earth. The analysis, which appears as the cover story in the February 16 issue of the magazine, says India is “missing” almost 26 million hectares of its forests.
According to the DTE analysis, there are states where over 30-50% of the land classified as forests is ‘missing’ from the government’s assessment. Madhya Pradesh, for instance, has ‘lost’ nearly three million ha.
India can be said to have two kinds of forests — those that are inside the officially recorded forest area, and those that are outside it. The 2013 forest survey report had estimated India’s total forest cover as 70 million ha — but it did not distinguish if this forest was inside or outside the recorded forest area.
From the 2015 State of Forest Report, the area inside the forest got reduced to 51 million ha and the rest — 19-20 million ha — was said to be forest cover outside recorded forest area. The bottom line is, Indian forests are not in good shape: The increase in forest cover is not boast or even note-worthy. The ‘missing’ forest is the real issue that we need to focus on. Otherwise our forests will be only ‘paper forests’ — forests only on paper and not real.
👉 DTE
IITs to give more teeth to pollution forecast: Delhi
The Delhi government on Tuesday reviewed the much-talked-about ‘real-time source apportionment study and pollution forecasting’ project with a team from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)- Kanpur along with other partner organisations, said Environment minister Gopal Rai.
The environment department and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) held the second review meeting approved by the Delhi Cabinet for which an MoU was signed in October last year, said a statement.
A team of IIT-Kanpur, IIT-Delhi, The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI) and IISER Mohali will execute the study. The DPCC has been appointed as the nodal agency for looking after the execution of the project.
The project will help identify the factors responsible for the spike in air pollution at any given spot in the city. It will help understand the real-time impact of various pollution sources such as vehicles, dust, biomass burning, stubble burning, and emissions from industries among others.
Bird Academy partners with Sikkim Bio-Diversity Conservation & Forest Management Project
Bird Academy has partnered with the Sikkim Bio-Diversity Conservation & Forest Management Project, Department of Forests and Environment, Government of Sikkim to impart training and skills to 26 dynamic team members at the official Interpretation Centres (IC) in Sikkim, in the field of customer service, administrative duties, grooming & etiquette, communication and customer service.
The objective of this specialised training program was to provide knowledge, build confidence and a deeper understanding of their responsibilities, which will further enhance their customer service skills, which Bird Academy, a pioneer in the field of training and education especially in Travel, Tourism & Hospitality, recognises as imperative for outstanding performance and success.
The importance of soft skills in today’s fast evolving world was also recognised by the Government of Sikkim who approached Bird Academy, New Delhi to train the team of 26 candidates from the level of Range Officers to Environmental Assistants having minimum educational qualification equal to or above graduate level.
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