(April 07, 2020) In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown of the nation, the safety and livelihood of forest communities has been shrouded in uncertainty.At this juncture, inspiration can be taken from the Kerala Forest Department’s efforts to contain the spread of the virus within forest communities in the state. The Department has proactively put in place a series of measures to support them during the lockdown enforced by the Centre.Kerala forest officials providing rations to fo...

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(December 12, 2019) WCS-India staff setting up camera-trapTelangana Forest Department has begun its annual wildlife census in Amrabad Tiger Reserve from December 6. An area of 1,100 sq km will be covered under the census over a period of six months.For the statistics, the tiger reserve has been divided into two blocks of 550 sq km each, and the blocks are further subdivided into multiple grids of 2 sq km each. This year too, the survey will focus on both – herbivores and carnivores – populations and wil...

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(October 09, 2019) Researchers from the US and the UK have revealed that at least one in five land-based species on the planet is traded on the global wildlife market.In a paper published in this month’s edition of the journal Science, academics from the University of Florida and the University of Sheffield said the scale of the wildlife trade is far larger than had previously been thought, adding that they were “astounded” by what their research revealed.After studying data on more than 30,000 l...

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(September 18, 2019) Wilderness areas, long known for intrinsic conservation value, are far more valuable for biodiversity than previously believed, and if conserved, will cut the world's extinction risk in half, according to a new study published in the journal Nature.Wilderness areas - where human impact has been absent or minimal - are dwindling. The latest maps show over 3 million square kilometres (1.15 million square miles) of wilderness destroyed since the 1990s (an area the size of India), and that less...

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(September 03, 2019) Compiled by Aditi RajanNot to be assumed as a win for conservation, but as a ‘nudge’ to bring focus to threatened species, the 18th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES CoP18) was held in Geneva (Switzerland) between 17th & 28th August 2019. Originally scheduled to take place in Colombo between 23rd May to 3rd June 2019, the convention was rescheduled to Geneva citing security concer...

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(June 17, 2019) The government has asked states as well as NHAI to avoid building highways through wildlife sanctuaries and national parks, unless absolutely unavoidable. "To have minimum impact of highways on the protected eco-sensitive area, the implementing agency should consider to spare sanctuaries/national parks at the planning stage and wherever possible take a bypass/detour," Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said.In a circular to National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), National Highways and ...

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(May 31, 2019) Calls for transformative change across all levels and factors.Paris, May 7, 2019: Around a million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades. Not only is this loss a direct result of human activity but also constitutes a direct threat to human well-being. Among the main drivers of this change are, changes in land and sea use; direct exploitation of organisms; climate change; pollution and invasive species.This is the conclusion of one of the most exhaustive...

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(May 15, 2019) May 14, 2019: Wildlife researcher Rohan Pandit and his teammate Wangchu Phiang first stumbled upon the new-to-science pit viper species in May 2016 while surveying biodiversity in the state of Arunachal Pradesh in India, reports Mongabay.  In a new paper, the researchers have described this species and named it Trimeresurus arunachalensis, or Arunachal pit viper. The researchers say the species is unique with features that distinguish it from all the other known species of pit vipers.T...

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(April 10, 2019) April 10, 2019: The key to solving a mystery is finding the right clues. Wildlife detectives aiming to protect endangered species have long been hobbled by the near impossibility of collecting DNA samples from rare and elusive animals. Now, researchers at Stanford and the National Centre for Biological Sciences at India's Tata Institute of Fundamental Research have developed a method for extracting genetic clues quickly and cheaply from degraded and left-behind materials, such as faeces, skin or...

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(April 05, 2019) India harbours approximately half of the total population of the endangered wild Asian elephants (Elephas maximus). They need large areas for survival and are considered as “umbrella species” as their conservation also protects other species that occupy that same habitat. However, like many other animals, elephants are also facing the heat of a changing climate, and are a victim of habitat loss. In a recent study, an international team of researchers from India, Spain,...

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