Protecting the critical Chambal landscape, one of last viable habitats for red-crowned roofed turtle
© Mongabay
The Chambal landscape is an important habitat for freshwater turtles. There are eight species of turtles found here of which the red-crowned roofed turtle is critically endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The Chambal turtles use the sandy riverbank for nesting. Illegal sand mining is one of the major threats for them.
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Explainer: What is World Environment Day?
© World Economic Forum
Humanity is using up the world’s resources faster than they can naturally recover, says the UN. World Environment Day, on 5 June, is a global event to celebrate and encourage action on the climate crisis. The cost of climate adaptation in developing nations is now estimated to be $500 billion a year. CO2 emissions will need to halve by 2030, the UN says, to avoid temperature rises of 2.7C and higher by the end of the century.
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Goa’s pilot seaweed farm explores viability of this climate-smart algae
© Mongabay
Goa has a 100 kms long coastline and 145 species of seaweed of which all are edible. Seaweed farming is increasingly being considered as a viable addition to fishing activities. Seaweed farming can be popularised by working with the fishing community to integrate seaweed farming into their existing fisheries activities.
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From Two Conservationists, a Hopeful Look at Earth’s Five Largest Forests
© The Wire Science
The passionate argument of the authors of a new book is that our current strategies to mitigate global warming overlook an essential reality: we need to keep carbon in the ground. In their book, they point out that boreal forests alone hold 1.8 trillion metric tonnes of carbon, the equivalent of 190 years’ worth of worldwide emissions at 2019 levels.
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Mapping soil erosion from rainfall across India
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Many parts of northeast India hold some of the most erosion-prone areas affected by rainfall-driven erosion, say, researchers, who mapped the most vulnerable areas to this type of erosion. A rainfall erosivity map developed by IIT Delhi uses multiple national and global gridded precipitation datasets covering 40 years while another risk map developed by IIT Roorkee uses a high-resolution satellite rainfall dataset of 18 years.
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More Fun Than Fun: Strife in the Harmonious World of Honey Bees
© The Wire Science
Honey bees have been held up for millennia as the prime example of a well-functioning, conflict-free society, a paragon of societal virtues well-worth emulating by humans. Some of the most interesting new knowledge that we have gained by putting honey bees under the scanner of logic, theory and experimentation paints a not-so-rosy picture of honey bee society.
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Poachers saw off horn, but leave rhino alive in a unique case in Assam
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A sub-adult male rhino was dehorned by poachers at Orang National Park, a protected area in Assam, last month. The forest department suspects that the rhino was tranquilised before its horn was cut off. It was the first poaching incident in Orang in five years. As per official data, 190 rhinos have been poached in Assam since the year 2000.
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