Wildlife

The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands and Madagascar's Ministry of the Environment and Forests have declared the Nosivolo River as the country's seventh Ramsar site. It is the first river in Madagascar to receive this designation. Situated in a rich wetland area in the eastern part of Madagascar, ‘Rivière Nosivolo et affluents’ (358,511 ha; 20°03’S 48°07’E) comprises 130 km of main river system along which flowing water, lakes, pools and irrigated lands spread throughout 200 km, including 62 inland...

Two leading organisations have signed a memorandum of understanding to ensure a better protection of the Virunga National Park, a World Heritage site in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The agreement, between UN-HABITAT and WWF, marks the first time the two agencies with different mandates have joined hands in an effort to pursue the same goal of recognising their mutual interest in the management of the Virunga National Park, and other protected areas. The two organisations will...

For the first time in more than 10 years, there has been a confirmed sighting of one of the rarest and most enigmatic animals in the world, the saola ( Pseudoryx nghetinhensis) from the Annamite Mountains of Laos and Vietnam. The Government of the Lao People's Democratic Republic (also known as Laos) has announced that in late August villagers in the central province of Bolikhamxay captured a saola and brought it back to their village. When news of the saola's capture reached Lao authorities...

Most of the world's last remaining tigers – long decimated by overhunting, logging, and trade – are now clustered in just 6 percent of their available habitat, wildlife researchers have found. They have identified 42 'source sites' across Asia. These sites are now the last hope and greatest priority for the conservation and recovery of the world's largest cat. The strategies to save the tiger must focus on protecting these remaining concentrations of tigers, the scientists have said. These 42...

Researchers in the UK have demonstrated nature’s talent for cross-breeding plants to create new flowers. These findings may help explain the rich biodiversity of the natural world. DNA analysis of wild evergreen rhododendrons in the Himalayas has suggested that hundreds of species of the plant could be derived from hybrids — cross-breeds between different species. These findings may help explain the rich biodiversity of the natural world. The study by researchers from the University of Edinburgh...

Mohammad bin Tughlaq had ruled over vast stretches and tracts of land that today constitute India. He was a great ruler who left behind a legacy. A legacy that is today most identifiable as an adjectival derivative of his name – Tughlaqesque. The word is too complex to have an exact synonym. Tughlaqesque would mean exotic, Quixotic, far-fetched, well-meaning, ill-conceived, arrogant, grandiose, all at the same time. It is also a word that can be routinely associated with India’s later-day rulers...

It is hardly surprising that International Tiger Day, today – September 28, has almost passed by without even a purr. Few know about it, still fewer remember. In all likelihood that is what is going to happen to the tiger too – it will disappear sans even a protesting growl. Its howls, when trapped or killed mercilessly, are never heard anyway. For a nation that cannot even remember its own national animal on International Tiger Day, perhaps that is the fate that starkly awaits the royal beast...

This is a subject so oft-debated in our circles that it is beginning to lose its significance. The basic factors responsible for the virtual non-existence of environmental/wildlife issues in the news media are the same today as they were some years back. Recycling the same issues again would do nothing more than fill up space for Green Voice. It is time to take things further, to develop a strategy, and work on – not towards – it. The fight for news-space is not a battle, it is a game. It is a...

For the little girl who grew up in war-ravaged England in the 1940s, the stories of Tarzan and Dr Dolittle, who lived in the jungles of Africa with their wild companions, were to change her life forever. Determined to share a forest home with African animals, she grew up to be Jane Goodall, the world’s foremost authority on chimpanzees today.Goodall’s observations and discoveries are now intemationally heralded. Her research and writing have made, and are making, revolutionary inroads into...