Burning Too Bright - And The Banality of Environment Reporting

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Recently, the Prime Minister convened a meeting of the National Board of Wildlife, the apex body which reviews all government policy for endangered fauna. Critical issues were to be discussed : a dam, which will wipe out the last habitat of the snow leopard, species that are on the verge of extinction and marine species that are being exploited for illegal trade. But the only item of interest for most reporters covering the meeting was: what did the Prime Minister say about the fate of the tiger? The next day the headlines screamed, tiger population down by half! Never mind that this news had already been reported six months ago. Never mind that a crucial decision was also taken at this meeting on diversion of a forest to a hydel project in Jammu and Kashmir. The Supreme Court, this month, will rule on the cutting down of 50,000....

Rising Waters-Migrating People

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First a confession. I have read about climate change. I know what causes global warming. But as Al Gore reminds us -it's an inconvenient truth, which we all want to ignore. That's until I visited the Sunderbans- where the waters are rising so fast that it's eating up islands at a much faster rate. That's when it hit me- Climate change is no longer the future. The future is here- before our eyes. Our first images of Sunderbans- everyone seems to be on the move. And everyone is trying to move inwards from the water. Except the water keeps surging forward. There are bamboo fences, there are red bricks, and there are mud embankments. But nothing seems to meet the appetite of the hungry tide. It goes on engulfing and encircling the land on all sides. Sea levels are predicted to rise so rapidly due to climate change....