Mired in sewage

Sundarbans at risk

Bombay HC halts work at Mulund-Thane SEZ

The Bombay High Court has put a spanner in the land reclamation work currently on at the Mulund-Thane Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project site in the ecologically sensitive coastal area in northeastern Mumbai. It has asked the project proponent, Zeus Infrastructure, to stop dumping solid waste in the area immediately. The company was using construction debris and municipal garbage to reclaim land.

Astray?

Gir National Park, Gujarat, western India The Asiatic Lion (Panthera leo persica) here has, of late, developed an allegedly dubious habit young males are flexing their muscles, by ranging far beyond a territory administered, with due pride, by the forest department, even as far as coastal forests in Diu

Deep waters

  By Arnab Pratim Dutta and Sujit Kumar Singh

Rising sea levels and tidal erosion eating up Sunderbans

For the past 15 years or so, Rabindranath Das has been watching the ground slip away from beneath his feet. Back in the 1990s, his family had about 3.5 hectares (ha) of paddy fields along Ghoramara island's northwestern shores. But every year, especially during the monsoons, the Hooghly's strong undercurrents would erode a bit more of the riverbank's slopes, triggering sudden collapses of large sections of the bank.

Still life in waves

After the deluge, it's us

Large prawn fisheries damage the Sundarbans

THE TREMENDOUS surge in prawn farming, fueled by the high prices they fetch abroad, is threatening ecological disaster for the Sundarbans, a fragile area of mangrove swamps in West Bengal.

Death of the Indus delta

STARVED of fresh water and no longer able to withstand the encroaching Arabian Sea, the Indus is dying a slow death. The channels of this mighty and historic river are running dry, while salt water is destroying the lush tamarisk forests which once lined the river, the estuarine timmar, or mangrove swamps, and the red rice paddies.

Agent B483

FROM sophisticated insecticides to genetic modification, scientists have tried every possible mechanism to eliminate menacing mosquitoes. But the measures only raised environmental concerns and resulted in sturdier mosquitoes. Scientists are, therefore, working hard to find out more biological control agents to combat the disease-spreading vector. The latest to join the arsenal are bacteria.