India's Lonar Lake has suddenly turned pink. SANTOSH JADHAV / AFP via Getty Images
A crater lake in India has mysteriously turned pink, and scientists aren't sure why.
<p>The 56,000-year-old Lonar Crater Sanctuary Lake in the state of Maharashtra transformed from its usual blue-green to a reddish pink over the last few days, <a href="https://m.timesofindia.com/india/why-a-56000-year-old-lake-has-turned-pink/articleshow/76317876.cms" target="_blank">The Times of India reported Thursday</a>. The lake, around 500 kilometers (approximately 311 miles) from Mumbai, is popular with tourists and scientists, and its transformation has sparked research and discussion.</p><p>"Sudden change in colour of water is strange. It might be because of microbial activities or could even be human interference. Research should be conducted before making any comments," Harish Malpani, who leads the microbiology department at RLT College of Science, Akola, told The Times of India.</p>
<div id="4067d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ab1b7f0bd374ae033c4ef5b51b6bc51e"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1270731124789010433" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">From Green to Pink; Lonar Crater Lake has changed its colour.
#LonarLake #LonarCrater #SaltWaterLake… https://t.co/4N558t8tXu</div> — Maharashtra Tourism (@Maharashtra Tourism)<a href="https://twitter.com/maha_tourism/statuses/1270731124789010433">1591800883.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The lake was formed around 56,000 years ago when a meteor struck the basalt rock of the Deccan Plateau. It is the world's largest basaltic impact crater and the third largest crater of any kind formed less than a million years ago, according to <a href="https://weather.com/en-IN/india/news/news/2020-06-11-maharashtras-lonar-lake-changes-colour-pink-astounds-scientists" target="_blank">The Weather Channel India</a>.</p><p>The lake also has unique salt and alkaline properties that could be behind the color change, Times of India explained. These factors encourage the growth of a kind of bacteria called Halobacteriaceae, which produce a red pigment that converts sunlight into energy.</p>
<p>While the lake has turned reddish before, this year's transformation is especially dramatic.</p><p>"It's looking particularly red this year because this year the water's salinity has increased," local geologist Gajanan Kharat explained in a video posted on Maharashtra Tourism's Twitter feed, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/11/asia/lake-lonar-pink-india-intl-hnk-scli/index.html" target="_blank">CNN reported</a>. "The amount of water in the lake has reduced and the lake has become shallower, so the salinity has gone up and caused some internal changes."</p>
<div id="843ca" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="27fb49be4aa24fe518935d11d8f029bd"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1271003488940519424" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Here is a video by Mr.Gajanan Kharat, Geologist, explaining to us why the colour of #LonarCrater Lake has changed.… https://t.co/qMhQ4Q4QSd</div> — Maharashtra Tourism (@Maharashtra Tourism)<a href="https://twitter.com/maha_tourism/statuses/1271003488940519424">1591865820.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Kharat also said the lake had gotten warmer, leading to an algae bloom.</p><p>"This algae turns reddish in warmer temperatures and hence the lake turned pink overnight," Kharat said further, according to <a href="https://www.afp.com/en/news/826/pretty-pink-india-crater-lake-changes-colour-overnight-doc-1t972r1" target="_blank">AFP</a>.</p><p>The exact cause of the color change will be determined by water samples sent in for testing by the state's forest department.</p><p>Another possibility is that lockdown measures implemented to control the spread of the new <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coronavirus" target="_self">coronavirus</a>, which <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/india-air-pollution-coronavirus-2645617908.html" target="_self">returned</a> blue skies and clean air to highly polluted Indian cities, could also be behind the lake's color change.</p><p>"There wasn't much human activity due to lockdown which could also have accelerated the change," Maharashtra's Babasaheb Ambedkar University Geography Department head Madan Suryavashi told AFP. "But we will only know the exact causes once our scientific analysis is complete in a few days."</p>
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Coronavirus patients wait to be evacuated on Tuesday ahead of Cyclone Nisarga in Mumbai. Ashish Vaishnav / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images
At least 100,000 people were evacuated along India's west coast as the country's financial capital of Mumbai awaits its first cyclone in more than 70 years.
<p>Cyclone Nisarga comes as Mumbai struggles to contain the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coronavirus" target="_self">coronavirus</a> pandemic. The city is the worst hit in India, with more than 40,000 confirmed cases and almost 1,400 deaths, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-52900967" target="_blank">BBC News reported</a>.</p><p>"Everything we didn't want to happen right now is happening," one city official said on TV, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/cyclone-nisarga-india-evacuates-100000-as-mumbai-braces-for-historic-storm" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>.</p>
<p>The storm made landfall around 1 p.m. local time with wind speeds of up to 68 miles per hour, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said, as <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/03/asia/cyclone-nisarga-mumbai-india-intl-hnk/index.html" target="_blank">CNN reported</a>. Before making landfall, it strengthened over the Arabian Sea into to a Severe Cyclonic Storm in the West Pacific, the equivalent of slightly less than a Category 1 Atlantic <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hurricanes" target="_self">hurricane</a>. The biggest threat from the storm is likely to be <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/flooding" target="_self">flooding</a>. It is projected to rain heavily and could produce a storm surge of up to 3.3 to 6.6 feet that could swamp parts of Mumbai, Thane and Raigad districts.</p><p>The storm made landfall in Alibag town, south of Mumbai. Alibag is "Mumbai's answer to Martha's Vineyard," a beach-side town where many of Mumbai's wealthy have vacation homes, The Guardian pointed out.</p><p>The storm is the first cyclone to hit Mumbai since 1948, when a storm killed 12 and injured more than 100.</p>
<p>However, scientists say the historically calm Arabian Sea is spawning more cyclones because of changes wrought by the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a>, <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/news-analysis/story/as-cyclone-nisarga-eyes-mumbai-blame-is-on-climate-change-1684690-2020-06-02" target="_blank">India Today reported</a>.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/" target="_blank">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> (IPCC) found that the Arabian Sea's surface temperature was rising. Tropical cyclones tend to form over waters 30 to 33 degrees Celsius, and that was around the surface temperature of the Arabian Sea when Nisarga consolidated.</p><p>IMD also noted that the sea spawned more storms than normal in 2019.</p><p>"During 2019, 8 cyclonic storms formed over the Indian seas. Arabian Sea contributed 5 out of these 8 cyclones against the normal of 1 per year, which equals the previous record of 1902 for the highest frequency of cyclones over the Arabian Sea. This year also witnessed development of more intense cyclones over the Arabian Sea," IMD <a href="https://mausam.imd.gov.in/backend/assets/press_release_pdf/Statement_on_Climate_of_India_during_2019.pdf" target="_blank">wrote</a>.</p>
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="805da84cf42a5f89c1f1cd8ca0760d96"><div class="fb-post" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/India.Meteorological.Department/posts/2952159661533598"></div></div>
<p>These changes are now likely to have real consequences for Mumbai and the surrounding region. BBC correspondent Janhavee Moole said it had been raining in the city since Tuesday.</p><p>"I can see the trees shaking violently," Moole said. "All beaches in the city are closed to the public and a police patrol van is making announcements, asking people to stay indoors. All safety precautions possible are being taken, but I do feel worried because the city is also in the grip of a pandemic."</p>
<p>Coronavirus patients were among those evacuated ahead of the storm. Around 150 were moved from a newly-built field hospital to a place with a concrete roof that could better withstand high wind speeds, The Guardian reported.</p><p>In addition to Mumbai, the storm also threatens people living in shacks or shanties near the coast of the state of Maharashtra, where Mumbai is located. More than 21,000 villagers were evacuated in the state's Palghar district.</p><p>The entire state is also the hardest hit in India by the coronavirus pandemic, CNN reported, with more than 72,300 cases and more than 2,400 deaths.</p><p>The storm also threatens the state of Gujarat, the Union Territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. In Gujarat, more than 50,000 people living along the coast have been evacuated.</p><p>"In wake of the coronavirus outbreak all standard operating procedures are being followed at the temporary shelters which have been sanitised and instructions have been issued on following safe distancing," Arpit Sagar, an official in Valsad, Gujarat said, according to The Guardian.</p>Cyclone Nisarga strikes about two weeks after <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/cyclone-amphan-india-bangladesh-2646063894.html" target="_self">Cyclone Amphan</a> walloped part of India's east coast, as well as neighboring Bangladesh, killing more than 100, BBC News reported. Cyclone Amphan also intensified over warm ocean surface waters.
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Locusts swarm over Jaipur, India on May 25, 2020. Vishal Bhatnagar / NurPhoto via Getty Images
India is facing its worst desert locust invasion in nearly 30 years, and the climate crisis is partly to blame.
<p>The locusts spawned a swarm of social media posts Monday when they entered the city of Jaipur, as <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/trending/trending-in-india/large-swarms-of-the-locusts-enter-jaipur-netizens-share-frightening-videos-of-attack-6427856/" target="_blank">The Indian Express reported</a>, but the crop-devouring <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/insects" target="_self">insects</a> have been wreaking havoc since May in an invasion that both began earlier and is extending farther than usual. Several farmers told <a href="https://thewire.in/agriculture/locust-attack-india-jaipur-climate-change" target="_blank">The Wire</a> that they hadn't seen an invasion this severe in their lifetimes.</p><p>"Even my father, who is 86, said he hasn't ever seen anything like this. Only heard about this in folk tales," 64-year-old Madhya Pradesh farmer Sooraj Pandey told The Wire.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Locust Ataack in Jaipur 🤮 <a href="https://t.co/QWHfOXasvf">pic.twitter.com/QWHfOXasvf</a></p>— Akanksha🎨 (@art_lover_09) <a href="https://twitter.com/art_lover_09/status/1264802499782991873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 25, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>Locusts are not uncommon in the northwest Indian state of Rajasthan, but this year they have also entered the states of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh for the first time since 1993 and the state of Maharashtra for the first time since 1974. They also do not usually move so far into Rajasthan from the border with Pakistan, according to AFP reporting <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/crops-destroyed-india-faces-worst-locust-attack-27-years-200526160727430.html" target="_blank">published by Al Jazeera</a>.</p><p>So far, the insects have devoured almost 50,000 hectares or 123,500 acres of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/agriculture" target="_self">agricultural</a> land in seven Indian states, <a href="https://apnews.com/707418101bef8e5a2340e905fb97fdd7" target="_blank">The Associated Press reported</a>, putting pressure on farmers already struggling with the impacts of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coronavirus" target="_self">coronavirus</a> lockdown.</p>
<p>The government has responded with pesticides, drones and sprayers mounted on vehicles, while farmers have resorted to banging plates, whistling and throwing stones to drive the locusts away.</p><p>"These insects are giving us sleepless nights. We are more worried about them than the virus," Mandeep Singh, a cotton farmer from Punjab, told The Associated Press.</p><p>A swarm of 40 million locusts can cover the space of a square kilometer (approximately 0.4 square miles) and eat the same as 35,000 people in a day, according to UN Food and Agricultural Organization data reported by The Wire.</p>
<p>Unusually large locust swarms bred on the Arabian Peninsula in early 2019 following heavy rains and cyclones in the region, according to AFP. Those ideal breeding conditions were the product of the climate crisis, as warmer than usual temperatures in the western Indian Ocean fueled the storms.</p><p>"These warm waters were caused by the phenomenon called the Indian Ocean Dipole — with warmer than usual waters to its west, and cooler waters to its east. Rising temperatures due to global warming amplified the dipole and made the western Indian Ocean particularly warm," Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology climate scientist Roxy Mathew Koll told The Wire.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This time desert locust attack is severe. They have arrived earlier, in huge numbers & now reached till Panna in MP. The changing climate conditions are linked with locust growth in east Africa. The swarms has potential of eating everything & destroy the crops. This from Panna. <a href="https://t.co/8aqLa8lA4O">pic.twitter.com/8aqLa8lA4O</a></p>— Parveen Kaswan, IFS (@ParveenKaswan) <a href="https://twitter.com/ParveenKaswan/status/1265124661718847489?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 26, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>The locusts have already <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/locust-swarm-east-africa-2644928358.html" target="_self">caused significant damage</a> in East Africa earlier in 2020 before migrating to India through Iran and Pakistan.</p><p>India's locust situation could get even worse, both this year and in the future.</p><p>In the short term, more locusts could arrive from Africa in June, according to AFP. There is also a concern that the locusts already in India could breed, The Associated Press pointed out.</p><p>"It is an alarming situation," KL Gurjar, a top official at India's Locust Warning Organization, told The Associated Press. "But we are more worried of their breeding. If that happens, it could be devastating for our farmlands."</p><p>In the future, climate change could also make locust invasions like this year's more common.</p><p>"Climate change may well play a role here, mainly because, according to forecasts by international climate researchers, precipitation will increase in the southern Arabian Peninsula and northern East Africa," University of Trier biodiversity scientist Axel Hochkirch told The Wire. "This means that there will be more frequent 'very humid' phases, such as we have had since 2018, and it is therefore possible that such swarms will simply occur more frequently."</p>
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Cyclone Slams India, Bangladesh, Leaving 84 Dead and Millions Displaced During Pandemic
22 May
Climate
People make their way through uprooted trees and damaged power lines blocking a road in Taltala a day after Cyclone Amphan hit the city on May 21, 2020 in Kolkata, India. Samir Jana / Hindustan Times via Getty Images
At least 84 people were killed when Cyclone Amphan walloped India and Bangladesh Wednesday, bringing "war-like" destruction to the city of Kolkata in the Indian state of West Bengal, The Guardian reported.
<p>The response to the storm, which made <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146749/amphan-batters-india-bangladesh" target="_blank">landfall</a> as the equivalent of a Category 2 <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hurricanes" target="_self">hurricane</a>, was complicated by the spread of the new <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coronavirus" target="_self">coronavirus</a>. While around three million people in India and Bangladesh evacuated to safety ahead of the storm, some villagers remained in place out of fear of contracting the virus in a crowded shelter, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/world/asia/cyclone-amphan-india-bangladesh.html" target="_blank">The New York Times reported</a>.</p><p>"At one end there is this small Covid virus that is terrifying people," West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said in a video conference reported by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/world/asia/cyclone-amphan-india-bangladesh.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>. "This was another virus from the sky."</p>
<div id="9998f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e7406f6ed87e18374f33137810432c8c"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1263270250742603776" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">This is from my terrace this morning. Trees on both sides of the road all over. People now taking photos in horror.… https://t.co/GiusoiNvLJ</div> — Boria Majumdar (@Boria Majumdar)<a href="https://twitter.com/BoriaMajumdar/statuses/1263270250742603776">1590022072.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Causes of death included felled trees, downed electrical wires and collapsed buildings. In Bangladesh, Khanat Begum and her 13-year-old daughter were killed when a gust of wind uprooted their neighbor's tree and dropped it on top of their house.</p><p>For the survivors, the storm also brought devastation. Hundreds of thousands of people saw their homes destroyed, according to The Guardian. This could enable the spread of the new coronavirus as people are forced to remain in shelters.</p><p>In Kolkata, home to around 14 million people, power was lost and many streets were <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/flooding" target="_self">flooded</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-52749935" target="_blank">BBC News reported</a>. Banerjee said that two districts had been completely destroyed.</p><p>"We have to rebuild those districts from scratch," she said, as The Guardian reported: "Area after area has been ruined. I have experienced a war-like situation today."</p>
<div id="7b314" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c3b8eb0fa61b418c861c338f875e64d5"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1263137583476822016" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Staircase outside my flat now known as Kolkata Waterfall
#CycloneAmphanUpdate https://t.co/iy53rTjbKg</div> — Anushree Hamirwasia (@Anushree Hamirwasia)<a href="https://twitter.com/anushree18_/statuses/1263137583476822016">1589990442.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>At least 15 people in the city were killed, The New York Times reported. All told, at least 72 people died in West Bengal and 12 in Bangladesh, according to BBC News.</p><p>Bangladesh evacuated more people ahead of the storm than India, at 2.4 million compared with around 660,000, The New York Times reported. But the country was still hit hard.</p><p>"Even by Bangladeshi standards, this was a powerful storm," <a href="https://www.savethechildren.net/" target="_blank">Save the Children</a> in Bangladesh Humanitarian Director Mostak Hussain said in a <a href="https://www.savethechildren.net/news/save-children-assesses-damage-india-and-bangladesh-wake-cyclone-amphan" target="_blank">statement</a>. "We've received reports that more than 5 million people were disconnected from the electricity grid for their own safety as winds of 150kph smashed into power lines, destroying homes and uprooting trees. In some of the worst-affected areas there was a tidal surge of nearly three metres, causing dams to overflow and submerging low-lying villages and crops."</p>
<div id="b13bf" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a036ae69daa493befaa5159fddac41ea"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1263461610489876480" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">UPDATE: Our teams are assessing the damage in #India & #Bangladesh in the wake of #CycloneAmphan - the most powerfu… https://t.co/5W9QHt05eJ</div> — sciasianews (@sciasianews)<a href="https://twitter.com/sciasianews/statuses/1263461610489876480">1590067696.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>For a period Monday night, Cyclone Amphan became the most powerful storm ever recorded in the Bay of Bengal, with winds of up to 165 miles per hour, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/19/asia/super-cyclone-amphan-india-banglash-intl-hnk/index.html" target="_blank">CNN reported</a>. It weakened before making landfall, bringing sustained winds of 105 mile-per-hour winds and a five meter (approximately 16 foot) storm surge, <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146749/amphan-batters-india-bangladesh" target="_blank">according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration</a>. But it was still the worst storm to strike Kolkata in 100 years, The Guardian reported.</p>
<div id="c5729" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="cf604a913975b2af1b18b4b7aae6e499"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1262448024346865665" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Just in: The JTWC has upgraded Super Cyclone #Amphan to 145kt (270kph).
Amphan is now the strongest cyclone ever r… https://t.co/xAF5sD3GCA</div> — Eric Holthaus (@Eric Holthaus)<a href="https://twitter.com/EricHolthaus/statuses/1262448024346865665">1589826038.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>It struck the same week as a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tropical-storm-intensity-climate-crisis-2646033123.html" target="_self">study confirmed</a> that the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a> is making tropical storms more intense, increasing the chance that a cyclone develops into a Category 3 storm or higher by eight percent per decade since the late 1970s. Cyclone Amphan originally intensified after passing over water temperatures as warm as 88 degrees Fahrenheit, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/world/asia/cyclone-amphan-india-bangladesh-map.html" target="_blank">The New York Times reported</a>. </p><p>"Sea surface temperatures are much warmer than normal in the Bay of Bengal right now," Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/weather/live-news/live-updates-cyclone-amphan-intl-hnk/index.html" target="_blank">told CNN</a>.</p>
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An aerial view of Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium and the city's green cover during lockdown, on April 17, 2020 in New Delhi, India. Sonu Mehta / Hindustan Times via Getty Images
By Lauri Myllyvirta and Sunil Dahiya
An economic slowdown, renewable energy growth and the impact of Covid-19 have led to the first year-on-year reduction in India's CO2 emissions in four decades. Emissions fell by around 1% in the fiscal year ending March 2020, as coal consumption fell and oil consumption flatlined.
<p>The decline in emissions reflects the headwinds <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/economy-trapped-in-four-balance-sheet-problem-ex-cea/articleshow/72867290.cms?from=mdr" target="_blank">alread</a><a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/economy-trapped-in-four-balance-sheet-problem-ex-cea/articleshow/72867290.cms?from=mdr" target="_blank">y</a><a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/economy-trapped-in-four-balance-sheet-problem-ex-cea/articleshow/72867290.cms?from=mdr" target="_blank"> affecting</a> the Indian economy since early 2019, and increasing renewable energy generation. But our analysis of official Indian data across the nation's entire 2019-20 fiscal year shows the fall has steepened in March, due to measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic. The country's CO2 emissions fell by an estimated 15% during the month of March and are likely to have fallen 30% in April.</p><p>As with the <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/iea-coronavirus-impact-on-co2-emissions-six-times-larger-than-financial-crisis" target="_blank">global CO2 impact</a> of the pandemic, the longer-term outlook for India's emissions will be shaped, to a significant degree, by the government response to the crisis. This response is now starting to emerge – as set out below – and will have major long-term implications for India's CO2 emissions and air quality trajectory.</p>
<h3>Coal Bearing Brunt of Demand Crunch</h3><p>As lower power demand growth and competition from renewables weakened the demand for thermal power generation throughout the past 12 months, the drop-off in March was enough to push generation growth below zero in the fiscal year ended March, the first time this has happened in three decades.</p><p>Over the preceding decade, thermal power generation grew by an average of 7.5% per year. As seen in the figure below, the dramatic drop-off in total power demand was entirely borne by coal-based generators, amplifying the impact on emissions.</p><p>Coal-fired power generation fell 15% in March and 31% in the first three weeks of April, based on <a href="https://posoco.in/reports/daily-reports/" target="_blank">daily data</a> from the national grid. In contrast, renewable energy (RE) generation <a href="https://posoco.in/" target="_blank">increased</a> by 6.4% in March and saw a slight decrease of 1.4% in the first three weeks of April.</p>
<iframe scrolling="no" frameborder="0" marginheight="0px" marginwidth="0px" style="display: initial; margin: 0 auto;" src="https://cbhighcharts2020.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/india-emissions-fall/india-power-gen-small-multiples.html" width="800px" height="900px"></iframe><span style="display:block; height:22px; max-width:800px;"><img src="https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/cbhighcharts2019/cb-logo-highcharts.svg" style="width: 22px; height: 22px; margin-top: 2px; margin-bottom: 2px; float:right; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: contain;"/></span><p>Daily power generation by source and by year in India. Source: <a href="https://posoco.in/reports/daily-reports/" target="_blank">POSOCO</a>. Chart by Carbon Brief using <a href="https://www.highcharts.com/" target="_blank">Highcharts</a>.</p>
<p>The fall in total coal demand extends beyond the power sector and is evident in data on coal supply. In the fiscal year ending March, coal sales by the main coal producer Coal India Ltd fell by 4.3%, while coal imports increased 3.2%, implying that total coal deliveries fell by 2% and signaling the first year-on-year fall in consumption in two decades.</p><p>The trend steepened in March, with coal sales falling 10% while coal imports <a href="https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/coronavirus-impact-india-s-coal-import-drops-over-27-pc-to-16-mt-in-march" target="_blank">fell 27.5%</a> in March, meaning that total deliveries of coal to end users fell by 15%, in line with the reduction in power generation.</p><p>In March, coal <a href="https://www.coalindia.in/DesktopModules/DocumentList/documents/nsebseprodmar2001042020.pdf" target="_blank">output increased 6.5%</a> even as sales fell by a record amount. Also, during the full year, more coal was mined than sold, indicating that the reason for the drop was on the demand side.</p>
<h3>Oil Demand: From Weak to Negative</h3><p>Similar to electricity demand, oil consumption has been slowing down since early 2019. This is now compounded by the dramatic impact of the Covid-19 lockdown measures on transport oil consumption. During the national lockdown, oil consumption fell 18% on year in March 2020.</p><p>As a result of low demand due to the coronavirus outbreak and <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-indias-co2-emissions-growth-poised-to-slow-sharply-in-2019" target="_blank">already slower demand growth earlier in the year</a>, consumption during the fiscal grew at 0.2%, the slowest in at least 22 years. Natural gas consumption <a href="https://www.ppac.gov.in/content/152_1_Consumption.aspx" target="_blank">increased</a> 5.5% in the first 11 months of the fiscal year, but is <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/natural-gas/032620-india-lockdown-domestic-natural-gas-demand-set-to-plummet" target="_blank">expected</a> to fall by 15-20% during the lockdown.</p><p>Crude oil production in India decreased by 5.9% compared to last financial year and a 5.2% drop <a href="http://petroleum.nic.in/sites/default/files/mprmarch20.pdf" target="_blank">has been observed</a> in natural gas production during the same time. Refinery production – in terms of crude oil processed – also <a href="http://petroleum.nic.in/sites/default/files/mprmarch20.pdf" target="_blank">fell</a> by 1.1% over the last financial year, compared to 2018-19.</p><p>Crude steel production dropped by 22.7% in March 2020 compared to the previous month and, cumulatively, the financial year 2019-20 saw a decline of 2.2% compared to last year, according to <a href="https://steel.gov.in/sites/default/files/March%202020_0.pdf" target="_blank">Ministry of Steel</a> data.</p>
<h3>CO2 Emissions Down 30% in April</h3><p>Using the indicators above for coal, oil and gas consumption, we estimate that CO2 emissions fell by 30m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2, 1.4%) in the fiscal year ending March, in what is likely to have been the first annual decline in four decades.</p>
<iframe scrolling="no" frameborder="0" marginheight="0px" marginwidth="0px" style="display: initial; margin: 0 auto;" src="https://cbhighcharts2020.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/india-emissions-fall/india-co2-emissions-fall.html" width="770px" height="550px"></iframe><span style="display:block; height:22px; max-width:770px;"><a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org" target="_blank"><img src="https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/cbhighcharts2019/cb-logo-highcharts.svg" style="width: 22px; height: 22px; margin-top: 2px; margin-bottom: 2px; float:right; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: contain;"/></a></span><p>Annual emissions from fossil fuel use in India, millions of tonnes of CO2, 1965-2020. Figures for 2009 onwards correspond with financial years ending that March, with the 2020 number showing fiscal year 2019-20. Source: Analysis of Indian government data for this article and <a href="https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html" target="_blank">BP Statistical Review of World Energy</a>. Chart by Carbon Brief using <a href="https://www.highcharts.com/" target="_blank">Highcharts</a>.</p>
<p>Furthermore, emissions fell by 15% year-on-year in March and by 30% in April. The April estimate is based on power-sector emissions estimated from daily generation data. This assumes oil consumption falls as much in April as in March, which is very likely to be conservative as the national lockdown is continuing until the end of the month, and gas consumption falls 15-20% <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/natural-gas/032620-india-lockdown-domestic-natural-gas-demand-set-to-plummet" target="_blank">as projected</a>.</p>
<h3>Government Response</h3><p>While the current crisis is having a significant impact on India's CO2 emissions in the short term, it could also influence the longer-term trajectory of India's energy use and emissions.</p><p>Although the situation is only beginning to unfold, three possible consequences are already emerging:</p><ul><li>Post-crisis economic stimulus could be directed towards reinvigorating the country's renewable energy program.</li><li>Plummeting electricity demand has brought the power industry's <a href="https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/power/rs-1-lakh-crore-bad-loans-ailing-indias-power-sector-teri/71721715" target="_blank">long-brewing financial problems</a> to a head, necessitating bailouts with the <a href="https://www.livemint.com/opinion/online-views/opinion-power-purchase-agreements-as-an-albatross-11587489054847.html" target="_blank">potential</a> for structural changes.</li><li>Experience of <a href="https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/oil-and-gas/covid-19-lockdown-air-quality-in-indias-major-industrial-cities-improve-by-up-to-60-compared-to-last-yr/74931010" target="_blank">exceptional air quality</a> could add momentum to efforts against <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution">air pollution</a>, resulting in strengthened targets and standards.</li></ul>
<p>In each case, the crisis could act to catalyse, reinforce or accelerate the factors that have already been driving Indian policymaking in this area.</p><p>For example, the Indian government has already started talking about <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/power/mnre-urges-states-to-provide-incentives-to-manufacturers/articleshow/75232158.cms?from=mdr" target="_blank">support for renewable energy</a> as a part of the recovery, alongside similar <a href="https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/04/14/european-leaders-push-green-recovery-plan-for-post-covid-economy/" target="_blank">statements</a> by European leaders. One reason for this continued support is the fact that <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/solar">solar</a> already offers far cheaper electricity than coal.</p><p>A <a href="https://pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=202339" target="_blank">rec</a><a href="https://pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=202339" target="_blank">e</a><a href="https://pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=202339" target="_blank">nt auction</a> secured 2,000 megawatts (MW) of new solar capacity at an average of 2.55-2.56 rupees per kilowatt hour (Rs/kWh, around $34 per megawatt hour). This result came despite the auction being held during the lockdown amid a period of severe uncertainty over the future market and financial situation.</p><p>In contrast, the average cost of a unit of electricity from India's biggest coal generator, the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), stood at <a href="https://www.ntpc.co.in/presentations/8262/presentation-15th-analysts-investors-meet-held-mumbai-19082019" target="_blank">3.38 Rs/kWh</a> in the financial year 2018-19 ($45/MWh). This figure will likely keep moving upwards with every passing year due to inflation, increasing operational costs and with implementation of <a href="http://moef.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Thermal_plant_gazette_scan.pdf" target="_blank">stricter emission standards</a>.</p><p>Another example of Indian government support for the renewable industry came in early April when it <a href="https://mnre.gov.in/img/documents/uploads/file_f-1586142405322.pdf" target="_blank">stressed</a> the "must-run" status of wind and solar projects and <a href="https://mnre.gov.in/img/documents/uploads/file_f-1585801699131.pdf" target="_blank">called on</a> distribution companies to make timely payments to power generators.</p><p>The <a href="https://mnre.gov.in/img/documents/uploads/file_f-1587398024891.pdf" target="_blank">Ministry of New and Renewable Energy</a> also extended the timelines for renewable energy projects to be completed for the period of the lockdown and the following 30 days. This will safeguard renewable energy developers from penalties arising due to delays from their committed schedules.</p><p>The ministry has also <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/power/mnre-urges-states-to-provide-incentives-to-manufacturers/articleshow/75232158.cms?from=mdr" target="_blank">written to various states</a> in recent weeks to give a "major push" to domestic renewable manufacturing capacity. Increased domestic supply will strengthen the renewable energy program by strengthening supply chains and political weight for the industry, as long as it does not give rise to excessive protectionism.</p>
<h3>Blue-Sky Thinking</h3><p>Over the past year, CO2 emissions as well as air pollution levels have <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/delhi-pollution-quality-2019-saw-more-good-air-days-6198725/" target="_blank">declined</a>. More recently, the sight of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52313972" target="_blank">blue skies</a> during the national lockdown across the country has created a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/india-coronavirus-delhi-clean-air-pollution/2020/04/10/ac23dd1e-783e-11ea-a311-adb1344719a9_story.html" target="_blank">sense of optimism</a> among the public as well as policymakers that the air in India can be cleaned, if appropriate steps are taken.</p><p>Since many of the major sources of pollution – transport, power stations and industry – are also responsible for significant shares of the country's CO2 output, any strengthening of air quality standards – or their implementation – would have knock-on effects on emissions.</p><p>Earlier last year, in response to building public pressure, the environmental ministry announced India's first-ever <a href="http://moef.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/NCAP_Report.pdf" target="_blank">National Clean Air Programme</a>. This aims to reduce particulate matter pollution levels across 102 cities by 20-30% by 2024.</p><p>The program also pointed out that India's national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), dating back to 2009, need revision. The standards are much weaker than the World Health Organization <a href="https://www.who.int/airpollution/publications/aqg2005/en/" target="_blank">guidelines</a> and there is more evidence of health impacts of air pollution <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30077140" target="_blank">being reported</a> even at low concentrations of pollutants.</p><p>The recent experience of cleaner air and the drastic drop in pollution levels due to coronavirus lockdowns have <a href="https://twitter.com/CSTEP_India/status/1252578515255468032?s=20" target="_blank">started these conversations</a> to strengthen the NAAQS among public, research institutes and civil society organizations. As a result, any return of India's poor air quality and smog can be expected to trigger a stronger public response.</p>
<h3>Power-Sector Bailouts</h3><p>As demand for thermal <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/rs-70-000-cr-covid-19-package-for-power-firms-cabinet-approval-expected-soon/story-QJpV5trLmebMW9NEnl0ZnO.html" target="_blank">power generation plummets</a>, so too do the earnings of India's electricity industry. In this way, the coronavirus crisis has brought the long-brewing financial woes of the country's power sector to a head.</p><p>The Indian government is working to finalize an economic relief package for the sector, initially <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/rs-70-000-cr-covid-19-package-for-power-firms-cabinet-approval-expected-soon/story-QJpV5trLmebMW9NEnl0ZnO.html" target="_blank">pegged at</a> INR 70,000 crore ($9bn) and now <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/power/rs-90000-crore-scheme-in-offing-for-power-companies/articleshow/75436263.cms?from=mdr" target="_blank">reportedly</a> worth INR 90,000 crore ($12bn).</p><p>The sector was already struggling before the coronavirus crisis, making it a major source of <a href="https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/power/rs-1-lakh-crore-bad-loans-ailing-indias-power-sector-teri/71721715" target="_blank">bad loans and financial distress</a>.</p><p>The reasons behind the <a href="https://www.livemint.com/industry/energy/producers-feel-the-heat-as-power-distribution-losses-widen-11579632769183.html" target="_blank">chronic financial losses</a> of the power industry and <a href="https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/power/covid-19-power-discoms-will-require-subsidies-of-rs-1-lakh-crore-in-2020-21/75539215" target="_blank">dependence</a> on government bailouts are easy enough to see. <a href="https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/delhi-govt-to-use-pvt-discom-subsidies-to-clear-dues-of-state-run-power-stations/1935729/" target="_blank">Discounted electricity tariffs</a> are offered for agricultural and domestic consumers, with farmers even being provided with electricity for <a href="https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/policy/proposed-electricity-act-may-rework-slabs-for-residential-consumers/article31395464.ece" target="_blank">free</a>, and losses covered from industrial and commercial consumers and state budgets. There are major <a href="https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/power/covid-19-impact-turbulent-times-for-power-distribution-sector/75420652" target="_blank">losses</a> in transmission and <a href="http://bwsmartcities.businessworld.in/article/Smart-meters-Invaluable-in-the-current-scenario-imperative-in-a-post-COVID-world/06-05-2020-191305/" target="_blank">theft</a> of power. Distribution companies have <a href="https://www.livemint.com/opinion/online-views/opinion-power-purchase-agreements-as-an-albatross-11587489054847.html" target="_blank">committed</a> to purchasing excessive amounts of power as a part of a push to expand thermal power generation, leading to the country's coal <a href="https://thewire.in/energy/climate-change-coal-india" target="_blank">power overcapacity</a> issue.</p><p>If the forthcoming government bailout allows these structural problems to persist then it could mean old coal power stations are able to continue operating, entrenching the country's dependence on fossil-fired generation. On the other hand, the bailout could be conditioned on reforms and restructuring, facilitating the achievement of national clean-energy goals.</p><p>There are already <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-edit-page/the-clean-environment-were-enjoying-currently-will-only-be-short-term-without-fundamental-changes/" target="_blank">calls</a> for a <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/covid-19-india-needs-a-green-economic-stimulus-opinion/story-MnFm3MdzRWWv1pD5COFKzJ.html" target="_blank">g</a><a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/covid-19-india-needs-a-green-economic-stimulus-opinion/story-MnFm3MdzRWWv1pD5COFKzJ.html" target="_blank">r</a><a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/covid-19-india-needs-a-green-economic-stimulus-opinion/story-MnFm3MdzRWWv1pD5COFKzJ.html" target="_blank">een</a> recovery package in India. These questions — re-invigorating the renewable energy program, mitigating the rebound of air pollution and addressing the structural problems of the thermal power sector — will be at the heart of determining the outcome.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-indias-co2-emissions-fall-for-first-time-in-four-decades-amid-coronavirus" target="_blank">Carbon Brief</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
- Greenhouse Gas Emissions Set for Record Decline Due to ... ›
- Social Distancing Is Also Helping the Climate - EcoWatch ›
- India's Air Pollution Plummets in COVID-19 Lockdown - EcoWatch ›
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Bengal Tiger, Panthera tigris, female crossing track, Bandavgarh National Park, India. David Tipling / Universal Images Group / Getty Images
By Neil Carter
Tigers are one of the world's most iconic wild species, but today they are endangered throughout Asia. They once roamed across much of this region, but widespread habitat loss, prey depletion and poaching have reduced their numbers to only about 4,000 individuals. They live in small pockets of habitat across South and Southeast Asia, as well as the Russian Far East — an area spanning 13 countries and 450,000 square miles (1,160,000 square kilometers).
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Today Asia is experiencing a road-building boom. To maintain economic growth, development experts estimate that the region will need to invest about <a href="https://www.adb.org/publications/asia-infrastructure-needs" target="_blank">US$8.4 trillion</a> in transportation infrastructure between 2016 and 2030.
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<em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/endangered-tigers-face-growing-threats-from-an-asian-road-building-boom-137052" target="_blank">The Conversation</a></em><em>.</em>
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<p>Major investment projects, such as China's <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13317" target="_blank">Belt and Road Initiative</a> — one of the largest infrastructure projects of all time — are fueling this growth. While roads can <a href="https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/29406/when-rural-roads-benefit-poor.pdf" target="_blank">reduce poverty</a>, especially in rural areas, many of Asia's new roads also are likely to traverse regions that are home to diverse plants and animals.</p><p>To protect tigers from this surge of road building, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=SquL06QAAAAJ&hl=en" target="_blank">conservation scientists like me</a> need to know where the greatest risks are. That information, in turn, can improve road planning in the future.</p><p>In a newly published study, I worked with researchers at the University of Michigan, Boise State University and the University of British Columbia to examine how existing and planned Asian roads <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/18/eaaz9619" target="_blank">encroach on tiger habitats</a>. We forecast that nearly 15,000 miles (24,000 kilometers) of new roads will be built in tiger habitats by 2050, and call for bold new planning strategies that prioritize biodiversity conservation and sustainable road development across large landscapes.</p>
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Letting Humans In
<p>Road construction <a href="http://tigers.panda.org/news/asias-infrastructure-development-threatens-worlds-tigers/" target="_blank">worsens existing threats to tigers</a>, such as poaching and development, by paving the way for human intrusion into the heart of the tiger's range. For example, in the Russian Far East, roads have led to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7998.2008.00458.x" target="_blank">higher tiger mortality</a> due to increased collisions with vehicles and more encounters with poachers.</p><p>To assess this threat across Asia, we focused on areas called Tiger Conservation Landscapes — 76 zones, scattered across the tiger's range, which conservationists see as crucial for the species' recovery. For each zone we calculated road density, distance to the nearest road and relative mean species abundance, which estimates the numbers of mammals in areas near roads compared to areas far from roads. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1522488113" target="_blank">Mean species abundance</a> is our best proxy for estimating how roads affect numbers of mammals, like tigers and their prey, across broad scales.</p><p>We also used <a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aabd42" target="_blank">future projections of road building</a> in each country to forecast the length of new roads that might be built in tiger habitats by 2050.</p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="cec6392b3df8ca30d414d90e477b9c60"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iFJSfOsbcDs?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
More Roads, Fewer Animals
<p>We estimated that more than 83,300 miles (134,000 kilometers) of roads already exist within tiger habitats. This is likely an underestimate, since many logging or local roads are missing from the global data set that we used.</p><p>Road densities in tiger habitat are one-third greater outside of protected areas, such as national parks and tiger reserves, than inside of protected areas. Non-protected areas averaged 1,300 feet of road per square mile (154 meters per square kilometer), while protected areas averaged 980 feet per square mile (115 meters per square kilometer). For tiger populations to grow, they will need to use the forests outside protected areas. However, the high density of roads in those forests will jeopardize tiger recovery.</p><p>Protected areas and priority conservation sites — areas with large populations of tigers — are not immune either. For example, in India — home to more than <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/07/29/746237332/census-finds-nearly-3-000-tigers-in-india" target="_blank">70% of the world's tigers</a> — we estimate that a protected area of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_reserves_of_India" target="_blank">500 square miles, or 1,300 square kilometers</a>, contains about 200 miles (320 kilometers) of road.</p><p>Road networks are expansive. More than 40% of areas where tiger breeding has recently been detected — crucial to tiger population growth — is within just 3 miles (5 kilometers) of a nearby road. This is problematic because <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2010.02.009" target="_blank">mammals often are less abundant</a> this close to roads.</p><p>In fact, we estimate that current road networks within tiger habitats may be reducing local populations of tigers and their prey by about 20%. That's a major decrease for a species on the brink of extinction. And the threats from roads are likely to become more severe.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzE4NDIxNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NTc0NTM3OH0.pcm2nX06av2HMMRLuNGa0dRLEJppyx6FrKv3FEi-WmQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="dab6e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1d766502917e14ebd219933e2baabaf6" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Estimated road densities for 76 tiger conservation landscapes (colored zones), with darker red indicating more roads per unit area. Neil Carter / CC BY-ND
Making Infrastructure Tiger-Friendly
<p>Our findings underscore the need for planning development in ways that interfere as minimally as possible with tiger habitat. Multilateral development banks and massive ventures like the Belt and Road Initiative can be important partners in this endeavor. For example, they could help establish an international network of protected areas and habitat corridors to safeguard tigers and many other wild species from road impacts.</p><p>National laws can also do more to promote <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/27751" target="_blank">tiger-friendly infrastructure planning</a>. This includes keeping road development away from priority tiger populations and other "no go" zones, such as tiger reserves or habitat corridors.</p><p>Zoning can be used around infrastructure to prevent settlement growth and forest loss. Environmental impact assessments for road projects can do a better job of assessing how new roads might exacerbate hunting and poaching pressure on tigers and their prey.</p><p>Funding agencies need to screen proposed road developments using these tiger-friendly criteria before planners finalize decisions on road design, siting and construction. Otherwise, it might be too late to influence road planning.</p><p>There are also opportunities to reduce the negative effects of existing roads on tigers. They include closing roads to vehicular traffic at night, decommissioning existing roads in areas with important tiger populations, adding road signs announcing the presence of tigers and constructing wildlife crossings to allow tigers and other wildlife to move freely through the landscape.</p><p>Roads will become more pervasive features in Asian ecosystems as these nations develop. In my view, now is the time to tackle this mounting challenge to Asian biodiversity, including tigers, through research, national and international collaborations and strong political leadership.</p>
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Deserted view of NH24 near Akshardham Temple on day nine of the 21-day nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus on April 2, 2020 in New Delhi, India. Raj K Raj / Hindustan Times via Getty Images
India is home to 21 of the world's 30 most polluted cities, but recently air pollution levels have started to drop dramatically as the second-most populated nation endures the second week of a 21-day lockdown amidst coronavirus fears, according to The Weather Channel.
<p>While the complete shutdown of India's economy was designed to stop the spread of COVID-19, it is having an ancillary health benefit of clearing the air that millions of people were choking on, according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/31/asia/coronavirus-lockdown-impact-pollution-india-intl-hnk/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>. As vehicles stay off the road, construction is put on hold, and factories stop production, the levels of microscopic particulate matter, or PM 2.5, start to drop.</p><p>"It is true that pollution levels are going down and will continue to be lower as a result of lockdown," Pawan Gupta, senior scientist at the Earth Sciences of Universities Space Research Association at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, told <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/is-the-covid-19-lockdown-really-decreasing-air-pollutio-1842620452" target="_blank">Earther</a> in an email.</p>
<p>Recent heavy rains in the north and west of the country have also helped the country's pollution levels, Gupta added. "Rain is a very effective aerosol removal process from the atmosphere and can bring down particulate matter values," he said.</p><p>Since the March 25 lockdown that forced 1.3 billion Indians to stay home, air quality in New Delhi, usually the worst in the world, has dropped to "satisfactory" levels. The lockdown order shut down offices, schools, movie theaters, malls, markets and "non-essential" service providers. All modes of public transport such as metro trains, buses, inter-state trains and domestic and international flights for civilian movement have also been stopped, according to <a href="https://qz.com/india/1827993/coronavirus-lockdown-means-better-air-quality-for-delhi-mumbai/" target="_blank">Quartz</a>.</p><p>The effect of the lockdown has been dramatic. In New Delhi, where flights have been diverted because smog shrouded the airport, the air pollution levels have dropped 71 percent in just one week. On March 20, the air had an unhealthy 91 micrograms per cubic meter of PM2.5. On March 27, just a couple days into the lockdown, that level fell to 26 micrograms per cubic meter. Anything above 25 is considered unsafe, according to the World Health Organization, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/31/asia/coronavirus-lockdown-impact-pollution-india-intl-hnk/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>"I have not seen such blue skies in Delhi for the past 10 years," said Jyoti Pande Lavakare, the co-founder of Indian environmental organization Care for Air, and author of upcoming book <em>Breathing Here is Injurious To Your Health</em>, to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/31/asia/coronavirus-lockdown-impact-pollution-india-intl-hnk/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>. "It is a silver lining in terms of this awful crisis that we can step outside and breathe."</p>
<p>Data from the Central Pollution Control Board of India's Environment Ministry also showed a 71 percent decrease in nitrogen dioxide levels. Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Bangalore have also recorded a drop in these air pollutants, according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/31/asia/coronavirus-lockdown-impact-pollution-india-intl-hnk/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>. In Mumbai, the financial capital, air quality levels in March 2019 averaged 153 on the Air Quality Index, which ranks as unhealthy to breathe, according to <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-india-pollution/indians-breathe-easier-as-lockdowns-to-halt-coronavirus-clear-smog-idUKKBN21A1BV" target="_blank">Reuters</a>. New Delhi averaged 161 last March.</p><p>The tops of skyscrapers were visible and some residents told <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-india-pollution/indians-breathe-easier-as-lockdowns-to-halt-coronavirus-clear-smog-idUKKBN21A1BV" target="_blank">Reuters</a> they could spot more stars than usual.</p><p>"The air quality is likely to slip into 'good' category soon. It is due to reduced vehicular traffic and rise in temperature," said Kuldeep Srivastava, who heads the regional meteorological center at the Indian Meteorological Department, to <a href="https://weather.com/en-IN/india/pollution/news/2020-03-23-coronavirus-lockdown-weather-improve-delhi-air-satisfactory" target="_blank">The Weather Channel</a>.</p><p>However, it is important to remember that this is a temporary reprieve that will return if industry and vehicular traffic return once the lockdown is over.</p><p>As for its effect on the climate crisis, <a href="https://weather.com/en-IN/india/pollution/news/2020-03-23-coronavirus-lockdown-weather-improve-delhi-air-satisfactory" target="_blank">The Weather Channel</a> reported that the World Meteorological Organization issued a statement that read: "Efforts to control the coronavirus pandemic have reduced economic activity and led to localized improvements in the air quality. But it is too early to assess the implications for concentrations of greenhouse gases, which are responsible for long-term <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">climate change</a>."</p>
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Students from various institutions take part in a protest in support of the global action against climate changes Friday for Future, in Guwahati, Assam, India on Friday, Nov. 29, 2019. Recently, more than 40 organizations in India have come together to co-operate on climate solutions. David Talukdar / NurPhoto / Getty Images
By Nivedita Khandekar
After decades of concentrating on economic development and insisting that global warming was mainly a problem for the more industrially-developed countries to solve, Indian industry is at last facing up to dangers posed to its own future by climate change.
<p>More than 40 organizations — including major industrial corporations such as <a href="https://www.tata.com/" target="_blank">Tata</a>, <a href="https://www.godrejproperties.com/" target="_blank">Godrej</a>, <a href="https://www.mahindra.com/about-us" target="_blank">Mahindra</a> and <a href="https://www.wipro.com/" target="_blank">Wipro</a> through their various philanthropic organizations, plus academic thinktanks, business schools, aid agencies, and the government's scientific advisers — have come together to co-operate on climate solutions.</p><p>The umbrella organization, called the <a href="https://indiaclimatecollaborative.org/" target="_blank">India Climate Collaborative</a> (ICC), also includes international institutions such as <a href="https://www.bloomberg.org/about/" target="_blank">Bloomberg Philanthropies</a> and the <a href="https://www.macfound.org/" target="_blank">MacArthur Foundation</a>.<em></em></p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/india-climate/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Climate News Network</a>.</em></p>
Climate Disasters
<p>Although there have been many individual initiatives in India on climate change, and there has been government support for renewables, particularly solar power, efforts so far have been fragmented.</p><p>State and national governments, individual departments, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and academics have all worked separately, and sometimes in opposition to each other.</p><p>The scale of the task facing India is underlined by the fact it has taken two years to get the ICC up and running. However, with India <a href="https://germanwatch.org/sites/germanwatch.org/files/20-2-01e%20Global%20Climate%20Risk%20Index%202020_10.pdf" target="_blank">ranked fifth in the Global Climate Risk Index 2019</a> and facing one climate disaster after another — sometimes simultaneous extreme weather events — these organizations have agreed that the issue can no longer be ignored.</p><p>At the opening ceremony for the organization, Anand Mahindra, chairman of the Mahindra Group, said: "It is clear that the world cannot continue to pursue a business-as-usual approach, and nobody can solve the problem on their own. Business, government and philanthropy must collaborate within and among themselves themselves to drive results quickly and at scale. The India Climate Collaborative can make this happen."</p><p>The ICC has identified <a href="https://indiaclimatecollaborative.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/CC_INFO1.pdf" target="_blank">three critical risk factors</a> for India:</p><ol><li>The first is that an astonishing 700 million people are still dependent on agriculture and they are the most vulnerable to an erratic climate.</li><li>The second is that around the country's approximately 7,500 km coastline are several major cities. Many of these important economic hubs, which include all the country's main ports, are a metre or less above current sea level.</li><li>Third, even with the increasingly rigorous focus on renewable energy, there is continued heavy reliance on fossil fuels for producing electricity, which is still in short supply.</li></ol>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.dasra.org/resource/india-philanthropy-report-2019" target="_blank">India Philanthropy Report 2019</a>, private funds in India, mostly raised through non-government philanthropy, provided about Rs 70,000 crore ($9.5 billion) in 2018 for the social sector, mostly focusing on key aspects such as health, education and agriculture.</p><p>However, only a small proportion was spent on climate change, and so the ICC aims to raise the current spending of about 7 percent to at least 20 percent.</p><p>Another hindrance to India's many plans for adaptation or mitigation is the lack of capacity among government departments. Something as basic as preparing workable proposals for funding action is a tough task for many state governments.</p><p>The ICC plans to conduct technical training as "there are gaps to be filled to take care of the talent shortfall, and there is overall lack of capacity."</p><p>One of the first training exercises is planned for state-level bureaucrats from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, and in the western state of Rajasthan.</p>
Cross-Purposes
<p>There is some concern that while the India government is represented on the ICC by <a href="https://www.icts.res.in/news/prof-k-vijayraghavan-appointed-principal-scientific-advisor-government-india" target="_blank">Prof K. VijayRaghavan</a>, its Principle Scientific Adviser, there is no representation from the Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (MoEFCC), which represents the country at the climate talks.</p><p>Critics claim that this is particularly worrying because the various government departments are already seen as not working together, or often working at cross-purposes.</p><p>There are also fears that there is lack of community involvement, particularly the farmers, who are the largest single group most affected by adverse weather conditions caused by climate change.</p><p>However, <a href="https://idronline.org/contributor/shloka-nath/" target="_blank">Shloka Nath</a>, executive director of the ICC and head of Sustainability and Special Projects at the Tata Trust, says the ICC plans to work with the MoEFCC to reach representatives of civil society and bring them into the process.</p><p>"It is through them [the ministry] that we plan to reach out to the community," she says. "The people will be very much involved."</p><p>Despite these shortcomings, <a href="https://www.chandrabhushan.net/" target="_blank">Chandra Bhushan</a>, President and CEO of the <a href="https://www.iforest.global/" target="_blank">International Forum for Environment, Sustainability and Technology</a> (iFOREST), welcomes the idea. He says: "It is for the first time that Indian companies are understanding climate change and willing to invest in it."</p>
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Paula Kahumbu attends the TDI Awards during the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival at Spring Studios on April 25, 2017 in New York City. Rob Kim / Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival
Women have long been at the forefront of the effort to protect the earth and its creatures. Some of them, like Greta Thunberg and Jane Goodall, are household names.
<p>Others, like <a href="http://www.drfisher.umd.edu/PCM_PreliminaryResults.pdf" target="_blank">around 55 percent of the people who hit the streets for 2014's People's Climate March</a>, are anonymous (s)heroes. In between these extremes are many women who have made a significant individual difference as scientists, inventors or activists and who deserve more recognition for their inspiring efforts.</p><p>Here are five women using their unique talents to protect the planet that we at EcoWatch think you should know about.</p>
<p><strong>1. Miranda Wang, Inventor and Entrepreneur, Canada and U.S.</strong></p>
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<p>Only nine percent of the world's <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/plastics" target="_self">plastic</a> is actually recycled. The rest is landfilled, burned or discarded into the environment, where it risks joining the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/8-million-metric-tons-of-plastic-dumped-into-worlds-oceans-each-year-1882012563.html" target="_self">eight million metric tons</a> that pollute the world's oceans every year. But Miranda Wang is working to change that.<br></p><p>Together with her high school friend Jeanny Yao, Wang developed a method of using chemicals to break down unrecyclable polyethylene film plastics — such as the infamous plastic bag — into reusable compounds, <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/28/recycling-pilot-program-with-local-start-up-in-final-phase/" target="_blank">The Mercury News explained</a>. In 2015, the pair co-founded the company <a href="https://www.biocellection.com/" target="_blank">BioCellection</a> when they were just 21 to put their invention into practice.</p><p>Wang and Yao first met in their Vancouver, B.C. high school's <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/recycling" target="_self">recycling</a> club, where they visited waste plants.</p><p>"[W]hen I visited my first waste plant, the scale of the problem hit me," Wang told <a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/youngchampions/news/story/young-champion-earth-winner-north-america" target="_blank">UN Environment</a>. "All that waste."</p><p>She is now tackling the problem full time as CEO of BioCellection, which is based in Menlo Park, California. She is working on a pilot program with the city of San Jose and its waste handler GreenWaste to integrate her and Yao's innovation into its preexisting system.</p><p>"The long-term goal is to be able to recycle all of the city of San Jose's — and other cities' — polyethylene plastic," Wang told The Mercury News.</p>
<p><strong>2. Dr. Paula Kahumbu, Conservationist, Kenya</strong></p>
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<p>Dr. Paula Kahumbu, who has been called the "life force" behind Kenya's <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a> movement, has been working to protect <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/elephants" target="_self">elephants</a> since she was in her early 20s. She and a group of friends measured every piece in Kenya's <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ivory" target="_self">ivory</a> stockpile to create an ivory "bonfire" in 1989, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/campaigns/elephant-campaign/dr-paula-kahumbu-interview-africans-must-be-equal-partners-in-a-war-on-elephant-poachers-9123089.html" target="_blank">The Independent reported</a>.</p><p><a href="https://paulakahumbu.org/about/" target="_blank">Since then</a>, she has gone on to earn a Ph.D. at Princeton in ecology and evolutionary biology, to serve as the CEO of Kenyan conservation nonprofit <a href="https://wildlifedirect.org/" target="_blank">WildlifeDirect</a>, and to launch the successful <a href="https://wildlifedirect.org/hands-off-our-elephants/" target="_blank">Hands Off Our Elephants Campaign</a> with Kenyan first lady Margaret Kenyatta in 2014.</p><p>"From spending so much time with [elephants], I know they are not just another animal," she told The Independent. "They are beings with personalities; with families; with feelings. It is such a horrendous injustice to allow them to be slaughtered."</p><p>Hands Off Our Elephants works to tackle the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/poaching" target="_self">poaching</a> crisis in Kenya by enacting new laws and making sure they are enforced, working directly with communities to develop conservation strategies that benefit humans and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife" target="_self">wildlife</a> and building public support in Kenya for elephant conservation. Since it was launched, elephant poaching in the country has decreased by 80 percent and rhino poaching by 90 percent. One of Kahumbu's key insights has been the importance of engaging Africans, and particularly African women, in protecting their continent's unique animals.</p><p>"It can be hard for Africans, and especially African women, to be heard in this male-dominated world of Western scientists and academics," she told The Independent. "Maasai women, who have been studying elephants for 20 to 40 years each; should have Ph.D.s [by now], but they don't. There has been a real failure to develop the capacity of the people who are instrumental on the ground."</p>
<p><strong>3. Artemisa Xakriabá, Indigenous Activist, Brazil</strong></p>
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<p>The <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/brazil-bolsonaro-amazon-climate-2616170023.html" target="_self">election</a> of right-wing Brazilian President <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/jair-bolsonaro" target="_self">Jair Bolsonaro</a> was a blow to climate action and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/indigenous-rights" target="_self">indigenous rights</a>. So far, he has overseen <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-rainforest-wildfires-2639934452.html" target="_self">historic wildfires</a> in the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/amazon-rainforest" target="_self">Amazon rainforest</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/brazil-bolsonaro-bill-open-indigenous-land-2645088985.html" target="_self">pushed</a> to open indigenous forest reserves to the mining and fossil fuel industries. But indigenous women are fighting back.</p><p>Among them is 19-year-old Artemisa Xakriabá, a member of Brazil's Xakriabá tribe. In August, she participated in the first Indigenous Women's March in Brasilia to protest Bolsonaro's anti-environment and anti-indigenous policies, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/indigenous-activist-bolsonaro-amazon-brazil_n_5db31aece4b079eb95a2d409?ri18n=true" target="_blank">HuffPost reported</a>. She was then chosen by a coalition of South American and East Asian indigenous youth groups to represent their cause at youth climate strikes in New York and Washington, DC last September.</p><p>"We, the indigenous peoples, are the children of nature, so we fight for our Mother Earth, because the fight for Mother Earth is the mother of all other fights," she said in New York, as <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/9/23/brazil_indigenous_climate_activist_artemisa_xakriaba" target="_blank">Democracy Now reported</a>. "We are fighting for your lives. We are fighting for our lives."</p><p>Xakriabá's activism predates Bolsonaro, however. When she was only seven, she helped her classmates reforest 15 riverside areas near their traditional territory in Minas Gerais in southeast Brazil, according to HuffPost.</p><p>In New York, she spoke of the common struggle of all women to protect the earth.</p><p>"I am also here as a young woman," she said, as Democracy Now reported, "because there's no difference between an indigenous young female activist like myself and a young indigenous female activist like Greta. Our future is connected by the same threads of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a>."</p>
<p><strong>4. Dr. Maria Caffrey, Scientist and Whistleblower, U.S.</strong></p>
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<p>Dr. Maria Caffrey is another woman who stood up to a climate denying administration.</p><p>In 2012, the National Park Service (NPS) funded a project she had designed to estimate future <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" target="_self">sea levels</a> and storm surges at 118 coastal <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/national-parks" target="_self">national parks</a> based on different levels of greenhouse gas emissions, as Caffrey wrote for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/25/trump-administration-climate-crisis-denying-scientist" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. She completed the first draft in the summer of 2016, but then President <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/donald-trump" target="_self">Donald Trump</a> took office, and the report was delayed. Finally, a colleague told her that all mentions of climate change had been edited out of her report. Senior officials wanted her to approve the changes, and, if she refused, threatened to release the report without climate references, to delete her name or not to publish it at all.</p><p>"Each option would have been devastating to my career and for scientific integrity. I stood firm," she wrote. "And I prevailed."</p><p>The report was published, but Caffrey paid for her persistence. She received pay cuts and demotions and then, in February 2019, NPS refused to renew her funding, leading Caffrey to file a whistleblower complaint against the administration.</p><p>Caffrey also sued the administration and testified before Congress in an attempt to raise awareness about the silencing of scientists.</p><p>"Money was never really the point of the lawsuit," Caffrey told <a href="https://www.cpr.org/2019/07/29/boulder-climate-scientist-sues-trump-administration-over-matter-of-scientific-integrity/" target="_blank">Colorado Matters</a>. "The point of the lawsuit is to get on the record and show what the Trump administration is doing to scientists and that that's not OK. And so I think it's important that we stand up and we fight back."</p>
<p><strong>5. Nirupabai, Activist, India</strong></p>
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<p>In India, the expansion of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal" target="_self">coal</a> doesn't just hurt the global climate. Government-owned Coal India and its subsidiaries have bypassed local and international law in evicting people from their homes in order to expand mines in the states of Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh, according to a 2016 Amnesty International report publicized by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/jul/13/coal-india-accused-of-bulldozing-human-rights-mining-operations-amid-production-boom-amnesty-international" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. These evictions particularly target indigenous Adivasi communities, including a woman named Nirupabai whose home was bulldozed in 2014.</p><p>"I cried, I screamed, trying to save it," she told The Guardian of the eviction. "All my things, my son's school books, a year's worth of rice, everything was scattered, everything in ruins."</p><p>But Nirupabai has gone on to fight the coal company with every means at her disposal, <a href="https://elle.in/article/nirupabai/" target="_blank">Elle reported</a>. She has picketed company offices, spoken at environmental hearings and she spoke in <a href="https://amnesty.org.in/news-update/cost-coal-using-virtual-reality-tell-story-indias-coal-mining-affected-communitie/" target="_blank">The Cost of Coal</a>, India's first VR film to be acquired by the UN. What she wants is for Coal India to stop expanding until people like her are compensated for the land they have lost.</p><p>"You tell me what will grow on this poor land? Coal is the heart of the earth, but they remove it and say we are the sarkar. What is it that you have in your pocket that you didn't take from our land?" Nirupabai said, according to Elle.</p><p>Nirupabai has won one important victory. Coal India usually does not let women who have been displaced by its activities work in the mines because it deems the work unsafe. But a court order filed by another woman, Ratthobai Rathia, has given her the right to work for the land she has lost. Nirupabai isn't done fighting, however.</p><p>"I will fight for every last inch," she told Elle.</p>
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5 Biggest Pesticide Companies Are Making Billions From 'Highly Hazardous' Chemicals, Investigation Finds
20 February
Health + Wellness
Worker spraying toxic pesticides or insecticides on corn plantation. D-Keine / E+ / Getty Images
Poor people in developing countries are far more likely to suffer from exposure to pesticides classified as having high hazard to human health or the environment, according to new data that Unearthed analyzed.
<p>The analysis shows that the world's top five pesticide makers are making billions, accounting for more than 36 percent of their income, from chemicals that are proven to hazards to humans and the environment and are contributing to the precipitous demise of bee populations, as Unearthed reported.</p>
<p>The researchers found that the sale of these highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs), disproportionately occurred in poorer nations, which often have fewer regulations than industrialized nations, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/20/firms-making-billions-from-highly-hazardous-pesticides-analysis-finds" target="_blank">according to The Guardian</a>. In India, for example, sales of HHPs were nearly 60 percent, while in the UK it was just 11 percent. </p>
<p>The report from the investigative team at Unearthed focused on the practices of Bayer, BASF, Corteva (formerly Dow and DuPont), FMC and Syngenta, which are continuing to sell HHPs like neonicotinoids and glufosinate that have been banned in other parts of the world, according to the produce industry publication <a href="http://www.fruitnet.com/fpj/article/180959/pesticide-firms-profit-off-hazardous-products-says-report" target="_blank">Fresh Produce Journal</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/02/20/pesticides-croplife-hazardous-bayer-syngenta-health-bees/" target="_blank">Unearthed</a> dove into data collected by Phillips McDougall, the leading agribusiness analysts, from buyer surveys that concentrated on the best sellers in the top 43 pesticide buying countries, as The Guardian reported.</p>
<p>While regulations have stopped the sale of certain pesticides in Europe, the U.S. and Canada, it has hardly slowed down chemical companies, which sold $4.8 billion worth of products containing HHPs in 2018, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/20/firms-making-billions-from-highly-hazardous-pesticides-analysis-finds" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>. Bayer called the analysis "misleading" but did not offer proof of that assessment.</p>
<p>Since the investigation focused on just 43 countries, it covered less than half of the companies' global sales. That suggests that the companies actually made billions more from pesticides that regulatory agencies have said pose hazards like acute poisoning or chronic illness in people, or high toxicity to bees and other wildlife, <a href="https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/02/20/pesticides-croplife-hazardous-bayer-syngenta-health-bees/" target="_blank">according to Unearthed</a>. </p>
<p>The investigation found that pesticide manufacturers sold the majority of its highly hazardous pesticide in low- and middle-income countries like Brazil and India, where experts say the risks posed by using these chemicals are greatest, according to Unearthed. The biggest market for HHPs were for corn and soya crops. </p>
<p>About a quarter of sales were from products known to be human carcinogens or dangerous to reproductive health. Another 10 percent were toxic to bees. An additional 4 percent of chemicals sold are acutely toxic to humans. Every year, nearly 200,000 suicides are linked to pesticide poisoning, almost entirely in developing countries, according to The Guardian. </p><p>"This investigation shows that there is a huge disconnect between what those companies are saying in the international policy arena and what they are actually doing," Meriel Watts, a senior science and policy advisor to the Pesticide Action Network, said to Unearthed.</p><p>Baskut Tuncak, the United Nations' <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Environment/ToxicWastes/Pages/BaskutTuncak.aspx" target="_blank">special rapporteur on toxic substances</a> and human rights, told <a href="https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/02/20/pesticides-croplife-hazardous-bayer-syngenta-health-bees/" target="_blank">Unearthed</a>, "There is nothing sustainable about the widespread use of highly hazardous pesticides for agriculture."</p><p>"Whether they poison workers, extinguish biodiversity, persist in the environment, or accumulate in a mother's breast milk, these are unsustainable, cannot be used safely, and should have been phased out of use long ago," Tuncak said.</p>
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'Green Mountain' Is Restoring Lives in India, Reducing Mercury Levels, Replenishing Drinking Water
29 January
Popular
Greening the barren mountain has helped recharge groundwater levels in the villages. Photo by Gurvinder Singh. Mongabay India
Jamini Mohan Mahanty is out for a morning walk every day. At 91, he is hale and hearty. A resident of Jharbagda village in Purulia district, West Bengal, Mahanty thanks the "green mountain" in his village for having added some extra years to his life.
<p>"I could have died long ago but the green mountain has given me a fresh lease of life. It has made the environment clean and pollution free. It really energises my soul to see birds chirping and rabbits hiding in the bushes. I come inside the forest everyday to have a brief rendezvous with nature," he said, while resuming his walk with the help of a stick.<em></em></p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://india.mongabay.com/2020/01/the-story-of-a-restored-forest-that-restored-lives/">Mongabay India</a>.</em></p>
<p>A few meters away, the mountain stands tall covered with extensive greenery and rich in <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" rel="noopener noreferrer">biodiversity</a>. The mountain exemplifies the collective efforts and hardships of the villagers. As they were grappling with depleting <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/groundwater" rel="noopener noreferrer">groundwater</a> levels, harsh summers and trouble accessing firewood for fuel, the villagers realized that their pressing problems could only be solved by nature. Over the years, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation" rel="noopener noreferrer">deforestation</a> for firewood had depleted the green cover and the villagers decided to regreen the mountain.</p><p>Over nearly 20 years the community has transformed a barren mountain and its adjoining land, into an evergreen man-made <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/forests" rel="noopener noreferrer">forest</a>.</p><p>Tapas Mahanty, a resident of Jharbagda in <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/India" rel="noopener noreferrer">India</a>'s eastern state, recollects the time, two decades ago, when extreme summers and water shortage made life difficult for the then 30,000-odd people residing across 20-21 villages surrounding the mountain. </p><p>"We were facing severe water scarcity woes because of depleting ground water levels. Women had to walk for around a kilometre to arrange <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drinking-water" rel="noopener noreferrer">drinking water</a> as men were out for work. There were often skirmishes and fights over sharing of water at the village taps. It disturbed the harmony of the village," she said.</p><p>Apart from water woes, life also became difficult because of strong winds in summers that spread the heat from the barren mountain. "There was no green cover that could have obstructed the flow of hot and humid winds. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/soil" rel="noopener noreferrer">Soil</a> erosion from the mountain during rains dirtied the ponds and also affected the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/farming" rel="noopener noreferrer">farming</a>. It became difficult to live in the villages located close to the mountain and people began to think of migration," she added.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjYzNDA1NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwOTY4Mjg5N30.rNkM1f3LWIXTjQFcA4-ZT-_aMGpLFx0oMpSSo_QkNbo/img.jpg?width=980" id="57879" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="284cd1b1c6b264b9f40dbae18d528f7f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
(L) A view of the barren mountain in 1996 and (R) a restored landscape as seen in 2006. Mongabay India
Long Walk for Firewood
<p>Another major problem that villagers, especially the women faced was the near absence of firewood as there were hardly any trees, "We had to walk for three to four kilometres for firewood and the entire day was lost in the travel. It was also risky and cumbersome for the women to walk for such a long distance carrying the firewood on their heads. Besides, some couldn't afford the money required to buy firewood for fuel," said another villager.</p><p>Villagers realized that turning the mountain green could save them from the torment of inclement weather coupled with water shortage issues. But it was easier said than done as the mountain spread across 376 acres of land and required extensive labour and funds for plantations.</p><p>An NGO involved in nature <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" rel="noopener noreferrer">conservation</a> came to their rescue. The <u><a href="http://www.tsrd.org/" target="_blank">Tagore Society For Rural Development</a></u> (TSRD), a non-profit engaged in rural work, agreed to do the plantation work on the entire stretch while the community was given the responsibility of maintaining and protecting the green cover. </p><p>"A group of villagers contacted us and told about the problems they were facing. We were overwhelmed by their passion to grow a forest. We then decided to do the plantation," said Prahalad Chandra Mahato, 70, senior employee of the NGO.</p><p>Subsequently, in 1999, a village committee involving 60 members of Jharbagda village of Manbazar-1 block was formed for plantation at a community land of around 300 acres.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjYzNDA1Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5OTk1MDExM30.Vj6WT9OiMU3jVqI4zb-DCPJY9qXEjmiRaufIRTd0-c4/img.jpg?width=980" id="01077" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="dadebea5768c9346fa9800b45e177704" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Committee members representing the villages for plantation on the barren mountain. Gurvinder Singh / Mongabay India
<p>Another 67 acres of land was added in 2001 when four villages — Kumardih, Birsinghdih, Cheliama, Radhamadhobpur — also joined hands. Committee members went up to 90. Villagers named it Makino Raghunath Mountain in memory of two environment enthusiasts, Saiji Makino, a Japanese professor who taught at Visvabharati University at Bolpur Shantiniketan and was involved in creating awareness about plantation among the locals and Raghunath Mahanty, a well-known local resident.</p><p>Under a Japanese government-supported greening initiative, the plantations began in 1999 and continued till 2002. "During the course of three years, over 3.26 lakh (326,000) trees of 72 varieties including fruits, medical herbs and timber wood were planted in the mountain stretch and the adjoining land. Labourers were employed for plantation but villagers also worked voluntarily as they were passionate and wanted to mitigate the crisis," added Mahato.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjYzNDA1OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMTA1MjIyM30.zw1K3u3Qc44T4UD-C3dmwbFXt351xQjt89QHgBKb_VI/img.jpg?width=980" id="fa767" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b018ed6bc7a5f0b8060f330619b21d35" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Villagers can now collect dry leaves for fuel from the forest on the Makino Raghunath Mountain. Earlier, they would have to walk long distances to get firewood. Gurvinder Singh / Mongabay India
The Stretch Turned Green Within a Few Years
<p>Within a span of a few years, the landscape, starting with five villages started changing. "The first visible sign was the easy availability of firewood for fuel. The dried leaves that fell from the trees were collected by us and used as fuel. It not only saved us from the ordeal of walking for several kilometers but also reduced our expenditure on buying wood for fuel. It encouraged us to protect the forest and shoo out anyone trying to destroy it," said Kalyani Mahanty, 40, a homemaker in Jharbagda.</p><p>The forest also led to an increase in the groundwater level and brought down the constant quarrels among villagers, "The groundwater level that had depleted to 40-50 feet (and went down even more in summers) became normal and was available at 15-20 ft. The easy availability of water brought peace to the village," she added.</p><p>The dense green cover also ensured the presence of biodiversity and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/elephants" target="_self">elephants</a> began to traverse the forest that was once barren, "We first noticed the movement of elephants in 2005. There was a sense of jubilation among villagers. There were also constant sighting of snakes and other animals. Birds are now regular here," said Bikash Mahanty, 40, who resides at the neighbouring Radhamodhobpur village.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjYzNjUzNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMTI0OTUxOX0.S9eG2GAmbVZI6yhmzwCPauTUEIvlfSCae47Lrt0O2cQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="8554a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f3bc72b3aba749959342680b81c62168" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />The Makino Raghunath Mountain, a once-barren mountain where plantation took place between 1999 and 2002, restoring its greenery. Mongabay India
<p><br></p><p>The dense trees have also brought down the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/mercury" rel="noopener noreferrer">mercury</a> level in villages and have made the air cooler during summers, "It is comparatively cooler due to the presence of trees. We often sit under the shade of trees during summers and even spend our evenings here. The trees have also prevented soil erosion and farming is not getting hampered due to the mud carried by the rainwater from the mountains," he added.</p><p>Villagers have repeatedly turned down the requests to turn the forest into a picnic spot. "The tourism would no doubt help in promoting the place and also open new avenues of employment but it would do more harm by destroying the environment. Tourists will ignore all norms and use of plastic and other items would destroy its natural beauty. We have ignored the repeated plea to turn this into a tourist spot," said Dwija Pada Mahanty, former village head of Manbazar gram panchayat.</p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c5aa6de16cbc8253b6ae4e1082e1ebe8"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kkVdJR2pLA8?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
Trenches Being Dug to Store Rainwater
<p>The state government in collaboration with TSRD is now digging trenches down the mountain to stop the wastage of rainwater and to make the soil nutritious, "The water in the trenches would make the soil nutritious while the overflowing water would be stored in a nearby pond and used for farming. It would also recharge the groundwater," said Badal Maharana, 43, team leader, <u><a href="https://usharmukti.nregawb.in/" target="_blank">Ushar Mukti</a></u> project, TSRD Purulia Unit.</p><p>He further said that around 1.5 feet deep trenches have been dug up in 50 hectares of land after the start of the work last year.</p><p>"The trenches would certainly help in storing the rainwater and would be used for multiple purposes. We are also trying to make it an animal corridor to facilitate their movement but the presence of habitation near the forest is a hurdle to the plan. The efforts of the villagers stand as a classic example of how environment conservation is vital for the survival of every individual," said Niladri Sarkar, Block Development Officer (BDO), Manbazar-1 block in Purulia district.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjYzNDA2NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NTYwNDg5NX0.H_elNTErtxSE5y_j_8ATWT6x72fppFDmnTzGgEQQp9A/img.jpg?width=980" id="2e943" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d8953097e3227af62caf8b1d5aa4fdc0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />The overflowing water from trenches would flow into the nearby pond and would be used for farming. Gurvinder Singh / Mongabay India
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