Tag: rainforest (page 1 of 1)

30 September 2012 / 0 Comments

Coming home to Danum: A Borneo interlude

The song of the whistling thrush in the cloud-covered mountains. A chill in the air in the hills of the elephants. The river in-between the hills—the Naduar—whose white swells over the rocks he can see through his window, whose rich, sibilant sighs carry through the clear air all the way up to him. To him at his table by the window, from where he hears, he feels, he sees.

  • Through the window
  • Dipertocarp forest at Danum Valley, Sabah, Borneo
  • Road through logged forest, Danum Valley
  • Orangutan in Sabah, Borneo
  • Tree in rainforest
  • Fern in the canopy
  • Rock bees on Koompassia excelsa
  • Logging in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo
  • Large scale monoculture, oil palm cultivation in Sabah, Borneo
  • Clearing for oil palm plantation, Sabah, Borneo

… This post first appeared in the Rainforest Revival blog on 30 September 2012. Read the article in Fountain Ink, Coming Home to Borneo.

27 January 2012 / 0 Comments

Forest of the Aliens

Like the proboscis of a malarial mosquito the Andaman Trunk Road pierces the Jarawa forest. The road carries a steady stream of vehicles, bunched into convoys with guards. By the road are heaps of stones and the claw marks of heavy machinery: the road will soon be wider.

Just beyond, on either side, stretches the home of the Jarawa—lofty rainforests with tall dipterocarps and padauk, myriad trees and lianas, palms, cane, and bamboo. If the forest bears the human mark of the Jarawa, it is subtle and difficult to discern.

  • A convoy of vehicles on the Andaman Trunk Road (ATR).
  • The forest of the Jarawa…
  • Dollarbird on the lookout from a leafless Tetrameles branch.
  • The Andaman Trunk Road brooks no obstruction… and hurtles on…
  • Huge rainforest trees cut for timber lying beside the Andaman Trunk Road.
  • Ghosts of trees past: the mounds in logged forest…
  • A coastal mangrove with its aerial roots: holding on to land, only to be cleared for a resort’s ‘sea view’?

… This post first appeared in The Hindu Sunday Magazine on 1 January 2012 and on the NCF blog, EcoLogic, on 27 January 2012. Read more in The Wild Heart of India: Nature and Conservation in the City, the Country, and the Wild.

10 August 2011 / 0 Comments

New booklet on rainforest restoration

What is rainforest restoration? Why do we need it? If we wish to restore degraded rainforest, what should we do? How do we go about it? Where is it needed? And when? Motivated by these and many other questions, we have put down our thoughts and experiences gathered over the last decade in the Anamalai hills, in relation to those of other restoration ecologists and practitioners into a beautifully-designed and richly illustrated 40-odd page booklet:

Mudappa, D., and Raman, T. R. S. 2010. Rainforest Restoration: A Guide to Principles and Practice. Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore.

Download from here: PDF 6.7 MB

Or from the Website of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, India, here.

The cover

The booklet aims to present concepts of ecological restoration along with guidelines and suggestions for practice and on-ground implementation in a simple, easy to understand manner. Attractively designed by Pavithra Sankaran and richly illustrated with beautiful photographs, the booklet is a visual treat. Here’s a sample:

Inside pages

Take a look at the contents:

Contents

The booklet was brought out with support from the IUCN National Committee of The Netherlands, Ecosystems Grant Programme (IUCN-NL EGP). The text of the booklet may be used under a Creative Commons licence.

Take a look and let us know what you think. Here’s looking forward to your feedback!

This post first appeared on the Rainforest Revival blog on 10 August 2011.

2 January 2011 / 0 Comments

A red flush of leaves

By T. R. Shankar Raman & Divya Mudappa

Splashes of red dot the evergreen canopy, like blood on green canvas. The canarium, stately white and tall, holds a red flush of new leaves above verdant, multi-hued forest. Skimming spectacularly over the trees, a great hornbill brushes grandeur onto the canvas. In the company of hornbills, a new year dawns on an unsuspecting rainforest.

  • The Great Hornbill is the king of the canopy in the rainforests and the Western Ghats is one of the best places to see these hornbills.

… This post first appeared in the NCF blog, EcoLogic, and as ‘Rhythms of Renewal‘ in The Hindu Sunday Magazine on 2 January 2011. Read more, with updates, in The Wild Heart of India: Nature and Conservation in the City, the Country, and the Wild.

20 December 2010 / 0 Comments

The tall tree

The tree stands tall—head and shoulders above the rest. Its long round bole reaches straight to the sky. Its branches hold out firmly, even as the leaves toss around and whisper with the wind. With its first branch at over a hundred feet and the uppermost leaves nearly half as much higher, the tree is one to reckon with—even a monkey would need to work hard to climb it.

High above, the tall tree’s branches hold clusters of red-brown, two-winged fruit. A gust of wind tosses the high branches and a couple of winged fruits with their package of seed take to the air and go whirring in the wind. In evening light, they are like fiery butterflies pirouetting in an aerial ballet.

The tree is a landmark, for those who choose to see it as one. In the distance, the weaving tributary of the mighty Brahmaputra courses through a winding dip in the land. The forest around is dwarfed by the tall tree. Across farms and scrubby undergrowth tangled with vines, only a smattering of trees meets the eye, and there are none so large. The tall tree is special. What does it stand for, even if it stands alone?

… This post first appeared in the Rainforest Revival blog on 20 December 2010. Read more in The Wild Heart of India: Nature and Conservation in the City, the Country, and the Wild.

10 October 2009 / 0 Comments

Death on the highway

This article was published in The Hindu Survey of the Environment 2009 (pages 113 – 118) without the supporting footnotes. The original article with footnotes and photographs, appeared on the NCF blog, EcoLogic on 10 October 2009. For a revised and updated version, read the Chapter in my book: The Wild Heart of India: Nature and Conservation in the City, the Country, and the Wild.

Crunch! Splat! Thud! A daily massacre is occurring under the wheels of our vehicles. Thousands of lives are snuffed out tragically, instantaneously, and yet, we hardly notice.

Around India, as in other parts of the world, millions of animals risk daily encounter with increasingly fast vehicles plying on an expanding meshwork of roads and highways.

…
Read more in The Wild Heart of India: Nature and Conservation in the City, the Country, and the Wild.

  • An endangered lion-tailed macaque lies dead on the road in a rain forest fragment in the Western Ghats. (Photo: Kalyan Varma)
  • Reptiles, such as this vine snake, and amphibians are among the worst hit in road kills. (Photo: Kalyan Varma)
  • Even quick-footed species, such as this leopard cat, get killed with the increasingly faster traffic. (Photo: Kalyan Varma)
  • An elephant mother uses her body to shield her calf from an approaching vehicle as they cross the road. (Photo: Kalyan Varma)
  • An example of a good forest road, used even by trucks and buses, with unbroken canopy over the road. (Photo: NCF)

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