If you have heard anything about Myanmar’s northern Kachin state in documentaries, you probably know about their protracted armed conflict, severe humanitarian crises, and extensive environmental damage from resource extraction. Although some rare earth metals are involved, most of these resources are Jade. The country produces nearly 70 percent of the world’s jadeite, a gem that is deeply valuable in China. The Jade industry is worth around 30 billion  dollars, and most of t

Sri City: We don’t talk about cows, not in climate meetings, not in headlines, and certainly not at dinner. When it comes to climate change, we’ll debate pipelines and power plants, but whisper about cows and livestock, never. To understand “why we don’t talk about cows” it is first important to ask “why we should”. Cows and other farm animals produce a substantial amount of methane from their digestive process. Methane gas (CH4) from livestock is 86 times  more destructive t

Sri City: In the 1980s, India was home to around 40 million vultures, however, today we find that over 97% of India’s vulture population have vanished , victims not of hunting or habitat loss, but from an unlikely source. A common anti-inflammatory and “harmless” drug, a painkiller: diclofenac.  Diclofenac was introduced in veterinary practice in the early 1990s and was for cattle and humans alike but was widely used by farmers to ease the pain of their livestock. The side ef

Sri City: The extinction of the northern white rhino is one of the most poignant environmental tragedies of our time. Once ranging across the grasslands and savannas of Central and East Africa, this subspecies is now functionally extinct: only two females remain, both living under armed protection in Kenya, with no remaining males and no possibility of natural reproduction.​ The northern white rhinoceros ( Ceratotherium simum cottoni ) was once a charismatic symbol of Africa'

Sri City: Senegal’s coast has long been its lifeline. Fishing is the West African country’s cultural and economic backbone, providing over 600,000 jobs and more than 40 percent of the nation’s protein intake. Yet, this way of life is collapsing.The waters that were once described as having an endless supply of marine organisms are now emptying at an alarming pace, leaving Senegal’s fisherfolk unemployed, hungry, and increasingly desperate. The Senegalese have been fishing su

Sri City: Pollinators are responsible for the very first step of cultivation of the 35% of cash crops which end up on our plates. To put it in perspective, that’s one out of every 3 bites of food we consume.  However, the recent decades have seen a substantial decline in animal pollinator populations, such as various species of bees, flies, butterflies, moths, bats and many more. Researchers estimated that insufficient pollination results in a global loss of 4.7% of fruit, 3

-Avani Vaidya With the beginning of the new academic year, college gates are once again lined with freshers, sophomores, and seniors; especially freshers dragging in three or four heavy cardboard boxes packed with everything deemed “essential” for campus life. Bedsheets, organizers, utensils, an InstaCuppa, and of course, we can’t forget the cool posters, fairy lights, and a stack of board games like UNO Flip, Monopoly, or Cards Against Humanity, because game nights are a cam

Image Source: Bandana Jain ( Gallery | Bandana Jain - Indian female contemporary artist ) “Can art save the planet?” The question might...

A four-lane 13km long highway is being built through a protected area of the Amazon rainforest in preparation for the 30th annual...

The Sustainable Futures Collaborative, an independent research organisation, recently published a paper titled “Is India Ready for a...