Prerna Singh Bindra is one of India’s leading wildlife conservationist and writer. In her latest book, The Vanishing, she ponders on the crisis that the flora and fauna of India are facing today. She also asks some pertinent questions such as “Is development inimical to ecological security?” Furthermore, she talks about the steps India has taken towards safeguarding its forests and wildlife.
Here are 5 realities which give an insight into the current status of ecology in India.
Many times, environment sacrifices its elements to make way for development.
India despite a 1.3 billion population, harbours over 60 per cent of the world’s remaining wild tigers.
All contained in just over two per cent of the global land mass.
India’s increasingly battered forests still harbour secrets—and species we thought had vanished, or did not even know existed.
India’s people are remarkably accepting of predators in their midst.
Did the facts leave you appalled? Tell us what are you doing to save the environment.
Tag: The Vanishing
Worried About the Environment? Five Reads to Enlighten and Educate!
“What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?” Henry David Thoreau remarked once.
This World Environment Day, here are five of the best reads on environment.
The Great Derangement by Amitav Ghosh
One of India’s greatest writers, Amitav Ghosh, argues that future generations may well think that we are deranged. How else can we explain our imaginative failure in the face of global warming? In this groundbreaking return to non-fiction, Ghosh examines our inability at the level of literature, history and politics to grasp the scale and impact of climate change.
Environmentalism: A Global History by Ramachandra Guha
An acclaimed historian of the environment, Ramachandra Guha in this book draws on many years of research in three continents. He details the major trends, ideas, campaigns and thinkers within the environmental movement worldwide. Among the thinkers he profiles are John Muir, Mahatma Gandhi, Rachel Carson and Octavia Hill; among the movements, the Chipko Andolan and the German Greens.
The Vanishing: India’s Wildlife Crisis by Prerna Singh Bindra
With the high-decibel development versus environment debate dominating headlines, this book reveals how the ‘development at all costs’ model threatens our ecological and economic security. The author travels to far-flung forests to give an eyewitness account, and an insider’s view of India’s vanishing natural heritage. The Vanishing is a sharp and stirring read about today’s desperate scenarios, and the quest for hope for a wild India.
Rage of the River by Hridayesh Joshi
Rage of the River is a riveting commentary on the socio-environmental landscape of Uttarakhand and is filled with vivid imagery of the calamity. Woven into this haunting narrative is also the remarkable history of the ordinary people’s struggle to save the state’s ecology.
Green Poems by Gulzar
One of the country’s best-loved poets and lyricists, Gulzar is renowned for his inimitable way of seeing things, his witty expressions, his quirky turns of phrase. All these creative talents come into play in delightful, unexpected ways in his bilingual collection Green Poems, which celebrates his innate connection with nature.
Fascinated by the list? What is your observation of nature around you? Do you have environmental issues to bring to the fore? Tell us, we are all ears!
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