CLIMATE CARE - NORTHEAST INDIA

   MONOJ GOGOI      The sudden death of 11 vultures on April 23, 2013 in Bagicha gaon near the Sub-Division Office (SDO) of Dhakukhana under Lakhimpur district created a huge sensation among the nature lovers across the state. According to sources, the 11 vultures comprised of white-backed vultures (gyps africanus) and slender-billed vultures (gyps tenuirostris) died in the morning due consumption of goat carcass on which furadan, a kind of pesticide was applied. Sources added that the goat died due to the bites of stray dogs and in vengeance, to kill the dogs, the owner of the got applied furadan on the carcass and left it in an open field. After consuming the carcass of the goat the vultures started to die. First the local people of Bagicha village witnessed the carcusses of the vultures and informed Mega Mix, a Dhakuakhana-based NGO for conservation of nature.      Devajit Phukan, the secretary of Mega Mix told, " Immediately after we got infor...

By MONOJ GOGOI Iman's death on November 23, 2019 is a big blow to the existence of the Sumatran Rhino (Dicerorhinus Sumatrensis) species. Iman, a 25-year old female and the last Sumatran rhino in Malaysia. The Sabah government officials claim Iman's death was natural but she had uterine tumour when she was captured from the wild in 2014. Tam was the last Sumatran rhino in Malaysia who died in May this year at the age of 30 year in the same Malaysian sanctuary Borneo. Sumatran rhinos, also called "hairy rhinos", enlisted in the red list as "critically endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). According to the IUCN only fewer than 80 Sumatran rhinos exist in the rainforests of Indonesia. But according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)'s estimation, the population of this species as low as 30. Once this species roamed all over the rainforests of Asia. Unfortunately now the Sumatran rhino...

The vulnerable greater one-horned rhino's population growth rate is really a success story in the Indian sub-continent. MONOJ GOGOI The greater one-horned rhino (Rhinoceros unicornis) also known as Indian rhino is one of the largest herbivore mammals and on the planet. This one-horned rhinoceros is also the second heaviest, weighs 4,000-6,000 pounds, among the rhino species in the world while the heaviest rhinoceros is white rhino of Africa. The height of this dense protective skinned pachyderm is 5.75-6.5 feet and the length is 10-12.5 feet. Due to the loss of habitats, such as fragmentation of forests, tropical and sub-tropical grasslands, riverside forests, Savannah, decreasing of swamps, excessive poaching for it's horns, the population of the greater Indian rhino once declined sharply and restricted to only some foothill areas of the Himalayas, particularly in India and Nepal. And some rhino populated areas in these regions are still not secure from poachers; and i...

UNDERCOVER INVESTIGATION REVEALS ASIAN ELEPHANTS ARE FACING HUGE THREAT FROM POACHERS MONOJ GOGOI The elephant population is decreasing drastically due to habitat loss, forests fragmentation, traditional migratory routes blockade due to agricultural or other developmental activities outside protected areas. Therefore man-elephant conflicts are also increasing in many parts of the world. Due to high monetary value of ivories, skins and some other limbs of the body in international markets, the African and Asian elephants became easy prey of the poachers. But trading of ivory was internationally banned in 1989 and it could not help in distracting the poachers eyes from the pachyderm. The Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus), classified as endangered according to the International Union of Conservation for Nature (IUCN), faces huge threat from the poachers, particularly in Myanmar, but it doesn't mean that this species is safe in other South Asian countries. But Myanmar is ...

Monoj Gogoi April 24, 2013   Several environmental organisations of Lakhimpur district sought an inquiry over the sudden death of 11 vultures in Dhakuakhana on Tuesday and demanded exemplary punishment to the guilty person. Devajit Phukan, mthe secretary of Mega Mix, a Dhakuakhana based environmental organisation told today that the incident occurred when the vultures consumed the carcass of goat on which the owner of the got applied Furadan, a kind of pesticide and left it in an open field. Till today the owner of the land had been identified though the owner of the goat was yet to be identified. Phukan added that the guilty person must be awarded with exemplary punishment so that no one would dare to do such crime in future. He told the district administration was taking the matter very seriously and the police and the forest department were working accordingly. He also clarified that among the dead vultures 9 were Himalayan Giffon and 2 were white-backed vultures. Phukan als...

  Workshop on conservation and sustainable utilisation of Maguri-Motapung wetland concludes in Tinsukia Monoj Gogoi TINSUKIA, APR 8, 2013: Aaranyak, a frontline environmental organisation of India, based at Guwahati organised a two day workshop on the ecosystem of Maguri-Motapung wetland of Tinsukia in collaboration of Bobosa, a local NGO in Tinsukia successfully concluded today. The workshop was organised in two different levels. On the first day on Sunday, it was organised onconservation and sustainable utilisation of the Maguri-Motapung wetland at Rangagarha Kaliapani L.P. School where more than 60 people from six surrounding villages of the wetland participated and shared their views on the importance and  conservation of the wetland. Partha J Das, an environmentist who heads the Aaranyak's Water, Climate and Hazard (WATCH) programme told in his keynote address that the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region was highly dynamic, with many socioeconomic and environmenta...