
Articles by Nanditha Chandraprakash
Nanditha spent her childhood absorbed in the grasses and their insects, mud and mushrooms, and the trees and their birds. These initial unfiltered experiences and love for all life motivated her to start noting down her observations: about the beauty of nature at first, followed by the adverse issues, both small-scale and large, affecting the natural environment. She worked as an environmental writer for online platforms and wrote about Indian wildlife, researchers, biologists, NGOs, local communities, educators, etc. She simultaneously studied Environmental Law where, for her dissertation, she delved into and wrote about Indian climate change policies (and the lack of them) to protect the country’s biodiversity.
Nanditha hopes to take the stories found in new environmental discoveries, research and distresses – with all their nuances – in a relatable style to the masses. She wants to get involved through writing to reach a larger audience and spread awareness among several sections of the society about climate change, intersectionality, and threats to the biodiversity and indigenous peoples, thus influencing policymaking.
She is driven by the need to save the disappearing unique grasses, timely mushrooms, and the visiting birds of her past.


What’s fair in conservation to locals? Just ask, study says

Sandpipers on an arduous migration now have a rest stop all their own

Mass tree planting along India’s Cauvery River has scientists worried

Illegal hunting a greater threat to wildlife than forest degradation

Myanmar risks losing forests to oil palm, but there’s time to pivot

Climate change threatens some island conifers with extinction

‘Like spaghetti’: Worm-slurping, hopping rats discovered in the Philippines
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Pasture replaces large tract of intact primary forest in Brazilian protected area
- Deforestation on the rise as poverty soars in Nigeria
- Refuge of endangered ‘African unicorn’ threatened by mining, poaching, deforestation
- Endangered chimps ‘on the brink’ as Nigerian reserve is razed for agriculture, timber

Oceans
- Easing of crackdown sees Vietnam boats encroach into Indonesian waters
- Indonesia cancels fisheries infrastructure projects in Maluku region amid lack of funds
- Murky provenance of a Chinese fleet clouds Madagascar shrimp fishery
- What’s popping? Humpbacks off South Africa, new acoustic study finds

Amazon Conservation
- Pasture replaces large tract of intact primary forest in Brazilian protected area
- Ecuador’s Pastaza province, Indigenous groups collaborate on forest conservation
- ‘Giving up’: Amazon is losing its resilience under human pressure, study shows
- Pharmaceutical water pollution detected deep in the Brazilian Amazon

Land rights and extractives
- Open-pit mining ban lifted in Philippine province, clearing way for copper project
- Ousted anti-mining mayor heads back to Philippine city hall after landslide win
- Thai gold mine blamed for sickening local villagers is set to reopen
- “Indigenous people are fighting to protect a natural equilibrium”: Q&A with Patricia Gualinga

Endangered Environmentalists
- Citizen participation: a key achievement at the first COP to the Escazú Agreement
- “We are on the front line”: Q&A with Indigenous land defender Adiela Jineth Mera Paz
- Death threats and friction with military force Guatemalan rangers to flee
- Amazon mining threatens dozens of uncontacted Indigenous groups, study shows

Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- From Flores to Papua: Meet 10 of Indonesia’s mangrove guardians
- Why I stand for my tribe’s forest: It gives us food, culture, and life (commentary)
- Reforesting a village in Indonesia, one batch of gourmet beans at a time
- Restoring Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, one small farm at a time

Conservation Effectiveness
- In prioritizing conservation, animal culture should be a factor, study says
- Young forests can help heal tropical aquatic ecosystems: Study
- How sharing and learning from failures can transform conservation (commentary)
- Is planting trees as good for the Earth as everyone says?

Southeast Asian infrastructure
- In Laos, a ‘very dangerous dam’ threatens an ancient world heritage site
- Bali’s new highway project sparks concerns about agriculture and conservation areas
- Deforestation notches up along logging roads on PNG’s New Britain Island
- Plantations and roads strip away Papua’s forests. They’re just getting started
