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
- Bolivia’s El Curichi Las Garzas protected area taken over by land-grabbers
- Authorities struggle to protect Bolivian national park from drug-fueled deforestation
- Poverty and plantations: Nigerian reserve struggles against the odds
- Logging, road construction continue to fuel forest loss in Papua New Guinea
Oceans
- Huge new no-fishing zones give Antarctic marine predators and their prey a break
- Madagascar takes key step toward improving transparency of its fisheries
- Report: Rising slaughter of small whales and dolphins threatens ocean balance
- Stalemate: WTO talks again fail to end overfishing subsidies
Amazon Conservation
- Fanned by El Niño, megafires in Brazil threaten Amazon’s preserved areas
- Brazil’s Amazonian states push for court reforms in bid for justice
- Squeezed-out Amazon smallholders seek new frontiers in Brazil’s Roraima state
- Study points to which Amazon regions could reach tipping point & dry up
Land rights and extractives
- New report details rights abuses in Cambodia’s Southern Cardamom REDD+ project
- Phantom deeds see Borneo islanders lose their land to quartz miners
- Indonesians uprooted by mining industry call for a fairer future amid presidential vote
- Indonesian nickel project harms environment and human rights, report says
Endangered Environmentalists
- Vietnamese environmentalist sentenced to 3 years in prison for tax evasion
- Son of slain Quilombola leader will still strive for community’s rights
- Video: Five Tembé Indigenous activists shot in Amazonian ‘palm oil war’
- Indigenous activists demand justice after 5 shot in Amazonian ‘palm oil war’
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- Fenced in by Sulawesi national park, Indigenous women make forestry breakout
- In Borneo, the ‘Power of Mama’ fight Indonesia’s wildfires with all-woman crew
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
- After 20 years and thousands of trees planted, Kalimantan’s veteran forester persists
Conservation Effectiveness
- The conservation sector must communicate better (commentary)
- Thailand tries nature-based water management to adapt to climate change
- Forest restoration to boost biomass doesn’t have to sacrifice tree diversity
- How scientists and a community are bringing a Bornean river corridor back to life
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Study: Indonesia’s new capital city threatens stable proboscis monkey population
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
- To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest