Conventions, ecosystems and pollution frameworks in the environment news. 80 concepts, each with its definition, key details and a timeline of every news story that touched it.
The National Green Hydrogen Mission is the Government of India's main programme to make India a global hub for producing, using and exporting green...
Particulate matter (PM) means tiny bits of solid or liquid floating in the air: dust, soot, smoke, and droplets. They are so small that most cannot be seen...
Euro 7 is the European Union's (EU's) newest law on how much pollution road vehicles may release. It covers cars, vans, buses and trucks in one single law....
Joint Forest Management, or JFM, is a system in which the State Forest Department and the people of a nearby village protect and manage a forest together...
The Disaster Management Act, 2005 is the main law that sets up India's system for dealing with disasters such as floods, earthquakes, cyclones and GLOFs. It...
The Cauvery Water Dispute is a long fight between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu (with Kerala and Puducherry also involved) over how to share the water of the...
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the world's main list showing how close each species is to extinction. It is managed by the International Union...
The Biological Diversity Act, 2002 is India's main law for protecting the variety of life (plants, animals, microbes) and the knowledge that local people...
A Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) is a sudden, very powerful flood that happens when water held in a lake near a glacier suddenly breaks out. These lakes...
The Commission for Air Quality Management in National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas, called CAQM, is a statutory body (a body set up by a law of...
The Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) is the part of the Himalayan mountain system that lies inside India. It stretches about 2,500 km, from Jammu and Kashmir...
Permafrost is ground (soil, rock, gravel or sand) that stays at or below 0°C for at least two years in a row. It is not defined by ice. It is defined only...
The Western Ghats are a long chain of hills and mountains that run along India's western coast, from Gujarat in the north to near Kanyakumari in the south....
India set up two expert groups, one after the other, to decide how to protect the Western Ghats. The first, led by ecologist Madhav Gadgil, gave a strict...
Kanha Tiger Reserve is one of India's best-known tiger reserves. It lies in the Maikal hills of the Satpura range in Madhya Pradesh, spread over the Mandla...
The wild water buffalo is a huge, wild member of the cattle family that lives in wet grasslands, swamps and river floodplains of South and Southeast Asia....
El Niño–Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, is a natural climate 'swing' in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Every few years, the sea surface in the central and...
When a road, mine, dam or factory needs forest land, the forest is cut down. Compensatory afforestation is the rule that says: if you take forest land, you...
A compound drought and heatwave event is when a place suffers a drought (a long shortage of water) and a heatwave (unusually high temperatures) at the same...
A carbon sink is anything that takes in more carbon dioxide from the air than it gives out. Tropical forests, the dense forests near the equator, are among...
Project Tiger is India's national programme to save the tiger. It began on 1 April 1973 with 9 tiger reserves. Today it protects tigers through a network of...
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF or GBF) is the world's main plan to stop and reverse the loss of nature. It was adopted in...
Chilika Lake is a brackish water lagoon located on Odisha's eastern coast, spread across the districts of Puri, Khurda, and Ganjam. It is Asia's largest...
A bird strike happens when a flying aircraft hits a bird. When the aircraft hits other animals too (like bats, deer or stray dogs on a runway), experts use...
The Living Planet Report (LPR) is a report published by WWF every two years on the health of the world's wildlife and nature. Its headline number comes from...
Article 6 of the Paris Agreement is the part of the world's climate treaty that lets countries work together to cut greenhouse gas emissions, including by...
The Ganges river dolphin is a freshwater dolphin that lives in the Ganga and Brahmaputra river systems of India, Bangladesh and Nepal. It is almost blind...
A Key Biodiversity Area, or KBA, is a site that is very important for the survival of nature on a global scale. It may be a forest, a wetland, a coral reef...
Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures, or OECMs, are places that protect nature well even though they are not officially declared protected...
Project Cheetah is India's plan to bring the cheetah back to its forests and grasslands. The cheetah once lived across much of India, but it was hunted to...
Veerangana Durgavati Tiger Reserve (VDTR) is a tiger reserve in central Madhya Pradesh, spread across Sagar, Damoh and Narsinghpur districts. It is also...
The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, or MMDR Act, is India's main law on mining. It sets the rules for who can search for...
Desert National Park is a large protected area in the Thar Desert of western Rajasthan, spread over the Jaisalmer and Barmer districts. It covers about...
The Great Indian Bustard (GIB) is a large, tall bird that lives in open grasslands and dry scrublands of India. It is one of the heaviest flying birds in...
There are two basic ways to save a plant or animal species from dying out. In situ conservation means protecting the species in its natural home, for...
Small Island Developing States, or SIDS, are a group of small island and low-lying coastal developing countries that the United Nations treats as a special...
The NGT is a specialised judicial body established under the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010, for effective and expeditious disposal of cases relating to...
The Paris Agreement, adopted at COP21 in December 2015 and entering into force in November 2016, is the binding international treaty on climate change under...
An Eco-Sensitive Zone, or ESZ, is a belt of land around a national park or a wildlife sanctuary where harmful activities are controlled. Think of it as a...
The Central Water Commission is India's premier technical body for water resources, functioning as an attached office of the Ministry of Jal Shakti...
Antarctica is the icy continent around the South Pole. No single country governs it. Instead, it is managed by a set of international agreements called the...
Buxa Tiger Reserve is a tiger reserve in the Alipurduar district of northern West Bengal. It lies in the Dooars, the strip of plains and foothills at the...
Tiger translocation means catching a tiger from one forest and shifting it to another forest. When the aim is to bring tigers back to a place where they...
The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 defines 'wildlife' to explicitly include insects such as butterflies and moths, and extends legal protection to select...
The UNCCD is one of the three Rio Conventions to emerge from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, alongside the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and...
The Aravalli Range is one of the oldest fold mountain systems in the world, running northeasterly for approximately 650 km through the states of Gujarat...
India's Updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), submitted under the Paris Agreement in 2022, commits to three core 2030 targets: reducing the...
Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) is a leading conservation challenge in India, arising from shrinking forest cover, expanding human settlements, and wildlife...
Kuno National Park (KNP) in Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh was selected as the primary site for cheetah reintroduction after extensive habitat...
Microplastics are plastic particles or fibres smaller than 5 millimetres in size. They are classified as primary microplastics (manufactured at that size...
The Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 extends Part IX of the Constitution (Panchayati Raj) to Fifth Schedule tribal areas with...
CITES is the primary international legal framework regulating trade in wild animals and plants. It operates through a permit system administered by national...
Under the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006, coal mining projects above a threshold area are classified as Category A projects, which...
The Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution (under Article 244) provides for the administration and control of Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes in...
The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 requires Central Government approval before forest land is diverted to non-forest use, including mining. Clearance is...
Kaziranga National Park, located in Assam along the Brahmaputra floodplain (Golaghat and Nagaon districts), is one of India's most significant biodiversity...
ZSI is India's premier organisation for zoological taxonomy and survey work, functioning under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. Its...
CAFE norms are fleet-wide, sales-weighted average CO2 emission standards for passenger vehicles, distinct from per-vehicle emission limits. They were first...
The statistical relationship between El Niño and Indian summer monsoon rainfall (ISMR) has been studied since the 1890s, when Henry Blanford and Henry...
The IUCN Red List classifies extinction risk into categories — Least Concern, Near Threatened, Vulnerable, Endangered, Critically Endangered, Extinct in the...