Current Conservation

Feature

The paradox of militarised conservation and justice in decentralised forestry

A growing trend of illegal resource utilisation countered with armed responses across East Africa’s protected areas.

Feature

Palming off the forests: social and ecological implications of introducing oil palm plantations in North-east India

Several examples from South-east Asia provide evidence to suggest that oil palm plantation development is riddled with complexity.

Interview

Jim Nichols

James D Nichols has been a wildlife biologist with the US Geological Survey for more than 40 years and a long-time collaborator on conservation research projects in India. At the Student Conference on Conservation Science, Bengaluru (SCCS-Bengaluru)-2015, Dr Nichols spoke about ways to integrate science into conservation decision-making, drawing upon his own experiences working with wildlife managers in North America. Hari Sridhar spoke to Dr Nichols after the talk, to find out more about his work.

Feature

Reviving extinct species - future of science or fool’s errand?

What do the passenger pigeon, the Spanish Ibex and the woolly mammoth have in common? Although officially extinct, they are all now challenging the meaning of the word because, in each case, scientists are working on bringing them back to life.

Feature

Marine parks in India – a case for maritime environmentalism

Conservation stories often encourage an imagination of conservation as a simple exercise in moral dualism – choosing good over bad. It is this facile type-casting and posturing that paves the path for contentious interventions.

Interview

Romulus Whitaker

Sea turtle conservation in India started with turtle walks in Madras (now Chennai) on the east coast in the early 1970s and coincidentally at about the same time in Gahirmatha, Orissa, at one of the largest rookeries for olive ridley turtles in the world.

Special

Conservation conversations

The irony of globalisation, creating conservation challenges even as it enables conservation research partnerships to address such crises, need not be lost here.