Cities – Far Away from Nature?
Global populations continue to urbanise at an unprecedented rate, with cities expanding into huge concentrations of concrete, steel, and glass, raising sustainability concerns. I’ve attempted to explore this issue from the standpoint of urban ecology, an interdisciplinary branch of study that looks at the complex interactions between the built environment of cities and non-human species.
Beautiful Dragonflies of the Not-so-Beautiful City
This article investigates dragonflies in the city. While they are specialists in flight, very little is known about their pre-metamorphosis aquatic life. Since urban areas create niches where multi-habitat creatures like dragonflies can flourish, should cities be chastised as unwise, unsustainable endeavours or can they be reimagined as housing nature in changed forms?
Gatekeeping “Access”: Exploring Caveats to Public Greenspace Use for the Urban Poor
Planning processes institutionalise the will of the politically powerful, shaping cities where equal access to urban public greenspace is several steps too far for the urban poor, quite literally and quietly figuratively. Environmental justice scholarship needs to integrate quantitative and qualitative measurements of access to understand what influences greenspace use along socio-economic indicators.
A Morning of Birding: Inspiring next generation of nature enthusiasts
Gunjana Boruah & Nirjesh Gautam* Millions of people worldwide engage in the popular hobby of birdwatching, commonly referred to as birding. It is an engaging hobby that enables people to get in touch with nature, appreciate it, and explore the complex world of avian diversity and behaviour. Join us as we share our memorable birding…
Birding in the Wetlands
Merlyn Antony “Hope” is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul – And sings the tune without the words – And never stops – at all – – Emily Dickinson As the birds’ chirps flooded the morning sky, the students of MAED (M.A. in Environment and Development) along with PhD scholars at…
Bats: The Night Workers
Shiwani As the sun goes down, the nightwalker, or rather, I would say, night fliers come out, one can see colonies of bats flying in the sky and sometimes wandering near a tree or plant. On one such night, as I stood on the balcony, sipping a cup of tea, I observed some bats visiting…
Out of Place and Out of Space – Translocation and the Urban Monkey
Aditi Dhillon This year, in June 2021, the Karnataka High Court passed a judgement according to which monkeys entering residential spaces were to be translocated and moved to their natural habitat by the state. This judgement, however, was not one of its kind. It was, in fact, along the lines of a judgement passed by…
Compensatory Afforestation – Where is the Land?
Divya Mehra It is well established that India is an ‘under-construction’ country. As a developing economy, the country invests a significant amount of its budget in new development projects that are being proposed, planned, and implemented at the regional or local level. Very often the land for development projects is taken from the forest area…
Disciplining Non-human Bodies in the City
Aditi Dhillon & Ajay Immanuel Gonji In his seminal essay Why Look at Animals? John Berger (2009) talks about how, in the past, people kept domestic animals because they were useful to them – as guard dogs, hunting dogs, mice-killing cats, and so on. Later, people began to keep animals regardless of their usefulness, a…
Butterflies in the city of Delhi
Photographed and curated by Fizala Tayebulla and Shiwani The Photo Essay is a combined effort of CUES team members. The butterflies have been documented mostly in months of October and November across Dheerpur Wetland Park, Malcha Mahal and Pusa Hill Forest in Central Ridge Forest, New Delhi. The identification of the following Lepidoptera species is…
Snakes in the City
Vipin and Sonali At the turn of five years of untiring efforts towards restoring a wetland at Dheerpur village, now recognized as the Dheerpur Wetland Park (Project Site) has finally started to show the fruits of labour. Besides numerous flora (48 tree species), several species of grasses and sedge and a significant variety of fauna (birds, amphibians,…
Green or Greenwashing?
Divya Mehra In my previous blog, titled ‘Responsible Consumerism Comes at a Cost’, I have highlighted the importance of being a responsible consumer, and how more and more people are choosing environmentally sustainable or simply green products to adopt a sustainable lifestyle. In doing so, increasingly, people are trying to choose products that are labelled…
On Seeing City Water Bodies
Fizala Tayebulla Lakes and other water bodies have been an important part of civilisation all around the world. Freshwater sources have been the cardinal for settlements historically, as these settlements required a continuous and dependable source of fresh water for subsistence. Dense network of lake ecosystems were maintained by dedicated group of people and designated…
Valuing Insects
Ajay Immanuel Gonji Recently, I had the opportunity to go into the field with my colleague, Ojit, an entomologist by training. While Ojit was observing the mating behaviour of dragonflies, I was extremely fascinated with the eyes of the insect. And so, I inquired about vision in insects. Ojit informed me that insects, like the…
Sustainability of Smart Cities
Vijaylakshmi Suman The popular imagination of monsoon is that of lush green surroundings and pleasant weather, but the monsoon scenario in Delhi is not always the same. Water-logging and floods are becoming an annual phenomenon. This year Delhi received 64.5-124.4 mm of rain, and according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD) was classified as ‘heavy…
A Brief on Control and Management of Invasive Phragmites for Wetland Restoration
Shiwani One of the important steps in wetland restoration is managing the invasive or weed species (SER Report, 2019). A common invasive plant that is a threat to the ecological health of wetland ecosystems is a family of grasses called phragmites (Phragmites karka). These are dominant wetland plants and are found all around the world,…
Life in the Fastlane: Roadkill in the Anthropocene
Ajay Immanuel Gonji My first close encounter with roadkill was during fieldwork for my Master’s internship, way back in 2013. I remember seeing the bloated body of a large male nilgai, fully intact, on the footpath of the Aruna Asaf Ali Marg – a 6-lane highway bifurcating the Sanjay Van city forest and the Jawaharlal…
Living Legacies
Fizala Tayebulla Heritage is a legacy of important tangible and intangible assets passed down through the generations. An individual, a family, a community, or even a city or country could inherit a heritage property. There are three forms of heritage recognised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO): Cultural, Natural and Mixed.…
On the Aesthetics of Urban Nature
Vijaylakshmi Suman The vision of a world-class city comes with socially produced aesthetic criteria. It draws a distinction between the beautiful and the ugly, the visible and the invisible, the legal and the illegal as a process for the making of world-class urban improvements. According to such an aesthetic mode of governance, development projects in…
WATER QUALITY OF THE YAMUNA RIVER DURING THE FIRST LOCKDOWN
Divya Mehra and Shiwani The Coronavirus pandemic which has affected almost every part of the world is considered to be the biggest economic and health crisis of the present time. To contain the spread of the Covid-19 disease, in the initial phases of the pandemic, many countries went into lockdown, resulting in the temporary suspension…
Exploring the Behaviour of Urban Wildlife
Ajay Immanuel Gonji For many of us, our first encounter with animals was probably at home with cats and dogs, or on the streets with cows, chickens and so on. These creatures may be called ‘domestic’ because their lifeworlds almost entirely revolve around human beings. On the other hand are creatures that are collectively referred…
Responsible Consumerism Comes at a Cost
Divya Mehra With growing environmental concerns around the globe, the adoption of a sustainable lifestyle has become one of the important measures to deal with environmental crises at the individual level. In simple terms, a sustainable lifestyle is an individual’s or society’s attempt to reduce its consumption of natural resources and minimize its environmental footprint.…
The Digital Ecologies of Animal Display
Kartik Chugh The lockdown induced by the coronavirus pandemic witnessed a rather fascinating development in which wildlife cams gained unprecedented popularity. Millions of viewers tuned into the live streams of nest-cams, bird-cams, and crittercams to watch the compelling drama of animal life unfold. Zoos and aquariums also broadcasted live shows to keep the viewers gripped.…
Rights to a ‘World-class’ City
Ajay Immanuel Gonji In a previous blog article, I had mentioned that in many Indian cities, there exists a certain shared precarity between poor humans and non-humans in access and rights to the city, and both groups are often similarly excluded (Narayanan & Bindumadhav, 2019). In this present article, I wish to elaborate on this…
Earth Day: Its Significance Amidst the Pandemic
Vijaylakshmi Suman The second wave of Covid-19 has crippled the world, and unfortunately, India has become one of the hotspots. It has been a year since the first wave of the pandemic hit the country but with the second wave, the situation seems grimmer and its effects devastating. All possible measures are being deployed in…
Unique Disposition of Urban Wildlife
Ajay Immanuel Gonji Urban Landscapes and Wildlife Urban landscapes are unique in that they represent one of the most managed and domesticated landscapes on the planet (Kareiva et al., 2007) that have been modified to fulfil not just our needs but also our wants. However, interestingly, Urban landscapes, by their very nature, also offer distinct…
The Geographies of Animal Display
By citing various modes of animal exhibitions, this article demonstrates some of the ways in which animals have been represented in the circuits of natural history. Kartik Chugh Reliance Industries recently announced that they are establishing what they claim to be the world’s largest zoo in Jamnagar, Gujarat. On display would be more than a…
Urban Wetland and its Importance
Vijaylakshmi Suman World Wetlands Day is celebrated every year on 2 February to raise global awareness about the importance of wetlands for the environment and the people. This day also marks the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetland in 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian…
Report – Campus Bird Count 2021
Fizala Tayebulla The Centre for Urban Ecology and Sustainability (CUES) participated in the Campus Bird Count 2021 event for the fifth time in a row since 2017. The Centre organised bird counts in all five campuses of Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD) from 12th February to 15th February 2021. 12th February: Lodhi and Rohini Campus 13th…
The Circulation of Toxicity Between Urban and Peri-urban Frontiers
Using a flow-based approach, this article uses the example of water in Ghaziabad in an attempt to reveal how toxicity is circulated and re-circulated between the urban and the peri-urban. Kartik Chugh Development and Peri-urbanisation Since the economic liberalization in 1991, India has experienced an upsurge in urbanization. In 2019, 34.5% of India’s total population…
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Animal Behaviour (7) Animal Geography (8) Avifauna (7) Birds (5) Birdwatching (6) Cities (15) Conservation (5) COVID-19 (13) Delhi Ridge (8) Development (6) Dheerpur Wetland Project Site (9) Dheerpur Wetlands (8) Ecological Restoration (5) Ecosystem Services (4) Human-Animal relations (14) Human-generated Food (4) Lockdown (4) Nature Education (5) Nature in the Anthropocene (19) Nature in the City (20) New Delhi (7) Nocturnality (6) Non-human (5) Nonhumans (6) Novel Ecosystems (6) Pandemic (6) Photography (4) Political Ecology (5) Power Relations (5) Public Health (5) Research (5) Restoration Ecology (5) Urban (4) Urban Adapters (7) Urban Ecology (19) Urban Ecosystems (6) Urban Fauna (14) Urban Green Spaces (8) Urbanization (14) Urban Planning (5) Urban Political Ecology (6) Urban Wetland (5) Urban Wildlife (19) wetlands (11) wildlife in the city (5)
[…] of greenspace at least 2 hectares in size. While this is a productive line of enquiry (see Where Access is…
[…] It is a well-documented global phenomenon that city planning – particularly in the Global South – favours the resource-rich…
Reblogged this on Drawing Parallels.
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Very informative post, thanks for sharing!
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