Darwin Comes to Town: How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution. Menno Schilthuizen (2018).
The Anthropocene marks an era of profound human influence on Earth’s systems. While many studies highlight mass extinction, Menno Schilthuizen emphasizes nature’s resilience in urban landscapes. He presents cities as evolving ecosystems where adaptation unfolds rapidly, challenging conventional views of urbanization. His perspective urges a rethinking of urban ecology and the persistence of biodiversity.
Small Parks, Big Stories: Tracking Birds in Parks
During my internship, I worked in Delhi’s urban parks, places I hadn’t initially considered ecologically significant. Though the city’s lakes caught my attention first, it was the birds that truly transformed my viewing of urban nature. What began as a routine two-credit assignment turned into a deeper exploration of biodiversity in seemingly ordinary green spaces,…
His songs at 2 a.m.
At 2 a.m., when the city seems finally at rest, a sudden drawn-out whistle pierces the silence—sweeeeeeeeeee. It is the Oriental Magpie Robin (Copsychus saularis), a bird many may never have noticed in flight, yet one whose voice is etched into the urban soundscape. By day, it is a striking figure in black and white,…
The First Engineers Weren’t Human
Human beings have been engineering for a long time. Imhotep, who built the Step Pyramid at Ṣaqqārah, Egypt, around 2550 BCE, is considered one of the first engineers of humankind. In Rome, around the 1st century CE, Vitruvius’s De architectura, a 10-volume work, was published covering extensive engineering knowledge, including building materials, construction methods, hydraulics,…
Terminating the Termites: A story of urban resilience
“While we have been trying to save the world’s crumbling pre-urban ecosystem, we have been ignoring the fact that nature has already been putting up the scaffolds to build novel, urban ecosystems for the future.” Menno Schilthuizen, Darwin Comes to Town (2018) More than half of the world’s population now resides in cities. But cities…
Meeting by the Marsh: ERA Visit to Dheerpur Wetland
A nature walk at the Dheerpur Wetland Project, organized by CUES and ERA, offered participants insights into urban wetland restoration. Participants shared experiences, discussed restoration challenges, and fostered a spirit of collaboration in the field.
Beyond the Nocturnal Veil: Exploring Diurnal Roosts of Fruit Bats
While there are many preconceived notions about bats, very little is known about their daytime roosting habitats and habits. This piece explores the diurnal roosts of fruit bats within the urban landscape of Delhi.
Early Birders get to Learn!: Birding at Dheerpur Wetlands with the CUES Team
That eagle you spotted in Delhi is probably a Black kite, and that parrot might be a Parakeet! Welcome to the world of birdwatching with the first semester students of MAED, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University, who visited the Dheerpur Wetlands and learnt about restoration ecology, urban wetlands, and the surprising biodiversity of cities.
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.…
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Animal Behaviour (7) Animal Geography (8) Avifauna (7) Birds (5) Birdwatching (6) Cities (16) Conservation (5) COVID-19 (13) Delhi Ridge (8) Development (6) Dheerpur Wetland Project Site (9) Dheerpur Wetlands (8) Ecological Restoration (5) Global South (4) Human-Animal relations (14) Nature Education (5) Nature in the Anthropocene (23) Nature in the City (25) New Delhi (7) Nocturnality (6) Non-human (5) Nonhumans (6) Novel Ecosystems (6) Pandemic (6) periurban political ecology (4) Political Ecology (5) Power Relations (5) Public Health (5) Research (5) Restoration Ecology (6) Urban Adapters (8) Urban Ecology (24) Urban Ecosystems (6) Urban Fauna (16) Urban Green Spaces (8) Urbanization (15) Urban Planning (5) Urban Political Ecology (6) Urban Wetland (6) Urban Wildlife (21) Wastewater (4) Wetland Ecology (4) Wetland Restoration (4) wetlands (13) wildlife in the city (5)
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