• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

Scientists Cite Pollution Reducing Calls to ‘Flatten Curves’ in Post- Coronavirus Climate Change

Scientists, activists and religious leaders from Pope Francis to filmmaker Spike Lee highlighted the reduction in air and natural pollution reduction “to life” as part of a greater call to permanently change industrial and economic behavior after COVID-19. Pope Francis said last week that the deadly coronavirus pandemic around the world was one of the “natural responses” to human mistreatment of Planet Earth, telling Catholic publications in Britain that “God always forgives, but Nature never forgives.” This sentiment is echoed by environmental researchers, politicians and activists who urge world leaders to permanently reduce carbon emissions, air pollution, and burning fossil fuels to “flatten the curves” of climate change. COVID-19, which has caused the death of more than 107,000 people worldwide, has locked a large portion of the industrial world, simultaneously clearing the blue sky in India and improving air quality in the northeastern United States because it has caused chaos in the global health care system. “The beautiful view of the blue sky and the joy of breathing clean air provide a contrast to illustrate what we do for ourselves all the time,” Dr Shashi Tharoor told The Guardian on Saturday. Evidence of the removal of smoke in New Delhi, the panda finally married in China, and air pollution falling over New York, New Jersey, and Maryland has spread news reports globally, but climate researchers and scientists warn there must be a permanent reduction in pollution, transportation , and industry for. continue this change after the pandemic. NASA satellite data shows a reduction of nitrogen dioxide 30 percent above the northeastern US, because tens of millions of vehicles are transported on the road and fossil fuels that are usually burned for transportation purposes are mostly stopped. In northern India, a country that puts 1.4 billion people in lockdowns and keeps 11 million New Delhi registered vehicles off the road, the Air Quality Index level has improved to the best in decades. A separate pair of studies published in Nature’s online scientific journal this month on rebuilding damaged oceanic ecosystems and global warming, respectively, saw researchers trying to “flatten the curves” of climate change similar to the reversals sought in stemming COVID-19 cases the new one. “Our research shows that fast action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions this decade will effectively flatten the curves of at-risk species. Similar to the COVID-19 pandemic, initial actions to limit risk are paid off in a large way. It does not eliminate all risks from climate change. “But reducing the number of species and ecosystems exposed to large numbers,” study co-author Christopher Trisos, from the University of Cape Town, told The Guardian last week. Former Vice President Al Gore, who founded The Climate Reality Project, told HBO host Bill Maher on Friday that there was a clear link between COVID-19 and climate change, saying that both functioned as a call to awaken that government leaders can’t just ignore it. terrible warning from scientists. American filmmaker Spike Lee echoes the thoughts of Pope Francis, telling The Joe Madison Show on Friday that locking up the coronavirus “changes everything.” “But you know why, the reason – how pollution clears. The sky is clear. The animals are coming out. I mean, you know, the Earth is angry with us. People might think I’m crazy because I believe in me. Heart and soul. That we have been too far away and Earth said, “Wait, we have to change this.” We are killing this planet, “Lee said. Sunita Narain, director of the Center for Environmental Sciences and vocal criticism of the New Delhi car pollution problem said there needed to be an “alltime” change in transit behavior. “I don’t want people to say, ‘Oh, environmentalists celebrate this lockdown:’ we don’t. This is not the solution. But whatever is new normal is post-COVID-19, we have to make sure we take this breath. Fresh air and think about serious efforts we need to tackle pollution in Delhi. “ Is coronavirus caused by climate change? No! So does that mean climate change has nothing to do with the spread of viral diseases? No! Professor Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist, posted a Twitter thread that was shared widely last month that discussed how the data showed a reduction in monthly or even annual reductions in CO2 emissions is not much compared to the “cumulative” damage done to the atmosphere and the environment. “When the pandemic passes, carbon emissions are likely to bounce back, and maybe some, because the industry is doing its best to make up for lost productivity, income and wages. So any slowdown is temporary the best,” he concluded. . Scientists, religious leaders and business people are calling for “leveling the curves” of the negative effects of climate change because the locking of COVID-19 has caused air quality to skyrocket and industrial pollution to decline when billions of people take refuge in places. Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates said in Ted Talk at the end of March that he saw hope in the international scientific community and private sector businesses working together to resolve both the climate crisis and the coronavirus virus. “The idea of innovation and science and the world working together – it’s really common between these two problems, and so I don’t think this has to be a major setback for climate. On the science side and data sharing, you see this great collaboration going on . “ | April 13, 2020

• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

Life under COVID-19: Blue skies, clean air in India

Thank you for your reading and interest in the news Life under COVID-19: Blue skies, clean air in India and now with details WIN 200412 INDIA Blue skies and clean air 1-1586677695682 Aden - Yasmin Abdel Azim - People stand near the banks of the Yamuna river during a government-imposed nationwide lockdown as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 coronavirus, in New Delhi on April 6, 2020. / AFP / Money SHARMA Image Credit: AFP New Delhi: Inside the world’s largest lockdown, there are no flights, no passenger trains, no taxis and few functioning industries. But one thing is remarkably abundant: cleaner air. India is engaged in a desperate bid to “flatten the curve” of coronavirus cases before they overwhelm the creaky health system in this nation of more than 1.3 billion people. In the meantime, the three-week lockdown, which was extended, is flattening something else - India’s notorious air pollution. The speed of the change has surprised even experts, who say it is proof that dramatic improvements in air quality can be achieved, albeit at an enormous human and economic cost. Days after the lockdown began on March 25, the level of particle pollution considered most harmful to human health fell by nearly 60 per cent in New Delhi, India’s capital, according to an analysis by experts at the nonprofit Center for Science and Environment. Similar drops have occurred in other major Indian cities. In normal times, Delhi is the world’s most polluted megalopolis. For much of the winter, air quality readings remain at levels that in the United States are considered unhealthy or worse. Last November, the city experienced its longest spell of hazardous air since such record keeping began. These days, Delhiites are stuck in their homes except when picking up essential goods. But above them are blue skies, the moon and the stars, seen without the usual barrier of smog. The sight is so striking that “I feel like complimenting the sky for its beauty,” said Sameer Dhanda, 26, an architect. In other parts of India, the Himalayan mountain range is visible from a distance for the first time in years. Waterways choked by industrial pollution, such as Delhi’s Yamuna River - full of grey foam just months ago - are flowing unimpeded. The current reduction in pollution has come at a steep price. Much of the Indian economy has been idled, forcing vulnerable workers to travel hundreds of miles to their home villages on foot. Millions could be plunged into poverty or hunger if the lockdown continues beyond its initial three-week period. But experts say that there are still lessons to be gleaned, including a chance to imagine a different future. The decrease in pollution is a “proof of concept” that demonstrates clean air “is doable,” said Ajay Mathur, a former Indian climate negotiator and a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s council on climate change. “The linkage between personal behaviour and what I will breathe is far clearer now than it has been in the past.” The first step for any government is to ensure that “the vast number of Indians have sustainable livelihoods,” Mathur added. Nevertheless, he hopes that policy changes - such as phasing out dirty industrial fuels and accelerating the shift to environmentally friendly vehicles - will get a boost in the post-pandemic world. Mathur often suffers from a raspy voice and persistent cough that doctors have told him is related to Delhi’s bad air. In the past two weeks, he said, such symptoms have vanished. One terrible irony of the current crisis is that a pandemic that makes it difficult for some to breathe has, by curbing pollution, eased respiratory troubles for others. Pulmonologists in Delhi say many of their regular patients are breathing easier and reducing their use of inhalers. For them, this period is a kind of boon, said Arvind Kumar, a chest surgeon and trustee of the Lung Care Foundation. India’s long-running battle with pollution may have rendered it particularly vulnerable to the novel coronavirus. Researchers at Harvard recently found that places with long-term exposure to higher levels of fine particle pollution - known as PM2.5 - were associated with higher rates of death caused by covid-19. Such particles can lodge deep in the lungs and have been linked to high blood pressure, heart disease, respiratory infections and even cancer. So far, about 200 people in India have died of covid-19, with more than 6,500 cases of the illness confirmed. Anumita Roy Chowdhury, an air pollution expert at Delhi’s Center for Science and Environment, described India’s improved air quality as “a very big unintended experiment unfolding in front of us.” The lockdown demonstrates “the scale at which change is needed,” she said, but also shows people “what it means to breathe clean air.” Across a huge swath of northern India, the air quality normally varies from poor to apocalyptic, depending on the time of year, with a brief respite during the annual monsoon. The worst period begins when temperatures drop in October, trapping near ground level a mix of industrial emissions, road dust, vehicular exhaust and ash from burned crop stubble. Pollution begins to ease in February. Jyoti Pande Lavakare, an author and anti-pollution activist in Delhi, said she doesn’t remember seeing skies of this type of blue at this time of year in at least a decade. In recent days, she began doing her morning exercises outside and found herself lying on her back on her yoga mat, just gazing at the sky. “After we battle the current pandemic, we need to revisit how we treat the invisible killer of air pollution,” Lavakare said. The World Health Organization estimates that polluted air kills 7 million people annually. For now, Delhi residents are treasuring a rare upside of a time marked by fear and worry. Priyanki Choudhury, a 29-year-old account manager, said she has not experienced anything like this - clear blue skies in the day and stars at night - since she was a teenager. Choudhury was not sure whether the lockdown would succeed in stemming the spread of covid-19. But, for the environment, she said, it is clearly a “time to heal.” These were the details of the news Life under COVID-19: Blue skies, clean air in India for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new. It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at Gulf News and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source. | April 13, 2020

• Industrial Pollution

At Least Two Dead in Coal Ash Breach in India

A dike at a coal ash pond at a power plant in India gave way on April 10, killing at least two people while four others are missing, according to a local official. The spill covered several acres of cropland in the area. K.V.S. Choudary, the district collector and the top public official in the Singrauli district in central India, told local media the incident occurred at the Sasan Ultra Mega Power Project, a site owned by Reliance Power. Choudary said one worker and five local residents were carried away by the flow of ash from the 4,000-MW plant. POWER in 2016 reported on problems at the power plant. “The breach occurred owing to the negligence of the plant,” Choudary told The Hindu newspaper in a story published Saturday. He said the ash “has flown through a channel to the Rihand dam.” Compensation for Those Impacted Choudary said district officials would conduct a survey of the damaged areas and secure compensation for those impacted by the spill. District administrators immediately ordered said. A local resident told The Hindu that, “Three months ago, we staged a sit-in for 24 days outside the Reliance plant. We flagged the breach could happen any time to the authorities. Reliance had given in writing that it won’t happen. And even the administration had verified it.” Sasan Power Limited, a subsidiary of Reliance Power, in a statement said, “We are deeply anguished by the incident involving the break in the ash dump yard wall at our Sasan Power Plant. The break in ash dump yard wall pushed the water, leading to break in the boundary wall affecting some thatched houses and minor land parcel.” Sasan said the company was investigating the incident. “The power plant operations continue as the relief and restoration work is not affected by the same. We are closely working with locals and the district administration in relief and restoration work,” it said. Choudary said the bodies of the two people killed were found “as far as five kilometers away from the ash dike breach site.” He said the four people missing also are presumed dead. He told The Hindu that “a National Disaster Response Force team from Varanasi of 30 rescuers is searching for the missing.” Choudary said those caught up in the incident were inside their homes, near the ash pond, at the time of the incident. Third Incident in Past Year Local officials said it was at least the third time in the past year that a dike at a coal ash storage site in the district has failed. Earlier reports said a dike at an ash pond operated by Essar was breached in August 2019, and a similar incident occurred in October of last year at a plant operated by NTPC Ltd. Choudary on Saturday said that in response to the NTPC incident, he had asked all coal-based power plants in the region to strengthen the dikes around their coal ash ponds. Officials said the ash from Friday’s spill covered a large area in the town of Sasan, in India’s central Madhya Pradesh state. Sunil Dahiya, an analyst at New-Delhi based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, told Reuters in a story published Saturday that the coal ash is a “hazardous cocktail” of heavy metals known to cause liver and kidney ailments. Studies performed in 2012 by India’s Centre for Science and Environment found mercury levels in blood samples from residents in the region, which is home to several coal-fired power plants, to be six times more than what is considered safe. Reuters reported Saturday that another local official, not authorized to comment on the incident, said the ash in the soil was likely to impact agricultural output for at least two seasons as it covered several fields used to grow food crops. The official said unspecified “strict action” would be taken against Reliance Power. Reuters said Reliance Power indicated it was working with local officials in response to the incident, but didn’t comment specifically on the official’s statement regarding possible actions against the company.

• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

Coronavirus: India sees blue skies and clean air as a result of the world’s largest lockdown

Inside the world’s largest lockdown, there are no trips, no guest trains, no taxis and couple of working sectors. But something is incredibly plentiful: cleaner air. India is participated in a hopeless quote to “flatten the curve” of coronavirus instances prior to they bewilder the ancient wellness system in this country of greater than 1.3 billion individuals. In the meanwhile, the three-week lockdown is squashing another thing– India’s infamous air air pollution. The rate of the modification has actually stunned also professionals, that claim it is evidence that remarkable enhancements in air top quality can be accomplished, albeit at a massive human and financial expense. Days after the lockdown started on 25 March, the degree of fragment air pollution taken into consideration most damaging to human wellness dropped by virtually 60 percent in New Delhi, India’s funding, according to an evaluation by professionals at the not-for-profit Centre for Science andEnvironment Similar decreases have actually happened in various other significant Indian cities. In regular times, Delhi is the world’s most contaminated megalopolis. For much of the winter season, air top quality analyses stay at degrees that in the United States are taken into consideration harmful or even worse. Last November, the city experienced its lengthiest spell of unsafe air considering that such document maintaining started. These days, Delhiites are embeded their residences other than when grabbing important products. But over them are blue skies, the moon and the celebrities, seen without the normal obstacle of smoke. The view is so striking that “I feel like complimenting the sky for its beauty,” stated Sameer Dhanda, a designer. In various other components of India, the Himalayan chain of mountains shows up from a range for the very first time in years. Waterways choked by commercial air pollution, such as Delhi’s Yamuna River– complete of grey foam simply months earlier– are moving unobstructed. The existing decrease in air pollution has actually come with a high rate. Much of the Indian economic situation has actually been idled, requiring at risk employees to take a trip hundreds of miles to their house towns walking. Millions might be dived right into hardship or cravings if the lockdown proceeds past its first threeweek duration. But professionals claim that there are still lessons to be amassed, consisting of a opportunity to visualize a various future. The decline in air pollution is a “proof of concept” that shows clean air “is doable,” stated Ajay Mathur, a previous Indian environment arbitrator and a participant of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s council on environment modification. “The linkage between personal behaviour and what I will breathe is far clearer now than it has been in the past.” The very first step for any kind of federal government is to make certain that “the vast number of Indians have sustainable livelihoods,” Mathur included. Nevertheless, he wishes that plan modifications– such as terminating unclean commercial gas and speeding up the change to eco-friendly cars– will certainly obtain a increase in the postpandemic globe. No buzz, simply the suggestions and evaluation you require Mathur frequently struggles with a scratchy voice and consistent coughing that medical professionals have actually informed him belongs to Delhi’s negativeair In the past 2 weeks, he stated, such signs have actually disappeared. One dreadful paradox of the existing situation is that a pandemic that makes it challenging for some to take a breath has, by suppressing air pollution, alleviated respiratory system difficulties for others. Pulmonologists in Delhi claim several of their normal people are taking a breath simpler and lowering their usage of inhalers. For them, this duration is a kind of advantage, stated Arvind Kumar, a upper body cosmetic surgeon and trustee of the Lung Care Foundation. India’s long-running fight with air pollution might have provided it especially at risk to the unique coronavirus. Researchers at Harvard lately discovered that locations with lasting direct exposure to greater degrees of great fragment air pollution– well-known as PM2.5– were related to greater prices of fatality brought on by Covid-19 Such bits can lodge deep in the lungs and have actually been connected to hypertension, cardiovascular disease, respiratory system infections and also cancer cells. So much, regarding 200 individuals in India have actually passed away of Covid-19, with greater than 6,500 instances of the health problem validated. Anumita Roy Chowdhury, an air air pollution specialist at Delhi’s Centre for Science and Environment, defined India’s enhanced air top quality as“a very big unintended experiment unfolding in front of us” The lockdown shows “the scale at which change is needed,” she stated, however additionally reveals individuals “what it means to breathe clean air”. Across a big swath of north India, the air top quality typically differs from bad to apocalyptic, depending upon the time of year, with a short break throughout the yearly downpour. The worst duration starts when temperature levels decrease in October, capturing near ground degree a mix of commercial exhausts, roadway dirt, automotive exhaust and ash from scorched plant bristle. Pollution starts to relieve in February. Jyoti Pande Lavakare, a writer and antipollution protestor in Delhi, stated she does not keep in mind seeing skies of this kind of blue right now of year in a minimum of a years. In current days, she started doing her early morning workouts outside and discovered herself pushing her back on her yoga exercise floor covering, simply looking at the skies. “After we battle the current pandemic, we need to revisit how we treat the invisible killer of air pollution,” Lavakare stated. The World Health Organisation approximates that contaminated air eliminates 7 million individuals each year. For currently, Delhi locals are cherishing a uncommon advantage of a time noted by anxiety and fear. Priyanki Choudhury, an account supervisor, stated she has not knowledgeable anything similar to this– clear blue skies in the day and stars in the evening– considering that she was a young adult. Choudhury was uncertain whether the lockdown would certainly do well in stemming the spread of Covid-19 But, for the atmosphere, she stated, it is plainly a “time to heal.”

• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

As cities wake up to cleaner air, pollution statistics become clearer

NEW DELHI : India’s unprecedented nationwide lockdown to battle covid-19 has also opened up an unexpected opportunity—a chance for residents to open up their lungs and breathe in the cleanest air in about a decade. With millions of vehicles that spew dust and harmful emissions off the roads, and factories shut for about three weeks, air pollution levels have plunged. According to the government-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), Delhi has seen a 51% reduction in PM2.5 and 49% reduction in PM10 since the lockdown. Similar reductions were seen in Mumbai, Pune and Ahmedabad. These fine particulate matter take a heavy health toll on people’s lives, aggravating conditions like asthma. “This is one huge experiment that nature has played out for us. So far, we had just theoretical estimates of how much each source contributes to pollution because there was no way such measures could have been taken at this scale. But the crisis has presented a vast trove of experimental evidence and validated our observations," said Gufrain Beig, programme coordinator at SAFAR. India’s national capital, one of the most polluted cities in the world, recorded some of the lowest Air Quality Index (AQI) in the first week of April. While the role of changing weather conditions cannot be ruled out, the impact of lockdown was most evident in the reduction of Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) levelslargely controlled by vehicular pollution which is responsible for 40% of Delhi’s pollution. The data showed that there has been at least 60% reduction in NOx levels in Delhi, Mumbai and Pune over the last month. The unintended, yet huge experiment has demonstrated what could be achieved, if certain solutions are implemented. “People have now seen, what it means to have clean air and blue skies, which were otherwise shrouded by pollution. This is creating a social capital for us. Now we have to learn from this experience and build support for future action," said Anumita Roy Chowdhury, executive director, research and advocacy, Centre for Science and Environment. Although the changes have come at the cost of an economic standstill, experts underscored that the situation would give India an opportunity to recalibrate its approach toward air pollution. “For the first time, we are maximizing the potential of digital platforms in our workplaces, which have immediately cut down the need to travel. Going forward, can we bring changes in our lifestyles? Can we institutionalize some of these solutions? Perhaps, the government could push for cleaner pathways, when it provides stimulus to the economy postpandemic and ensure adequate environmental safeguards. The challenge now is to design the programmes in such a way that a green deal is made possible," she added. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has already begun collecting the data for further analysis. “The expert agencies are working on it and collecting data and we will definitely consider these observations to improve action in the near future. We are already realizing the impact of this lockdown on environment," said Bhure Lal, chairperson of the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA). India’s river stretches passing through major industrial towns have also recorded visual improvement. “Though, the untreated sewage is still finding its way into the rivers, but the toxic industrial effluents have declined and the results are evident in some stretches. It is a golden opportunity for us to monitor these changes for an informed action in future," said Manoj Mishra, Convenor of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan, NGO that works on the revival of Yamuna.

• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

In India, life under coronavirus brings blue skies and clean air

NEW DELHI — Inside the world’s largest lockdown, there are no flights, no passenger trains, no taxis and few functioning industries. But one thing is remarkably abundant: cleaner air. India is engaged in a desperate bid to “flatten the curve” of coronavirus cases system in this nation of more than 1.3 billion people. In the meantime, the three-week lockdown is flattening something else — India’s notorious air pollution. The speed of the change has surprised even experts, who say it is proof that dramatic improvements in air quality can be achieved, albeit at an enormous human and economic cost. Days after the lockdown began on March 25, the level of particle pollution considered most harmful to human health fell by nearly 60 percent in New Delhi, India’s capital, according to an analysis by experts at the nonprofit Center for Science and Environment. Similar drops have occurred in other major Indian cities. In normal times, Delhi is the world’s most polluted megalopolis. For much of the winter, air quality readings remained at levels that in the United States are considered unhealthy or worse. Last November, the city experienced its longest spell of hazardous air since such record keeping began. These days, Delhiites are stuck at home except when picking up essential goods. But above them are blue skies, the moon and the stars, seen without the usual barrier of smog. The sight is so striking that “I feel like complimenting the sky for its beauty,” said Sameer Dhanda, 26, an architect. The India Gate war memorial in New Delhi on Oct. 17, 2019, and on April 8, 2020, after air pollution levels dropped during a 21-day nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The India Gate war memorial in New Delhi on Oct. 17, 2019, and on April 8, 2020, after air pollution levels dropped during a 21-day nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus In other parts of India, the Himalayan mountain range is visible from a distance for the first time in years. Waterways choked by industrial pollution, such as Delhi’s Yamuna River — full of gray foam just months ago — are flowing unimpeded. Sign up for our Coronavirus Updates newsletter to track the outbreak. All stories linked in the newsletter are free to access. The current reduction in pollution has come at a steep price. Much of the Indian economy has been idled, forcing vulnerable workers to travel hundreds of miles to their home villages on foot. Millions could be plunged into poverty or hunger if the lockdown continues beyond its initial three-week period. But experts say that there are still lessons to be gleaned, including a chance to imagine a different future. The decrease in pollution is a “proof of concept” that demonstrates clean air “is doable,” said Ajay Mathur, a former Indian climate negotiator and a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s council on climate change. “The linkage between personal behavior and what I will breathe is far clearer now than it has been in the past.” The first step for any government is to ensure that “the vast number of Indians have sustainable livelihoods,” Mathur added. Nevertheless, he hopes that policy changes — such as phasing out dirty industrial fuels and accelerating the shift to environmentally friendly vehicles — will get a boost in the post-pandemic world. Mathur often suffers from a raspy voice and persistent cough that doctors have told him is related to Delhi’s bad air. In the past two weeks, he said, such symptoms have vanished. One terrible irony of the current crisis is that a pandemic that makes it difficult for some to breathe has, by curbing pollution, eased respiratory troubles for others. Pulmonologists in Delhi say many of their regular patients are breathing easier and reducing their use of inhalers. For them, this period is a kind of boon, said Arvind Kumar, a chest surgeon and trustee of the Lung Care Foundation. India’s long-running battle with pollution may have rendered it particularly vulnerable to the novel coronavirus. Researchers at Harvard recently found that places with long-term exposure to higher levels of fine particle pollution — known as PM2.5 — were associated with higher rates of death caused by covid-19. Such particles can lodge deep in the lungs and have been linked to high blood pressure, heart disease, respiratory infections and even cancer. So far, about 200 people in India have died of covid-19, with more than 6,500 cases of the illness confirmed. Anumita Roy Chowdhury, an air pollution expert at Delhi’s Center for Science and Environment, described India’s improved air quality as “a very big unintended experiment unfolding in front of us.” The lockdown demonstrates “the scale at which change is needed,” she said, but also shows people “what it means to breathe clean air.” In a huge swath of northern India, the air quality normally varies from poor to apocalyptic, depending on the time of year, with a brief respite during the annual monsoon. The worst period begins when temperatures drop in October, trapping near ground level a mix of industrial emissions, road dust, vehicular exhaust and ash from burned crop stubble. Pollution begins to ease in February. Jyoti Pande Lavakare, an author and antipollution activist in Delhi, said she doesn’t remember seeing skies of this type of blue at this time of year in at least a decade. In recent days, she began doing her morning exercises outside and found herself lying on her back on her yoga mat, just gazing at the sky. “After we battle the current pandemic, we need to revisit how we treat the invisible killer of air pollution,” Lavakare said. The World Health Organization estimates that polluted air kills 7 million people annually. For now, Delhi residents are treasuring a rare upside of a time marked by fear and worry. Priyanki Choudhury, a 29-year-old account manager, said she has not experienced anything like this — clear blue skies in the day and stars at night — since she was a teenager. Choudhury was not sure whether the lockdown would succeed in stemming the spread of covid- 19. But, for the environment, she said, it is clearly a “time to heal.” Washington Post| April 11, 2020

• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

'It's positively alpine!': Disbelief in big cities as air pollution falls

Delhi is one of many capitals enjoying improved air quality since restrictions were introduced due to the coronavirus by Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Delhi, Rebecca Ratcliffe in Bangkok, Sam Cowie in São Paulo, Joe Parkin Daniels in Bogotá and Lily Kuo in Beijing The screenshots began to circulate on Delhi WhatsApp groups last week, captioned with varying expressions of disbelief. Having checked the air quality index, something of a sadistic morning ritual among residents of India’s capital, most could not believe their eyes. Gone was the familiar menacing red banner, indicating how each intake of breath is really just a toxic blast on the lungs, replaced instead by a healthy, cheerful green. Could it really be that Delhi’s pollution levels now fell into the category of … “good”? “It’s positively alpine!” exclaimed one message. A nationwide lockdown imposed across India almost two weeks ago to stop the spread of the coronavirus – the largest lockdown of its kind attempted anywhere – has led to widespread chaos and suffering, especially among the country’s 300 million poor. Yet in Delhi, the world’s most polluted city, it has also resulted in some of the freshest air the capital has seen in decades. New Delhi pollution then and now It is a lockdown silver lining being repeated across the world, as toxic megacities such as Bangkok, Beijing, São Paulo and Bogotá, where varying coronavirus restrictions have been imposed, all reported an unprecedented decline in pollution. Yet it is countered with one cruel irony: with most residents of these cities strictly confined to their homes, few have any way to appreciate this newly fresh air, except through an open window or a during speedy trip to the supermarket. 16 Monthly compilation of CSE’s media clippings: for the month of April 2020 In Delhi, air quality index (AQI) levels are usually a severe 200 on a good day (anything above 25 is deemed unsafe by World Health Organization). During peak pollution periods last year they soared well into a life-threatening 900 and sometimes off the measurable scale. But as Delhi’s 11m registered cars were taken off the roads and factories and construction were ground to a halt, AQI levels have regularly fallen below 20. The skies are suddenly a rare, piercing blue. Even the birdsong seems louder. Dr Shashi Tharoor, a politician and author who has been vocal on environmental issues, said he hoped that it was a wakeup call. “The blissful sight of blue skies and the joy of breathing clean air provides just the contrast to illustrate what we are doing to ourselves the rest of the time,” said Tharoor. “Today the typical Delhi AQI hovers around 30 and one blissful afternoon, after a spurt of rain, it dropped to 7.” Tharoor’s sister Smita, who was visiting from the UK when the lockdown was imposed and found herself stuck in Delhi, was equally effusive. As someone with asthma, she said the city’s air, normally thick with pollution, was usually a health nightmare. But now: “The air is clear, the skies are blue. I see the evening stars with clarity and hear the chirruping of excited birds at this unexpected bonus they have received.” While India’s powerful car lobby has long disputed that cars are a major cause of Delhi’s pollution, Sunita Narain, director of the Centre for Science and Environment, said the lockdown and resulting rapid drop in pollution showed once and for all just what a polluting role vehicles had in the city. Narain also stressed that while she wished Delhi was like this “all the time”, adding: “I don’t want people to say ‘Oh, environmentalists are celebrating this lockdown:’ we are not. This is not the solution. But whatever the new normal is post-Covid-19, we have to make sure we take this breath of fresh air and think about the serious efforts we need to deal with pollution in Delhi.” It is not just Delhi experiencing the clearest skies in years. As pollution dropped to its lowest level in three decades this week this week, residents of Jalandhar in Punjab woke up to an incredible sight in the distance: the Dhauladhar mountain range in Himachal Pradesh. The peaks, which are over 120 miles away, had not been sighted on the Punjab horizon for almost 30 years. It is the absence of cars on some of the world’s most congested roads that seems to be making the most crucial differences. Thailand’s capital, Bangkok, which only last month had closed schools because the pollution got so bad, has experienced a similar transformation in the air since partial lockdown, mainly due to the fall in road traffic. “We can see quite a big gap between the air quality standard that we have [compared with this time last year],” says Tara Buakamsri, Thailand director for Greenpeace. But residents of Bangkok lamented how the places to enjoy the fresh air were swiftly disappearing. Playgrounds, sporting grounds and even parks, a rare source of solace in the bustling, intensely urban environs of Bangkok, have all now been shut. “I feel sad for the old people who use the park to hang out and meet friends. I think they will be so sad at home,” said Nantawan Wangudomsuk, 31, a producer who used to run in the parks. Across South America’s most populous city of São Paulo, ground zero of Brazil’s brewing coronavirus crisis, notorious traffic queues and smoggy horizons are also giving way to calm streets and clearer skies. During weekday rush-hour, downtown São Paulo’s João Goulart elevated highway – nicknamed Minhocão, the Big Worm – normally heaves with traffic as thousands of cars cram four narrow lanes and beeping motorbikes weave through daringly small spaces. But with the city’s coronavirus lockdown, Minhocão now resembles a small-town avenue instead of 17 Monthly compilation of CSE’s media clippings: for the month of April 2020 a major road in a metropolis of 12 million people. “The air is certainly better,” said Daniel Guth,an urban mobility consultant. “I’ve felt the improvement in air quality both as a cyclist and as a quarantined citizen,” he laughed. “We should use this as a moment to reflect on what transport methods we should prioritise when this crisis is over.” Despite being under lockdown, many Paulistas, as the city’s residents are known, are still finding ways to enjoy the cleaner air, taking to windows and apartment balconies for nightly potbanging protests against Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly dismissed the coronavirus as just “a little flu”. Bogotá, the sprawling mountaintop capital of Colombia, is also usually choking with traffic so bad that officials occasionally ban cars for entire days. But since the nationwide coronavirus quarantine took hold on 24 March, exhaust fumes have fallen as the city ground to a halt. Yet the newly fresh air has been taunting Bogotá’s residents, who are allowed to leave home only for food and medicines, not even a daily dose of outdoor exercise. “Without a doubt this pandemic is helping us improve air quality,” said Carolina Urrutia, Bogotá’s district environment secretary. “With the city shut down, we are able to focus our efforts on other environmental factors.” Cali, Colombia’s third city and usually a smokey, congested metropolis, has also been spared from the usual forest fires, allowing residents to breathe fresher air. “The thick cloud that usually hangs over us has been lifted,” said Christian Camilo Villa, an air quality activist and Cali resident. “The concern is that it will return when the quarantine ends.” Indeed, the fear among environmentalists and residents is that, rather than attempting to maintain the low levels of pollution in the world’s biggest capitals, when industry and cars kick back into action post-lockdown, the situation will go back to square one, and perhaps even worsen, as people and industry attempt to make up for the lost months. The signs from China, which is coming out of the other side of the coronavirus outbreak and where lockdowns are loosening up, are not positive. For the first four weeks after the Chinese new year holiday in late January, when the coronavirus outbreak was at its worst, pollution levels fell 25% across the country. But since early March, levels of nitrogen dioxide pollution have begun to inch back up as the country gets back to work with factories, businesses and power plants re-opening and traffic returning. Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst for the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, said: “The big question is whether government stimulus measures lead to pollution levels rebounding above the levels before the crisis, like happened after the 2008 financial crisis.” we’re asking readers like you to make a contribution in support of our open, independent journalism. In these frightening and uncertain times, the expertise, scientific knowledge and careful judgment in our reporting has never been so vital. No matter how unpredictable the future feels, we will remain with you, delivering high quality news so we can all make critical decisions about our lives, health and security. Together we can find a way through this. We believe every one of us deserves equal access to accurate news and calm explanation. So, unlike many others, we made a different choice: to keep Guardian journalism open for all, regardless of where they live or what they can afford to pay. This would not be possible without the generosity of readers, who now support our work from 180 countries around the world. We have upheld our editorial independence in the face of the disintegration of traditional media – with social platforms giving rise to misinformation, the seemingly unstoppable rise of big tech and independent voices being squashed by commercial ownership. The Guardian’s independence means we can set our own agenda and voice our own opinions. Our journalism is free from commercial and political bias – never influenced by billionaire owners or shareholders. This makes us different. It means we can challenge the powerful without fear and give a voice to those less heard. Your financial support has meant we can keep investigating, disentangling and interrogating. It has protected our independence, which has never been so critical. We are so grateful. April 11, 2020

• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

Scientists Cite Pollution Decrease in Calls to 'Flatten the Curve' of Climate Change Post-Coronavirus

Scientists, activists and religious leaders ranging from Pope Francis to filmmaker Spike Lee are highlighting lockdown reductions in air pollution and nature "coming alive" as part of a larger call to permanently change industrial and economic behavior after COVID-19. Pope Francis said last week that the deadly worldwide coronavirus pandemic is one of "nature's responses" to humans' mistreatment of Planet Earth, telling a Catholic U.K. publication that "God always forgives, but Nature never forgives." This sentiment was echoed by environmental researchers, politicians and activists who are urging world leaders to permanently reduce carbon emissions, air pollution and fossil fuel burning in order to "flatten the curve" of climate change. COVID-19, which has caused the deaths of more than 107,000 people worldwide, has placed much of the industrialized world into lockdown, simultaneously clearing up blue skies in India and improving air quality in the northeastern United States as it wreaks havoc on global health care systems. "The blissful sight of blue skies and the joy of breathing clean air provides just the contrast to illustrate what we are doing to ourselves the rest of the time," Dr. Shashi Tharoor told The Guardian Saturday. Evidence of smog lifting in New Delhi, pandas finally mating in China, and air pollution dropping above New York, New Jersey and Maryland have circulated news reports globally, but climate researchers and scientists warn there must be permanent reductions in pollution, transportation and industry to continue these changes post-pandemic. NASA satellite data showed a 30 percent drop in nitrogen dioxide above the northeastern U.S., as tens of millions of vehicles were kept off the roads and fossil fuels typically burned for transportation purposes were largely halted. In the northern region of India, a country which placed its 1.4 billion people on lockdown and kept New Delhi's 11 million registered vehicles off the roads, Air Quality Index levels improved to their best in decades. A pair of separate studies published in the online scientific journal Nature this month on rebuilding damaged ocean ecosystems and global warming, respectively, saw researchers seeking to "flatten the curve" of climate change similar to the reversal sought in stemming new COVID-19 cases. "Our research shows that rapid action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions this decade will effectively flatten the curve of species at risk. Similar to the COVID-19 pandemic, early action to limit the risk pays off in a big way. It does not eliminate all risk from climate change, but reduces the number of species and ecosystems exposed by a massive amount," study co-author Christopher Trisos, of the University of Cape Town told The Guardian last week. Former Vice President Al Gore, who founded The Climate Reality Project, told HBO host Bill Maher Friday there is a clear connection between COVID-19 and climate change, saying both have served as a wake-up call that government leaders can't simply dismiss dire warnings from scientists. American filmmaker Spike Lee echoed the thoughts of Pope Francis, telling SiriusXM's The Joe Madison Show Friday that the coronavirus lockdown is "changing everything." "But you know why, the reason -- how pollution is clearing up. Skies are clear. Animals are coming out. I mean you know, the Earth was angry at us. People may think I'm crazy that I believe it in my heart and soul. That we had gone too far and Earth said, 'Hold up, we gotta change this.' We were killing this planet," Lee said. Sunita Narain, director of the Center for Science Environment and a vocal critic of New Delhi's car pollution issues said there needs to be an "all the time" change in transit behavior. "I don't want people to say 'Oh, environmentalists are celebrating this lockdown:' we are not. This is not the solution. But whatever the new normal is post-COVID-19, we have to make sure we take this breath of fresh air and think about the serious efforts we need to deal with pollution in Delhi." Professor Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist, posted a widely shared Twitter thread last month addressing how data showing drops in monthly or even annual reductions in CO2 emissions means little in comparison to the "cumulative" damage done to the atmosphere and environment. "As the pandemic passes, carbon emissions will most likely bounce right back up again, and possibly then some, as industry does its best to make up for lost productivity, income, and wages. So any slowdown is temporary at best," she concluded. Scientists, religious leaders and entrepreneurs are calling to "flatten the curve" of climate change's negative effects as the COVID-19 lockdown has seen air quality skyrocket and industrial pollution decline as billions of people shelter-in-place. Screenshot: NASA | YouTube Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates said during a Ted Talk at the end of March that he sees hope in the international scientific community and private sector businesses working together to solve both the climate and coronavirus crises. "That idea of innovation and science and the world working together — that is totally common between these two problems, and so I don't think this has to be a huge setback for climate. In the science side and data sharing side, you see this great cooperation going o

• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

Coronavirus: India sees blue skies and clean air as a result of the world’s largest lockdown

The level of particle pollution considered most harmful to human health fell by nearly 60 per cent in New Delhi after a few days Inside the world’s largest lockdown, there are no flights, no passenger trains, no taxis and few functioning industries. But one thing is remarkably abundant: cleaner air. India is engaged in a desperate bid to “flatten the curve” of coronavirus cases before they overwhelm the creaky health system in this nation of more than 1.3 billion people In the meantime, the three-week lockdown is flattening something else – India’s notorious air pollution. The speed of the change has surprised even experts, who say it is proof that dramatic improvements in air quality can be achieved, albeit at an enormous human and economic cost. Days after the lockdown began on 25 March, the level of particle pollution considered most harmful to human health fell by nearly 60 per cent in New Delhi, India’s capital, according to an analysis by experts at the nonprofit Centre for Science and Environment. Similar drops have occurred in other major Indian cities. In normal times, Delhi is the world’s most polluted megalopolis. For much of the winter, air quality readings remain at levels that in the United States are considered unhealthy or worse. Last November, the city experienced its longest spell of hazardous air since such record keeping began. These days, Delhiites are stuck in their homes except when picking up essential goods. But above them are blue skies, the moon and the stars, seen without the usual barrier of smog. The sight is so striking that “I feel like complimenting the sky for its beauty,” said Sameer Dhanda, an architect. In other parts of India, the Himalayan mountain range is visible from a distance for the first time in years. Waterways choked by industrial pollution, such as Delhi’s Yamuna River – full of grey foam just months ago – are flowing unimpeded. The current reduction in pollution has come at a steep price. Much of the Indian economy has been idled, forcing vulnerable workers to travel hundreds of miles to their home villages on foot. Millions could be plunged into poverty or hunger if the lockdown continues beyond its initial three-week period. But experts say that there are still lessons to be gleaned, including a chance to imagine a different future. The decrease in pollution is a “proof of concept” that demonstrates clean air “is doable,” said Ajay Mathur, a former Indian climate negotiator and a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s council on climate change. “The linkage between personal behaviour and what I will breathe is far clearer now than it has been in the past.” The first step for any government is to ensure that “the vast number of Indians have sustainable livelihoods,” Mathur added. Nevertheless, he hopes that policychanges – such as phasing out dirty industrial fuels and accelerating the shift to environmentally friendly vehicles – will get a boost in the post-pandemic world. I would like to receive morning headlines Monday - Friday plus breaking news alerts by email The India Gate war memorial is pictured after air pollution level started to drop in New Delhi One terrible irony of the current crisis is that a pandemic that makes it difficult for some to breathe has, by curbing pollution, eased respiratory troubles for others. Pulmonologists in Delhi say many of their regular patients are breathing easier and reducing their use of inhalers. For them, this period is a kind of boon, said Arvind Kumar, a chest surgeon and trustee of the Lung Care Foundation. India’s long-running battle with pollution may have rendered it particularly vulnerable to the novel coronavirus. Researchers at Harvard recently found that places with long-term exposure to higher levels of fine particle pollution – known as PM2.5 – were associated with higher rates of death caused by Covid-19. Such particles can lodge deep in the lungs and have been linked to high blood pressure, heart disease, respiratory infections and even cancer. So far, about 200 people in India have died of Covid-19, with more than 6,500 cases of the illness confirmed. Anumita Roy Chowdhury, an air pollution expert at Delhi’s Centre for Science and Environment, described India’s improved air quality as “a very big unintended experiment unfolding in front of us”. The lockdown demonstrates “the scale at which change is needed,” she said, but also shows people “what it means to breathe clean air”. Across a huge swath of northern India, the air quality normally varies from poor to apocalyptic, depending on the time of year, with a brief respite during the annual monsoon. The worst period begins when temperatures drop in October, trapping near ground level a mix of industrial emissions, road dust, vehicular exhaust and ash from burnt crop stubble. Pollution begins to ease in February. Jyoti Pande Lavakare, an author and antipollution activist in Delhi, said she doesn’t remember seeing skies of this type of blue at this time of year in at least a decade. In recent days, she began doing her morning exercises outside and found herself lying on her back on her yoga mat, just gazing at the sky. “After we battle the current pandemic, we need to revisit how we treat the invisible killer of air pollution,” Lavakare said. The World Health Organisation estimates that polluted air kills 7 million people annually. For now, Delhi residents are treasuring a rare upside of a time marked by fear and worry. Priyanki Choudhury, an account manager, said she has not experienced anything like this – clear blue skies in the day and stars at night – since she was a teenager. Choudhury was not sure whether the lockdown would succeed in stemming the spread of Covid-19. But, for the environment, she said, it is clearly a “time to heal.”

• Industrial Pollution

Reliance power plant in Madhya Pradesh develops a breach: 2 dead, 4 missing

The flow of fly ash swallowed up whole fields in its path in the village of Sasan in Madhya Pradesh, district officials said 'The bodies were found as far as five kilometres away from the ash dyke breach site,' official told Two people died and four others are missing, feared dead, after a fly ash dyke gave way at a coal-fired power plant in the Singrauli district in central India on Friday, a local official told Reuters, the third such incident in the district in a year. Five villagers and a worker at the site owned by Reliance Power were swept up in a flow of fly ash - a powdery by-product of burning pulverised coal - which travelled at least six kilometres, said K.V.S. Chaudhary, the top public official in the Singrauli district. The flow of fly ash swallowed up whole fields in its path in the village of Sasan in Madhya Pradesh, district officials said. It was not clear how the dyke broke and Reliance Power said it was investigating the causes of the incident, adding the 4,000 megawatt (MW) power plant would continue to operate normally independent of relief operations. "The bodies were found as far as five kilometres away from the ash dyke breach site," Chaudhary told Reuters on Saturday, adding the four missing were also feared dead. A team of rescue officials were still conducting search operations, Chaudhary said. Sunil Dahiya, an analyst at New-Delhi based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, said the coal ash was a "hazardous cocktail" of heavy metals known to cause liver and kidney ailments. A 2012 study by India's Centre for Science and Environment found mercury levels in blood samples in the region - home to over 10 coal-fired power plants - to be six times more than what is considered safe. Another local official, who was not authorised to speak to the media, said the ash in the soil was likely to hit agricultural output for at least two seasons, adding that unspecified "strict action" would be taken against Reliance Power. The company didn't comment specifically on that suggestion and said it was working with authorities in response to the duke break. Local media reported a fly ash dyke break at a plant operated by Essar in August and another run by NTPC Ltd in October.

• Director General Office

Guilt-Stricken On Killing a Tiger, Padma Shri Officer Went On To Change Their Destiny in India

“There seems to be something about India’s soil that inspires conservation and humbles man,” wrote Padma Shri Kailash Sankhala, better known as India’s Tiger Man. #UnsungHeroes Our history is replete with stories of elaborate big game hunts, particularly of tigers and leopards, that were a favourite pastime of royal families in the Indian subcontinent. These events were often staged to showcase their royalty, power, wealth and, of course, machismo. Officers of the British government routinely hunted down these wild cats with reckless abandon, alongside their Indian vassals that ruled over nominally sovereign ‘princely states.’ Post-independence, however, the killing of tigers escalated. Hunters from around the world gathered in India with local travel agencies promising them marquee trophies of animals including tigers, elephants, lions and the rhinos, amongst others. And leading the pack were the Maharajas. Serious scientific research in the field of wildlife conservation only began in the country when renowned wildlife biologist, George Schaller came to India in the 1960s. Prior to his arrival, most of the stories surrounding wildlife were written by Britishers who were working with the Raj when hunting was allowed whether he was Jim Corbett or anyone else. People were fascinated more with the aesthetics of tigers and eventually killing them, and we saw the gradual disappearance of the strongest cats from the gene pool. After visiting a series of forest areas like Kanha, George Schaller wrote a popular book titled ‘The Deer and The Tiger’ published in 1967, which offered a detailed account of the ecology and behaviour of Bengal tigers and four species of the hoofed mammal. However, wildlife conservation in India really took off in the early 1970s, which saw the enactment of the Wildlife Protection Act (1972), the establishment of Project Tiger (1973), signing onto the Stockholm Declaration (1972) and Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) of Wild Fauna and Flora (1973). Kailash Sankhala, the first director of Project Tiger, would go on to play a fundamental role in turning the tide for wildlife conservation in India, particularly of tigers. He was probably the first Indian field officer who did real field research work in understanding the secretive lives of tigers from their behaviour, population dynamics to daily activities. Born in Jodhpur on 30 January 1925, Sankhala studied biology in college despite his father’s wish that he study engineering. Following college, he did his Master’s from Jaswant College in Jodhpur before earning a postgraduate degree in Forestry from the Indian Forest College in 1953. The same year he joined the Forest Service in Rajasthan, a “place that shaped me and my future career,” wrote Sankhala in his book ‘Tiger! The Story of the Indian Tiger.’ “Before his passion of conservation was ignited, he was responsible for issuing hunting permits. One day sometime in the early 1950s, he killed a tiger which transformed him. It was a real turning point. He was riddled with guilt, which eventually led to him becoming a conservationist. He spent the remainder of his life protecting the tiger and its habitat,” says Amit Sankhala, the Managing Director of the Bandhavgarh Jungle Lodge, and grandson of Kailash Sankhala, in an email interview with The Better India. It’s something Kailash Sankhala notes as well. “Even today, the scene is as fresh as it was that morning, and the open eyes of that tiger have haunted me all my life. To overcome my guilt, I have dedicated my life to the cause of tiger preservation,” he writes in his book. In 1956, he sent a letter to the Wildlife Board of Rajasthan with an appeal to stop the shooting of tigers and thus became one of the first conservationists to speak up for their protection. Nearly a decade later, when he was appointed Director of the Delhi Zoological Park, he convinced the Indian Board of Wildlife to institute a system that would track the export of tiger cubs, requiring exporters to clearly explain how they obtained them. It was during his time as the Director of Delhi Zoological Zoo from 1965 to 1970, when his work around tigers really began to pick up. Despite protests by the local media, he stopped making animals perform for the general public while revamping the quarters where tigers were kept more like their natural habitat. He also started conducting some of his initial research on tigers nearby and travelling to different parts to get population estimates. In 1967, he investigated the sale of tiger and leopard furs in markets across Delhi and published those findings on the front page of The Indian Express. Two years later, he pleaded before the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to protect the tiger whose numbers were rapidly declining. In fact, by gathering public support on this issue in the national and international media, he persuaded the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to ban tiger hunting altogether. Even some of the Maharajas saw the wisdom of this plea. “Going on Tiger Hunts, was a regular pastime of the Maharajas. They could never imagine that one day there would be Indian jungles without any tigers in them,” says Amit. In May 1970, he was awarded the coveted Jawaharlal Nehru fellowship for his project titled ‘The Controversial Tiger: A Study of Ecology, Behaviour and Status,’ which truly enabled him to jump with both feet into the field of wildlife conservation. Under the fellowship, he set out to conduct an all India study to understand how many Tigers were still alive in India. By September 1970, he had convinced Dr Karan Singh, the Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation, to ban the export of tiger, leopard and panther skins or the products made from them. For the next two years, he travelled across India to study the dwindling tiger population. Amid his project, Anne Wright, a leading voice for wildlife conservation, published an article in May 1971 titled Skin Shops, which describes in some harrowing detail the illegal selling of tiger and leopard skins in Kolkata. This was once again part of a concerted effort to raise the issue of tiger conservation into mainstream discourse. After she was convinced of the problem by British conservationist Guy Mountfort, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi established India’s first Task Force on Tigers, headed by Dr Karan Singh. The Task Force on Tigers also included Kailash Sankhala, Anne Wright, Dr MK Ranjitsinh, an authority on wildlife, and Zafar Futehally, a naturalist and conservationist. Months later on 9 September 1972, the parliament passed the Wildlife Protection Act for the protection of plants and animal species. It was a landmark piece of legislation which among other things, facilitated the creation of wildlife sanctuaries and national parks, strictly restricted and regulated activities in them, besides banning the hunting of wildlife. A few months later in April 1973, Prime Minister Gandhi established Project Tiger to “protect and restore natural habitats of tigers and to track and protect the remaining wild tigers in India” and handpicked Sankhala as its first director. “My grandfather would spearhead Project Tiger by starting with nine tiger reserves. A major task was to relocate villages outside national parks so that there could be safer habitats for Tigers. The task was serious—setting up an administration, which will oversee the relocation of villages, creating park boundaries and developing community partnerships so that it’s all done in a harmonious manner,” says Amit. He held the post of director until 1976. However, his pioneering role in tiger conservation wasn’t merely limited to being the director of Project Tiger. “The hallmark of his contribution, which many don’t know about, is the field research he conducted on tigers. When you read his book ‘Tiger! The Story of the Indian Tiger’, you will understand how scientifically he studied the animal. He would spend hours observing how tigers would behave, how they secrete pheromones, how they would mark their territories and the different calls they would make. All this initial research on tiger ethology and ecology was very well documented by Mr Sankhala. In my opinion, this is his most important contribution, which most people don’t underline as they should,” says Ramesh Pandey, a senior Indian Forest Service officer, speaking to The Better India. Did his research, however, translate into on the ground conservation efforts? Pandey seems to think so. “If you see a tiger in the jungle, it’s demeanour is one of composure and real poise like a monk. The needs of this very secretive animal are minimal. If you provide closure to a particular area of the forest, the tiger will breed, come out of distress, mark its territory, increase its range and manage on its own. By providing closure, you mitigate the scope for biotic pressure. It has immense potential to bounce back and adjust to adversity. In my opinion, he could see the composure the animal exhibited and that if it was provided with enough protection, nature would take care of the rest,” he says. In India, much of what is understood about the practical aspects of conservation like territoriality (how animals use space to communicate ownership), overlapping of areas, preypredator dynamics, provision of better habitat, food, shelter, water and the cover regime have primarily emanated from Sankhala’s work and experience. “The tiger is a wanderer with no definite plan in mind. But within his ‘home range’ he has a mental note of such features as day shelters, waterholes and places where food may be expected. (His periodical reappearances at these places is sometimes interpreted as visits to guard his territory.) He seldom leaves his home range except to pursue receptive tigresses or when driven by desperate hunger,” Sankhala once wrote. Despite stepping down as Director of Project Tiger in 1976, he continued to study and write about tigers (published three books in total alongside other works on wildlife conservation) and worked as the Chief Wildlife Warden of Rajasthan from 1978 to 1983. After a lifetime of service to wildlife conservation, he was awarded the Padma Shri in 1992. He sadly passed away two years later on 15 August 1994, at the age of 69, but the legacy he leaves behind is immense. Project Tiger began in April 1973 with 9 tiger reserves and a mere 268 tigers. Today, there are 50 tiger reserves across India and their numbers have grown beyond 3,000. However, much credit for this significant rise in tiger population must also go to the institutional mechanisms that have been put in place the past 15 years. Despite the introduction of the Wildlife Protection Act (WPA) in 1972, the concept of conservation initially was only about delineating a particular area, giving it more importance and calling them national parks and sanctuaries. In declaring an area as a national park or sanctuary, these spaces are given legal protections with provisions that those who violate the WPA will be sued and punished. But the WPA did not provide any prescription for conservation measures that could be taken. What authorities earlier did was refer to national parks and sanctuaries as ‘tiger reserves’ even though that phrase held no legal value. Moreover, Project Tiger was just a project which financially assisted tiger reserves declared by their respective state governments by giving them technical and miscellaneous guidelines, support for capacity building, training, scientific research, monitoring of tigers, census, etc. However, everything changed with the news that tigers had disappeared from the Sariska Tiger Reserve in December 2004. There was a massive hue and cry all over the country surrounding the rapidly depleting numbers of tigers. Post-Sariska, a Tiger Task Force was constituted under the leadership of environmentalist Sunita Narain, who made some significant recommendations. The results of these recommendations were substantial. A statutory body called the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) was set up in December 2005 to run Project Tiger. Moreover, tiger reserves actually became legal entities with core (inviolate areas with no human habitation) and buffer areas. “Every management plan of tiger reserves today has to be approved by the NTCA. Earlier, states could write their prescriptions, but not anymore. The standard operating procedures (SOP) to be followed in tiger conservation have been clearly defined. Every year, you have to do camera trapping for population estimates, and every four years we are doing an all India tiger estimation involving the Wildlife Institute of India, where we come up with the photographic estimation of the total number of tigers in tiger reserves. We are working on how to establish functional wildlife corridors and how we can connect two meta-populations (a group of populations that are separated by space but consist of the same species) of tigers. We are also working out how tigers coming out to adjoining areas that are not protected are living and inhabiting there,” informs Ramesh Pandey. A lot of the success in conserving tigers in India today is down to establishing this very institutional framework post-Sariska. Project Tiger is not just a project now, but a system which has all its verticals institutionalised from management, monitoring and evaluation, scientific research, SOPs prescribed and foresightedness of how to go ahead. Yes, steep challenges do remain like rising human-animal conflicts, convincing populations living near protected areas the economic value of conserving tigers and other wild cats, establishing functional corridors for meta-populations and preventing further fragmentation of forest areas thanks to growing linear infrastructure (power lines, communication, roads). Kailash Sankhala, “There seems to be something about India’s soil that inspires conservation and humbles man as only one thin thread in the web of the grand process of nature.” | April 11, 2020

• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

India lockdown reduces pollution in some of the world's most polluted cities

NEW DELHI - There's a new pastime in India, with many eager to take pictures or videos of the sky from their windows and balconies and share it on social media or on WhatsApp. One widely-shared video shows people in the northern city of Jalandhar in Punjab, looking from their rooftops at snowcapped mountains, visible in neighbouring Himachal Pradesh state. In a country where multiple cities often make it to the list of most polluted in the world, clear, blue skies have an unintended but welcome side effect of a three week lockdown to slow the spread of Covid-19. In Delhi, which frequently tops lists of the most polluted cities worldwide, even the local police is appreciating the clear skies after record pollution levels this winter sent PM2.5 levels nine times over the safe limit. "Amidst the clear blue skies @DelhiPolice unstintingly performs its duty at pickets," said an account linked to the Delhi Commissioner of Police, describing officers enforcing the lockdown. In the capital city, air quality is now between satisfactory and good, thanks to the empty roads and mandated shutdown of non-essential industries. "Now for the first time even though for the wrong reason - you don't want a public health emergency - pollution levels have gone down, even if unintended," said Ms Anumita Roychowdhury, Executive Director, Research and Advocacy, Centre For Science and Environment. Get exclusive insights of Asia from our network of correspondents Keep up with the latest in the region with the ST Asian Insider newsletter, delivered to your inbox every weekday By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. "It's an experiment for us to understand things better. Now we are able to see when change happens at this scale, when economic activity is under control and polluting activities stopped, how clean air can get." Daily average levels of particulate matter of a size less than 2.5 microns, known as PM2.5, and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) have reduced sharply from the pre-lockdown days by close to or more than half in Delhi and its satellite towns, including Gurugram, she added. PM2.5 is the concentration of tiny particles of less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter - about one-thirtieth the diameter of a strand of human hair - in the air. In Kolkata, peak hour PM2.5 levels fell by 46 per cent and NO2 by 74 per cent. In Mumbai, they were down by 52 per cent and 85 per cent. The India Gate war memorial on October 17, 2019 (top) and after air pollution levels started to drop during a nationwide lockdown in New Delhi on April 8, 2020. India is home to some of the world's most polluted cities, with pollution levels doubling over the past decade due to a lethal combination of factors: rapid industrialisation, an explosion in vehicle numbers, a poor public transport system, unchecked construction of homes in urban areas and weak enforcement of laws and regulation. Attempts have been made to clean up pollution, including last year's launch of the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), which among other measures set targets for 102 cities, including better vehicle management, to reduce PM2. 5 and PM10 levels by 20-30 per cent by 2024. Progress has been limited. Scientists said the lockdown also presents an excellent opportunity to study the sources of pollution. " Right now, all important sources of pollution are shut down except for power plants and cooking," said Professor Sachidanand Tripathi of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He said it would help better pinpoint sources of pollution both local and regional. "It will help us see when things were not industrialised." In India, smoke from wood- and coal-fired ovens is a major source of air pollution. Pollution has also come at a health cost for the country. A report by the US-based Health Effects Institute said around 1.2 million people were killed in India in 2017 due to air pollution. The Collective of Doctors for Clean Air has noted that people living in highly polluted areas were more vulnerable to coronavirus as their lungs were impacted by pollution. appreciation for blue skies will translate into increased public awareness amid the pandemic. "People never could understand the immediacy of the risk with pollution, which they are understanding: The fact that the long-term exposure to pollution results in weakened lungs and that vulnerability to Covid goes up. If we can deepen understanding (among people) on how clean the air can get, we should be able to leverage that to push for stronger action to say economic recovery is possible with environmental safeguards in place," said Ms Roychowdhury. Some even believed the lockdown could be a turning point in pollution mitigation efforts, with even companies possibly embracing work from home strategies. "I feel everybody, including the public and policymakers, will learn from this crisis and move on towards a more sustainable and cleaner way of doing things, including how we move people within the cities, as well as how we get our energy demands," said Mr Sunil Dahiya, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. "This (period)) will stay in the minds of policymakers. Because now they know more clearly than before that we can achieve breathable air."

• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

Ozone new concern in air

New Delhi: As the emission levels in the city have gone down with the lockdown in place, secondary pollutants like groundlevel ozone (O3) as well as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) are now emerging as the lead pollutants according to Central Pollution Control Board’s daily Air Quality Index. Secondary pollutants are formed when primary pollutants interact in the atmosphere. Ozone in particular featured as lead pollutant for four out of seven days last week. With temperatures set to rise further in the coming weeks, experts say ozone pollution is one to pay attention to under the circumstances, as it can cause respiratory problems. While the lead pollutant in Delhi is generally PM2.5 or PM10 through the year, the lockdown has meant the only sources of pollution right now are the limited vehicles on the road, contributing to formation of ground-level ozone and NO2 in the heat. Even though ozone is considered beneficial in the upper parts of the atmosphere, it becomes toxic at the ground-level and is considered a pollutant, with breathing in high levels of ozone causing respiratory problems. This can also worsen pre-existing existing respiratory problems like asthma and bronchitis and can even cause permanent damage to the lungs. With Covid-19 primarily affecting the lungs, expert say people should only venture out during this period when it is necessary. “The levels of ozone generally tend to peak in April and May. We will soon be analysing the data to see if the levels are above prescribed limits along with the impact of lockdown on the ozone levels, and compare it with last year’s data. One needs to be careful, particularly in areas where ozone levels remain high through the summer,” said Anumita Roy Chowdhury, executive director, at the Centre for Science and Environment. A CSE study last year had observed that average ozone levels exceeded prescribed standards on 16% of the days between April 1 and June 15, 2019, against just 5% in 2018.

• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

Blue sky thinking: what the coronavirus lockdown shows India about pollution and clearing the air

Urban and industrial areas around the world are seeing pollution levels drop dramatically during the lockdown Anti-pollution activists say India has the opportunity to rethink our policies on After months spent under virtual house arrest with doors and windows firmly sealed against the record levels of pollution, people in the Indian capital are flinging everything open to breathe in great gulps of clean air and feast on blue skies. The cause of the low levels of pollution – the coronavirus lockdown – is still keeping them stuck indoors to stop the contagion spreading, but few are complaining. The virus that causes the Covid-19 illness has done wonders for the air. With the lockdown shutting factories, halting construction, taking cars off the road, ending flights, and immobilising almost 1.3 billion Indians, the result is the cleanest air anyone can remember for a long time. New Delhi and 90 other cities have recorded minimal air pollution, as have many other parts of the world including Hong Kong and China Delhi’s Air Quality Index last Sunday morning was moderate at 42. Below 50 is deemed to be good air. On some days in November and December, it had maxed out at 999 (because most monitors can only register three digits), forcing the Delhi government to declare a public health emergency. Schools were shut and flights cancelled. Those who could, fled the city. The rest locked themselves in, venturing out only when necessary wearing masks in what, with hindsight, appears to have been an eerie dress rehearsal for the nationwide coronavirus lockdown that began on March 25. “I know it’s a high price to pay for enjoying clean air, the virus is deadly, but for once this city looks like the city of my childhood – quiet, pure air and amazingly clear skies,” said businessman Raman Tiwari. Environmentalists are urging the government to treat this unintended consequence of the lockdown as a chance to stop its “obsession” with development that comes at the cost of the environment and people’s lungs . Indian families in New Delhi try to make their way home to their villages during the coronavirus lockdown. Photo: AP Indian families in New Delhi try to make their way home to their villages during the coronavirus lockdown. Photo: AP The question, they say, is whether India will choose to invest in climate-friendly industries to power the economic recovery that everyone will be desperate for once the current crisis is over, rather than relying on carbon-intensive sectors. Jyoti Pande Lavakare, co-founder of Care for Air in New Delhi, said that shutting down the economy was obviously not the best way to bring pollution down, but at least it proved that it was anthropogenic – caused by human actions – and proved what could be achieved. “We can achieve the same outcome by doing it mindfully, using technology and low-emission alternatives,” she said. Lavakare fears that the government may roll back existing regulations that are in place to reduce emissions at source, such as filters added to power plants’ industrial chimneys or the plan to move towards BS6-compliant car engines. In fact, the car industry in India was due to make the huge shift to BS6 compliant engines on April 1. Car manufacturers were ready with the new low-emission cars last year, but had a lot of unsold BS5 inventory they wanted to clear first. With the lockdown, clearing those BS5 cars will be impossible. According to the Federation of Automobile Dealers Association, 105,000 scooters, 2,250 passenger cars and 2,000 commercial vehicles are sitting idle, sold but unregistered owing to the lockdown. “The government shouldn’t use the desire to revive the economy as an excuse to roll back the measures we have taken years to win,” said Lavakare. Environmentalists are hoping that the public support and cooperation during the lockdown will survive once the coronavirus crisis is over and continue so that people remain on board for the longer term solutions to pollution which require nationwide lifestyle adjustments. At the Centre For Science and Environment, Anumita Roy Chowdhury, executive director for research and advocacy, says the clean air is an unintended benefit of decimating economic activity and, as such, cannot be used to build a case for ‘crisis-led’ change. “Nonetheless, this experience shows that if a health-risk perception can provoke an emergency response, it can galvanise farreaching changes. Collective community and policy action can help us to reinvent longer-term solutions to reduce dependence on cars, speed up clean energy and technology transition, and change the way we manage our waste,” said Chowdhury. Clean air is also connected closely with the coronavirus because scientists have warned that the pandemic can worsen in areas with high levels of pollution because people’s lungs are already compromised, making them more vulnerable to the virus. Not only does it make them more vulnerable, according to the European Public Health Alliance at a meeting on March 16 in Brussels, the coronavirus threat is greater for polluted cities. Patients with chronic lung and heart conditions caused by long-term exposure to air pollution are less able to fight it. The alliance pointed to a 2003 study of victims of Sars (also a respiratory disease) which found that patients in regions with moderate air pollution levels were 84 per cent more likely to die than those in regions with low air pollution. In India, the Collective of Doctors for Clean Air has said that people living in highly polluted areas, whose lungs have already been adversely affected, can be more vulnerable to coronavirus. Given that doctors and scientists are telling everyone that the coronavirus is something we will have to live with, Chowdhury says “by lowering air pollution levels we can help the most vulnerable in their fight against this and any possible future pandemics”. | April 7, 2020

• Director General Office

Interdependence in corona world

What should countries like India do, with limited testing facilities and even more limited public health infrastructures? Sunita Narain I write this from lockdown — India is on the cusp of coronavirus third and the deadliest stage of community transmission and the government has now called out to citizens to stop all economic activities and self-isolate themselves. This is clearly crucial; never before at least in my living memory has something this small become so globally life-threatening and so out of control, so quickly. It was only in January that we got the first real news about the novel virus, which jumped from animals from humans, and was taking lives in China. We saw images of forced incarceration; millions of businesses and homes were shut down; hospitals were built overnight and it would have seemed that victory was on hand. It was a blip in the global economy and China would bounce back. Business was as usual. But then, so quickly, the virus moved to make new homes — Italy, where things have completely gone out of control, and Iran, where so little is known even today of the sheer extent of toll that this disease is taking. Now the spread is practically universal; most of the world is in lockdown mode. It is completely unbelievable. In India, when I write this, there are 3,577 coronavirus cases, with 83 deaths. This pales into insignificance when you consider that Italy has close to 125,000 cases; or that New York on Sunday has over 113,700 confirmed cases and, worse, it’s doubling every six days. It is said these cases in India do not represent the true numbers, because testing is limited. But this is where the real question comes. What should countries like India do, with limited testing facilities and even more limited public health infrastructures? All the evidence is pointing to the fact that as the cases reach community spread, the deaths increase because countries cannot provide the intensive care that is needed. This is why for Indians the choice is stark — we cannot afford community transmission; we have to contain and to prevent. And, yes, we have to increase our testing capacities, but it is also clear that we will never be able to test adequately once it spreads. So, testing has to be done to identify and isolate. We need to know that we have to shut down so that we do not end up spreading the virus, which, we have seen from other countries, gallops exponentially to infect entire populations within days. There is no rulebook on this virus, but what is clear is that the only way to contain it is to break the chain of transmission. This, of course, is tough because it brings economies to a grinding halt. It destroys livelihoods, particularly of the poor and the selfemployed — and this again is where we will need governments to step in with social security and access to essentials — so that people can cope and make their way through this never-before global catastrophe. But this is not all. We need to use this time to think about some fundamentals — one of which is the issue of global cooperation. There is never a good time for such a pandemic to hit the world — but this, we can safely say, is the worst time possible. There is no global leadership or institution that has the respect and the sagacity to take us through what is clearly a crisis beyond national boundaries. What we have seen in the past few months has been a shameful record of self-interest and selfpreservation. For most of us who work to advocate global cooperation on another existential threat like climate change, this should not be news. But it does shock you that even with such a crisis, which is literally bringing the most powerful countries to their knees, we are not getting together to discuss the global response to the global pandemic. Why? What more can and should we do? I want to discuss this further in the coming weeks. Then, of course, there is the issue of public health — what coronavirus teaches us (if we care to learn) is that we are only as strong as our weakest link. If there is no access to public health care to all or if public health service is weakened to collapse — as is the case in most of the emerging world (and even in private health care systems of the US) — then we cannot withstand pandemics. It is also not enough to build this capacity within countries because if any region of any country or any country of the world is weak, the contagion will breed there and will spread. For how long will we be able to keep our borders closed? How will this even work? And this, then, leads to my third question — about the nature of globalisation after corona. Will we learn from the vulnerabilities of our system to make it more robust and invest in local economies and local health systems through global partnerships? Let’s keep discussing this in these tough times. Business Standard | Delhi | April 06, 2020

• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

Breathe@47

Amid the COVID-19 lockdown, rising cases and deaths, one thing that the citizens can take heart is the improved air quality index which is down to less than 50 in many parts of the country, a number that had stood at 222 a couple of months back in Delhi-NCR. SHALINI SAKSENA speaks with experts to tell you more Back in the 70s, 80s and even 90s, there was a time when azure sky was a norm. Then everything changed. Globalisation opened doors and the almost empty roads and no traffic snarls soon became a thing of the past. Soon the air quality index was touching 1,000 and beyond and many people ended up with several breathing problems. Cut to March 25, 2020. Clear blue skies, a smattering of stars in the night sky and a clear view of the Capital for miles on end from the roof top without the usual haze is what Delhiites are waking up to since the lockdown. While the circumstances that have led to the present situation is extremely unfortunate given that the number of COVID-19 cases as of April 4, 2020 stands at 3,474 and deaths at 91, there are a few numbers that are falling and people can take heart from it and breathe easy due to improved air quality. According to a data by SAFAR (March 30, 2020), the Capital has seen a reduction of 63 per cent in NOx and 49 per cent fall in PM2.5. Mumbai too witnessed a decrease in numbers — NOx 57 per cent down and PM2.5 down by 53 per cent, Pune: NOx stands at reduced percentage of 55 and PM2.5 at 38 per cent. According to Anumita Roychoudhary, associate director general at the Centre for Science and Environment, the overall air pollution levels have dropped sharply after the lockdown because vehicles, factories, construction has stopped. “We don’t want to depend on this kind of emergency to bring this change. But this crisis has proved that if health risk perception can provoke emergency response it can galvanise far reaching changes. Collective community action during this pandemic has forced us to reinvent solutions to reduce our vulnerability to toxic risk. We have made massive lifestyle adjustments to practice social distancing,” Roychoudhary says. She tells you that whether this crisis induced change can throw up long-term solutions to air pollution is a question that we need to address. This means that we have to make systemic changes to institutionalise some of the emergency responses in terms of maximising potential of digital world to alter the concept of workplace, scale up public transport options to reduce vehicle miles travelled and personal vehicle numbers, roll out electric mobility to move towards zero emissions, ensure zero tolerance for non-compliance with emissions control regulations and standards, among others, only then post pandemic period can gain from this short term breather from emergency action. “Health risk associated with the ongoing air pollution problem also needs emergency response. There are concerns that during post pandemic period, it will be business as usual and pollution will go out of control once again. But people need to understand that air pollution kills 1.2 million people and makes many more ill annually. This requires similar emergency response and public support for strong action. This pandemic has also brought to light the evidence that air pollution increases vulnerability to pandemic because poor air pollution has already compromised lungs and overall health of people. It is important to deepen awareness and public understanding of this connection and overall health risk associated with air pollution to build the momentum for hard action. We need strong and sustained action across regions and give our national clean air programme effective teeth,” Roychoudhary says. Environmentalist BS Vohra tells you that the reduced AQI levels has one message to give. “It was all manmade. It was our fault that we allowed polluted industries to function and we allowed vehicular pollution to reach levels that people in Delhi were choked. Nature has given us a strong message — when we try and correct the wrong — when we stop things that create pollution — things change for the better,” Vohra says. Also, there is now no scope of ambiguity. “Today, we know the exact reason for the high AQI levels. Earlier, there were many studies that threw up different reading on what was contributing to the air pollution. Now, we know the real reason. We are being told that the mistake was ours and we need to take corrective action,” Vohra tells you. He paints a dismal picture if we don’t learn the lesson this lockdown has taught us. “First, the lockdown was not something that human did to combat air pollution. It was forced due to COVID-19. The improved AQI doesn’t mean man has done something. If the virus has not been there, things would be as it was before. There would have been no improvement Haridwar, Nilgai roaming the deserted streets of Noida, leopard spotted in Chandigarh and a pod of dolphins spotted along the seashores of Mumbai. There are many who believe that since humans are now confined to their homes, this is Nature’s way of claiming what was its territory. According to Dr Ravi Chellam, CEO, Metastring Foundation & director of Mission Secretariat, National Mission on Biodiversity and Human Well-being, this is one of way of viewing it. “It does tell us about the remarkable resilience of Nature to come back if we give it the slimmest of opportunity. It is time that we humans recognise, accept and work with the fact that we are part of Nature and it is the foundation for our existence and development. There is a price to pay for destroying Nature and the cost will always be higher than any projected economic benefit. Even places like Chernobyl which was abandoned after the nuclear disaster became a thriving wildlife habitat. Nature is very resilient and when given an opportunity it would try to re-colonise and make a comeback,” Chellam says. Pawan Sharma, founder of Resqink Association for Wildlife Welfare, based out of Mumbai agrees with Chellam and tells you that one can say that is partially true that Nature’s way to take back what was rightly its. “There is need to co-exist with the animals. Till now they co-exited with us, now it is our turn to give back. What we are witnessing that had led to the lockdown is the damage human intervention can do. Nature has its way to balance itself out. We had only read it in books but today we are living it. It is time to slow down. In our quest to develop we destroying Nature but development and conservation needs to go hand-in-hand. Animals don’t understand manmade boundaries. Man has encroached on their habitat and damaged it. Since there is no disturbance now, animals are curious and are out exploring,” Sharma says. Chellam is quick to point out that reports of wild animals roaming the streets need to be viewed in the right perspective. “Even before the lockdown it was not unusual to see lions, leopards, elephants, gaur, rhino, many species of deer and antelopes including nilgai and blackbuck, many other smaller mammals like jackals, mongoose, many reptile species including monitor lizards, different species of snakes, many species of birds including large ones like Sarus cranes, either on or by Indian roads. These sightings were when things were normal. With the lock down, human presence and disturbance has gone down drastically and hence we are getting to see these animals much more frequently and also more often during day time,” Chellam explains. There are several reasons why these animals are in the cities to begin with. First, many of these animals live around cities and their habitat may be fragmented by the city and hence they would be using the city for passage from one part of their habitat to another which would have been difficult when there was traffic and human presence. It should not be forgotten that it is we humans who have settled in wildlife habitats and in some sense, we are the intruders and not the animals. Second, could be that the city offers resources, primarily food (mostly in the form of garbage and food plants in our gardens and parks), domestic animals including dogs and pigs and water. It is also important to understand that these animals haven't settled in the urban areas. They are only using it for some time. Chellam sees a way forward. “It is absolutely crucial that humanity learns the right collective lessons from this pandemic. It would be a huge mistake to revert to business as usual once the worst of the pandemic is over or a vaccine is developed. If we continue to develop in ways that destroy Nature and pollute the environment and without compassion for all fellow human beings, such tragedies are only bound to be repeated. We have to recognise that we live in an interconnected world not just with citizens of other countries but equally if not more importantly with Nature and all species that occur in the wild. We need to completely re-prioritise and invest more in restoration of Nature and functional ecosystems, basic but very essential needs of all people like health, sanitation, adequate nutrition, safe housing and education instead of grandiose infrastructure projects and the military. The re-prioritised development model will enable much greater levels of equity, much more sustainable development and build resilience,” he tells you.