Natural Environment - Question of Cities

People show the media what words and languages to use

The local impacts, descriptions, and knowledge of climate change rarely make it to the national or global climate discussions. Question of Cities talks to multi-lingual journalists to understand how to decode it all. Doing away with technical words and understanding…

The ‘build more’ way has failed. How to build better cities?

The construction industry, India’s second-largest contributor to the national GDP, rules the roost in cities, determining housing and other basic amenities, turning…

Seeing the unseen nature amidst Mumbai’s expanding concrete

A casualty of the build more approach is the erasure of precious natural wealth. Amidst the concrete maze of Mumbai-Navi Mumbai, there…

Wayanad rebuilds but discounts people’s needs and
nature-based development

Nearly nine months after devastating landslides flattened large areas in the northern part of Wayanad district, the process of building back –…

How much has your city expanded its footprint of
built-up area?

In cities across India, people speak of how much more construction they see in familiar areas. But how much exactly has been…

Reading Guha: India’s environmental history that’s “partially usable”

India’s environmentalism did not start with the Chipko movement, says historian and author Ramachandra Guha. His latest book Speaking with Nature –…

Fighting erosion, climate change in the Sundarbans

The people of the Sundarbans show how they are the force of resilience, battling cyclones, and disrupted livelihoods. Adopting nature-based solutions, they…

How urban plans can, and must, value trees

Urban development plans and master plans have traditionally seen trees as impediments to ‘development’, rarely acknowledging them as natural wealth of cities and hardly making provisions to protect and preserve them. This will no longer work in the time of…

Bad news for Earth: Hot leaves can’t catch carbon from air

Leafy canopies play a crucial role in regulating the global climate – and mitigating global warming. But, as a recent study shows,…

Guwahati is fast axing its trees and undermining its future

Among Assam’s largest cities, Guwahati has turned into a huge construction site with a dwindling tree cover. The city lost 12 square…