Initiatives and innovations promoted by Keystone Foundation have helped promote bee keeping amongst farmers and tribal communities around the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. The impacts are visible in terms of better yields in coffee, mango and vegetable crops.

Environment ministry has given the green signal to a dam in Uttarakhand, throwing all caution to the wind. It will damage the ecosystem, force people to migrate and obstruct the movement of the snow leopard.

Nature-based tourism has the potential to enhance global biodiversity conservation by providing alternative livelihood strategies for local people, which may alleviate poverty in and around protected areas. Despite the popularity of the concept of nature-based tourism as an integrated conservation and development tool, empirical research on its actual socioeconomic benefits, on the distributional pattern of these benefits, and on its direct driving factors is lacking, because relevant long-term data are rarely available.

The closed evergreen forest, called the shola, occurs above 1700 m in patches in the higher hills of South India in the
Nilgiris, Annamalai and Palani hills. Sholas are patches of stunted evergreen tropical montane forests which attain a
low height of about 16–20 m. These forests have high ecological significance in protecting the head waters of rivers by
holding up of water received by precipitation like a sponge, thus preventing rapid run-off. (Correspondence)

The Nilgiri North Forest Division is located at the centre of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, with Mudumalai Tiger Reserve on the western side and Sathyamangalam Wildlife Sanctuary on the eastern side. The Segur plateau and adjoining Moyar valley, which extend over an area of 500 sq. km with open scrub forest, provide an ideal breeding ground for four species of vultures, viz. Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus), Redheaded Vulture (Sarcogyps calvus), White-rumped Vulture (Gyps bengalensis) and Long-billed Vulture (Gyps indicus). (Correspondence)

During preliminary investigation of spiders in Milam Valley, Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve, the authors documented a total of 86 species/morphospecies under 39 genus and 16 families. Spider fauna in the valley was rich and diverse.

Environment ministry clears hydro project rejected twice by its advisory committee. The union environment ministry has given in-principle clearance to a proposed hydro-project on the Alaknanda river, a tributary of the Ganga, in Uttarakhand. The 300 MW project had been rejected twice by the statutory body which recommends forest clearances, the forest advisory committee (FAC). FAC says the project lies in the buffer zone of Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve (NDBR), a home to many endangered species.