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1. White lioness2. Oryx 3. Knobbed Hornbill 4. European cat5. Asiatic black bear

“Environment is no one’s property to destroy; it’s everyone’s responsibility to protect.”

Mohith Agadi ENVIRONMENT02

Do you plant the wrongkind of greens?If you live in a dry and arid region, planting green-

ery that requires large quanti-ties of water can be a major

waste of money and naturalresources.According tothe gardening

websiteGrowVeg, using

grey water — i e waterthat has already been

used in your washingmachine, showers, and sinks

— is one way to cut down your water waste.

Got an idea to conserve the environment?Mail us at toinie175@gmail.com

HAVE CUTTING WATER:Instead of filling a fullglass of water, drink inhalf measures. Even theUP assembly announcedthis measure to savedrinking water. And if youcannot finish a glass ofwater, pour it all into anearby plant.

REUSE AIR CONDITIONER WATER: Place a bucket under your aircon-ditioner outlet to collect the waterthat escapes, and use it for mop-ping or watering plants. Do thesame to your RO outlet. In fact,rethink ROs as they waste water.You can also fix all the leaky pipesat the home.

DON’T WASTE WATER

HAND WASH SOME OF YOURCLOTHES: Every time wemachine wash, an averageof nine million [plastic]microfibres are releasedinto the environment. Ifyou use a machine, use alow temperature setting, aliquid detergent and don’toverload. TIMESLIFE

WASH BY HAND

REUSE WASTE WATER

YOUR GREEN CHECKLIST

CARING ABOUT TOMORROW

I t’s midday and Edward Kean, a Canadi-an fisherman who now scours the NorthAtlantic for icebergs that have broken

off from Greenland’s glaciers, is positivelybeaming.

Using his binoculars, the rotund, 60-year-old captain of the fishing boat ‘Green Wa-ters’ has spotted his next prize — it’s sever-al dozen meters tall and floating just off thecoast of Newfoundland. “It’s a fine piece ofice,” Kean proclaims.

Every morning, Kean sails out with threeother crew members to hunt what has be-come his personal white gold: Icebergs. Formore than 20 years, he has been hauling icegiants. He then sells the water for a profit tolocal companies, which then bottle it, mix itinto beverages or use it to make cosmetics.

The business of icebergharvesting has soared in tandemwith the warming of the planet

Race against timeAs summer gets underway, time is of theessence in harvesting the icebergs. “Theycome here, and they melt so fast,” noted thecaptain, adding that once they are float-ing off the coast of Newfoundland, it isa real race against the clock. “In New-foundland, it’s like a fallen leaf. Theyare going to die in a couple of weeks,”he said. “So, we’re not here hurtingthe environment, we’re not takingnothing away — we’re just utilisingthe purest water we can get.”

No easy harvestArmed with a pole and net, crew memberslaboriously wrap up the precious fragmentsof a floating iceberg, each one weighing aton or two, and fasten them to a hook at theend of a crane, which winches them aboardthe boat. Kean then hacks the blocks up withan axe and puts the pieces into containers tomelt over the coming days. They sell to local mer-chants for a dollar a litre.

‘Pure’ businessThose businesses in turn market the iceberg prod-

ucts as made from some of the purest water mon-ey can buy. Dyna Pro, one of Kean’s clients, sells

the water $ 12 each. They are targeting awealthy clientele and have hopes to expand

their business abroad. The popular AukIsland Winery, in the tourist vil-

lage of Twillingate,makes wine from

wild berries and ice-berg water — and

sells it for $10-90a bottle. ET

Are you ready to goplogging? Plogging – the fitness craze from Sweden thatcombines running with garbage collection – is allset to hit India on October 2

T he India Plog Run is be-ing organised in Delhiand 49 other cities to

make garbage collection fun,healthy and to create a plas-tic-free environment. Thetwo hour event will be heldas part of October 2 (Gand-hi Jayanti) events.

The rundownAccording to Ramakrishna Ganesh,convener of IndiaPlog Run, theidea is to con-vey the mes-sage to a larg-er audienceon how sin-gle-use plasticaffects us, andthe importanceof disposing itproperly. The organisersof the Plog run are takingon board waste manage-ment partners in each city,who will be recycling andre-processing the plastic col-lected during the drive.

What is ploggingPlogging comes from the Swedish phrase ‘ploc-ka upp’, which means‘pick up’. It was start-ed in 2016 and hassince spread to othercountries.

In 2018, the Ben-galuru Plog Run led tocollection of 33.4 tonnesof plastic waste by morethan 7,000 partici-pants in under12 hours.

Why plastic Data from Cen-tral PollutionControl Boardstates that Indiaproduces 25,940

tonnes of plastic waste dai-ly, out of which 10,000 tonnesremain uncollected. The plas-tic materials choke landfills,drains and rivers, gradual-ly flowing into the sea af-fecting the marine life. Italso percolates into the soil,

infecting the natural envi-ronment with poison-ous chemicals. Theseharmful chemicals are

also found inside hu-man blood and tis-

sue, exposingpeople to dead-ly diseases likecancer, birthdefects, im-paired immu-nity and other

ailments.

How toparticipateEnthusiasts can register ata point nearest to their lo-cality or by logging ontowww.indiaplog.run. TNN

Indiaplog run willhappen in 50

cities and 500locations

150 HILL FISH SPECIES ARE FEELING THE HEAT, POLLUTION

A n internal study of the WildlifeInstitute of India (WII) has re-vealed that climate change willadversely affect around 150 na-tive fish species of Himalayan

states, including Uttarakhand, HimachalPradesh, Jammu & Kash-mir and ArunachalPradesh.

Common snowtrout in danger Of the 150 hill fish species, the com-mon snow trout is said to be most threatened,and in danger of going extinct. This fish, high-ly sought after as a food source, is likely to losearound 21 percent of its existing space of 16,251square kilometres in the region. The WII sci-entists indicated that “continuous stalking of

natural habi-tat by human

being” coupledwith pollution, glob-

al warming and dammingof rivers (there are over 200

major dams in the region)are some of the factors that pose a grave risk

to the habitat of these native fish species.

How dams pose a threat According to the scientists, the common snow

trout lives in the cold Himalayan water andtends to swim upstream, to the higher reach-es of the river during summer, to escape warmwaters. The WII report found that the presenceof dams on almost all the Himalayan rivers hin-ders this process.

Aashna Sharma, senior research fellow at WII,said, “Our study found the native high-altitude fishspecies survive in their natural habitat in the ar-eas where dams have not been built, like Himachal’sTirthan river.” Similarly, another fish species, Mah-seer, is also thriving in the undammed Nayaar riverin Uttarakhand’s Pauri Garhwal.

Sharma added, “Our research work indicates that, by2050, the snow trout will vanish from 400 sq kilometre ofits habitat – from Jammu and Kashmir, to ArunachalPradesh.” The scientists said they took climate models fromdeveloped countries to predict the impact of climate changeon the future. Vineet Dubey, project scientist (WII) also saidthat the exotic, highly invasive brown trout species is also athreat to the survival of the Himalayan freshwater fish. TNN

Brown trout, a carnivorous invasivefish species, introduced in theHimalayas in 1860 by the British, hasalso emerged as a major threat to nativefish species in Himalayan region

CORALS UNDER THERMAL STRESS IN THE ARABIAN SEA

C oral reefs — the marine won-ders that leave us awestruckby their rockpools of colour— are under climate threat.A recent study, published in

the reputed science journal ‘CurrentScience’, shows that they are slowlybleaching away on Gujarat’s Gulf ofKutch shores. A major reason is the fre-quent ‘ocean heat waves’ or thermalstress owing to climate change, coupledwith anthropological issues.

What is bleachingBleaching means the change in colourof the corals because of the decay in al-

gae living in their tissues as symbioticpartners. The algae is also the reasonthat gives the corals their distinctcolour. As sea temperature rises abovenormal summer maxima the corals areforced to expel the algae and turn white.These bleached corals thereafter get

prone to disease and ultimately die.

What the study foundA study undertaken by Isro’s SpaceApplications Centre (SAC) researchteam and the department of geo-

physics, Kurukshetra Universityanalysed sea surface temperatures(SST) from 1982 has reportedincreased number of heat stress days.The study includes three distinctyears of ‘Mass Coral Bleaching’(MCB) instances of 1998, 2010 and 2016recorded during the El Nino SouthernOscillation (ENSO) that causedabrupt rise in sea temperature.

The study revealed normallycorals can re-establish themselves (orreturn to their pre-bleaching state) ina decade or two. But the quick fre-quency and intensity of MCB over-whelms the coral reefs ability to re-cover from heat stress episodes. TNN

Globally,the corals uponwhich half-a-bil-lion peopledepend for foodand protectionare unlikely tosurvive surfacewarming of twodegrees Celsiusabove pre-indus-trial levels. AFP

The frequency, intensity and extentof marine heatwaves like those thatdevastated Australia’s Great BarrierReef have all increased, with oceanhot spells twice as likely today asduring the 1980s.

IN THE NEWS

Scientists fertilise seven northernwhite rhino eggs

Wildlife experts and veterinarians have announced that there ishope to prevent the extinction of the northern white rhino asthey successfully extracted eggs from the last two remaining

females of the species. The eggs will be used to reproduce the speciesthrough a surrogate. The groundbreaking procedure was carried outrecently on the northern white rhinos known as Najin and Fatu who can-not carry a pregnancy. The eggs are to be artificially inseminated withfrozen sperm from a northern white rhino bull and then transferred to asouthern white rhino surrogate mother. AP

A n Indonesian man completed an incrediblefeat of walking backwards nearly 800 kilome-tres from his village in eastern Java to capi-

tal Jakarta to raise awareness about deforestationand seek the government’s help in saving a forest inhis home province. Surrounded by curious onlookersand members of the volunteer group IndonesianEscorting Ambulance, which has helped him duringparts of his journey, 43-year-old Medi Bastoni,appeared indefatigable and happy with the attentionhe received after completing the arduous walk thattook him about a month. AGENCIES

Man completes 800 kilometrebackwards walking to save forest

QUICK NOTES

1Plogging comes from the swedish phrase ‘plockaupp,’ which means pick up.

2Plogging started in Sweden in 2016 and has sincethen spread to other countries.

3Joggers pick up garbage as they run, to reduce damage caused by single-plastic in

their environment.

Photo: Getty Images