Tiger tale

During the last Year of the Tiger in 1998, Time magazine predicted that the tiger would be extinct in the wild by the end of the century. Like many such media predictions, the prophecy, thankfully, proved premature. That was largely due to the efforts of conservationists and governments to rescue the big cats from the threats of poaching and habitat destruction.

Hemanta Mishra is Nepal's foremost tiger conservationist and a veteran of Chitwan National Park. Bones of the Tiger: Protecting the Maneaters of Nepal is his just-released memoir about tiger conservation. It has fascinating insights on Nepal's tigers, all the way from the early hunting expeditions, the royal patronage that led to the setting up of the Chitwan sanctuary, and tiger research and relocation. Mishra left Nepal in 1996, worked for the Smithsonian and the World Wildlife Fund and published The Soul of the Rhino in 2008. His latest book is a significant contribution to the endeavour to ensure the survival of the wild tiger until the next Year of the Tiger in 2022.

Bones of the Tiger: Protecting The Maneaters of Nepal
Lyons Press, Connecticut, USA
2010

Glacial lakes

Climate skeptics have had a field day with the controversy over the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change's fudging of figures on the extent of glacial retreat. But for the citizens of the Himalaya, climate change is not just theory, it is a fact of life and they see its effects all around them everyday. However, there has been no real study about how far the expanding glacial lakes are a result of global warming, which lakes are vulnerable, and indeed, the field has been lacking an inventory of Himalayan glacial lakes in China, Bhutan, Nepal, India and Pakistan. Kathmandu-based ICIMOD seeks to plug the gap with the definitive tome on glacial lakes and the risk of outburst floods. Formation of Glacial Lakes in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas and GLOF Risk Assessment was co-authored by three of the world's specialists on glacial lakes: Jack Ives, Rajendra Shrestha and Pradeep Mool.

Formation of Glacial Lakes in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas and GLOF Risk Assessment
Jack Ives, Rajendra Shrestha and Pradeep Mool
ICIMOD, Kathmandu
2010