The Economist has an excellent article about the "fate of India's amphibians" and what is a universal conservation paradox:
As economic growth has accelerated so, it appears, has the destruction of [India's] forests. The Centre for Science and the Environment, a lobby group, reckons that the pace at which clearance permissions have been granted has doubled in the past five years. In 2009 alone, 87,884 hectares (out of a total of 68m hectares of primary and other forest) were approved for clearance. Yet while growth damages the environment, it also nurtures a countervailing force: rising green consciousness. That tends to happen wherever economic dynamism threatens a country's natural wealth, but maybe especially so in India. Environmental awareness lies deep in India's political culture. Mahatma Gandhi was an early green, and the original tree-huggers were Indians: the chipko movement used Gandhian methods to prevent deforestation in the Himalayas in the 1980s. ...
