An Ancient Forest is one that has very old trees and associated structures with unique ecological features associated with the old flora. These forests are also called old growth forests, primary forest, virgin forest, primeval forest, frontier forest or ancient woodland. Typically the forests contain old trees which are alive, large dead tress or snags and large logs. Excessive logging is a constant threat to these forests that threatens to destroy the habitats and biodiversity. Ancient forests are replete with rare, threatened and endangered species of flora and fauna.

Locavore or Localvore are words used to denote the practice of eating food that is harvested from within an area extending to about a 100 mile radius. Locavore was coined by Jessica Prentice on World Environment Day 2005 and refers to people who eat locally produced food.

The movement promotes farmers markets and the habit of eating fresh, local products either self grown or bought from within the radius of 50, 100 or 150 miles. This type of consumption ensures better quality of the produce while also cutting down on emissions associated with transportation of the goods. The word Locavore was also chosen as word of the year 2007 by the New Oxford American Dictionary.

The term Staycation has recently been added to the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and has come up in the last few years due to the recent global financial crisis. It refers to the period of time that a family or an individual stays home and relaxes or does day trips to areas of attraction with the home as a base. These vacations eliminate expensive travel costs and also the emissions associated with long distance travel. They also benefit the economy of the town as people do a lot of tourism related business within their localities.

ECOSAN stands for an ecological sanitation toilet. The United Nations has bestowed the UN Water Conservation Award on the Kulgaon Badlapur Municipal Council (KBMC) who created an ECOSAN on a tight budget with the help of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Environment Society in 2008. The ECOSAN toilet recycles and reuses human household waste and excreta for agricultural purposes and for gas for cooking. Research has shown that the yield from the plants fed on biogas water containing phosphorous, potassium and nitrogen is better than the regular crops. The KBMC has also implemented a successful rainwater harvesting project.

The Keibul Lamjao National Park is a 40 Km2 floating park, the only one of its kind in the world. Located in the Bishnupur district of Manipur in India and a part of the Loktak lake, the chief characteristic is the floating decomposed plant materials called Phumids. The park was initially in 1966, declared a Sanctuary to protect the endangered species Eld’s Deer or Sangai ( Dancing Deer) and was later in 1977 declared a National Park.

The swamp that makes up the park comprises of vegetation created by organic garbage and biomass phumids. This park is distinctive in that it is too shallow to be termed a lake and too deep to be a marsh. Conservation efforts are on in the area to protect this rare type of vegetation.

Supertech Limited is a real estate company in India who has recently announced the launch of an eco development. This eco project estimated at Rs. 650 crores, is called Eco Citi and is located in Sector 137, Noida. The residential project spread over 12.6 acres; aims to be a zero carbon emission building that will use special generators, machinery and ecological sanitation. The Eco Citi has been accredited by CDM-Gold Standard Foundation Switzerland. This citi promises to be a self sustaining eco system.

The Fava Rocker created by Knoend as a part of its Bean Rocker Series, in addition to being a kid friendly, multitasking rocker – it works as a back bracing support and an exercise balance board -  is also eco friendly. The Fava is created with maple wood that is procured from a certified forest and has a Forestry Stewardship Council certificate in the United States. The finishing is done using linseed oil and padding uses organic cotton.

A consortium comprising members from AT&T, China Mobile, Samsung and MIT’s research Lab for Electronics led by the research team of Alcatel-Lucent, Bell Labs, are in the process of developing a process that will involve making the internet 1000 greener by 2015. Green Touch is the name of this initiative. Bell Labs is working on an open system of shared intellectual property rights to make this a reality. Currently, communication networks and the internet emit greenhouse gases comparable to that by 50 million cars annually.  By getting creative, bright minds to work together on a solution, Bell hopes to address the issues of climate change.

Bloom Energy recently unveiled its Bloom Box, a device that promises to alter our power generation capabilities at affordable rates. The unveiling at Ebay’s headquaters by founder K.R. Sridhar was witnessed by several political and industry heavyweights like venture capitalist John Doerr, former Secretary of State and Bloom Energy board member Colin Powell as well as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Bloom Box key ingredient is sand; the unit uses small amounts of space and costs less than 3000usd per unit. The goal is to make clean energy not only better but also cheaper and more accessible.

The sand is baked in a powder to power process to create fuel cells without using corrosive metals. These fuel cells could then be stacked and organised into modules that could be used to efficiently provide power that will be twice as efficient as the US grid.

Introduced at the Greener Gadgets Conference in New York by industrial designer Yves Behar, the solar electric car has created a buzz. Behar and his studio Fuse Project have been experimenting with transportation designs like the Mission One electric Motorcycle, but this car is set to be affordable and come with a standard electric base frame.

The beauty is that almost every component besides the frame is custom designed to the end users preference. The modular design will include photovoltaic panels on the roof to generate the power for the vehicle. In the concept stage, this green gadget is one to look out for.