Oindrila Basu from India, 25, is a key member of a global forestry organization. Back in her youth, she had to be taught the importance of nature. She used to destroy nests of the bulbul bird just for fun. Once, her mother caught her and forced her to find the eggs and replace the nest. With a heavy heart, the girl realized she had done something terrible.

This is just one way that Basu’s parents shaped her understanding and appreciation of nature. Living in the countryside, she spent her youth studying ants before a rain, watching sunbirds drink bottlebrush nectar, counting fireflies and watching seedlings grow. Then her parents decided to move to a nearby city with better educational opportunities and she stopped having firsthand experiences with nature.

As she struggled to choose a college major, her mother suggested a career in forestry. That’s when her journey began and she fell in love with forestry. Away from the crowded concrete cities, in the lap of the Himalayas, she got her bachelor’s degree in forestry from Kumaun University, India. When she went on to study for a master’s in forestry from the Forest Research Institute, India, she finally got introduced to a like-minded group of people, devoted to the same cause-the International Forestry Students’ Association（IFSA）.

IFSA is a global organization connecting students to exchange knowledge and participate in forestry activities. The youth joining IFSA are encouraged to undertake its mission-to enrich forest education and spread a love of nature through events and intercultural exchanges.

After six months of exciting international conferences and workshops, Basu, found her home-a family that loved forests as much as she did. She felt rejuvenated（重生的）; her passion had a direction. Now she wanted to do more.

Now with the IFSA, Basu recalled her experience of joining, “On purpose or by chance we chose forestry, or rather, forestry chose us”.

When “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” was first shown to the public last month, a group of excited animal activists gathered on Hollywood Boulevard. But they weren’t there to throw red paint on fur-coat-wearing film stars. Instead, one activist, dressed in a full-body monkey suit, had arrived with a sign praising the filmmakers: “Thanks for not using real apes (猿)!”

The creative team behind “Apes” used motion-capture (动作捕捉) technology to create digitalized animals, spending tens of millions of dollars on technology that records an actor’s performance and later processes it with computer graphics to create a final image (图像). In this case, one of a realistic-looking ape.

Yet “Apes” is more exception than the rule. In fact, Hollywood has been hot on live animals lately. One nonprofit organization, which monitors the treatment of animals in filmed entertainment, is keeping tabs on more than 2,000 productions this year. Already, a number of films, including “Water for Elephants,” “The Hangover Part Ⅱ” and “Zookeeper,” have drawn the anger of activists who say the creatures acting in them haven’t been treated properly.

In some cases, it’s not so much the treatment of the animals on set in the studio that has activists worried; it’s the off-set training and living conditions that are raising concerns. And there are questions about the films made outside the States, which sometimes are not monitored as closely as productions filmed in the States.

The world is literally a greener place than it was 20 years ago, and data from NASA satellites has revealed a source for much of this new greening phenomenon: China and India. This new insight was made possible by a nearly 20­year­long data record from a NASA instrument orbiting the Earth on two satellites.

Taken all together, the greening of the planet over the last two decades represents an increase in leaf area on plants and trees equal to the area covered by all the Amazon rainforests. There are now more than two million square miles of extra green leaf area per year, compared to the early 2000s—a 5% increase.

“China and India account for one­third of the greening, but contain only 9% of the planet's land area covered in vegetation—a surprising finding, considering the common phenomenon of land degradation in populous countries from overuse, ” said Chi Chen, lead author of the study.

“This long­term data lets us dig deeper, ” said Rama Nemani, a co­author of the new work. “When the greening of the Earth was first observed, we thought it was due to a warmer, wetter climate and fertilisation from the added carbon dioxide(CO₂) in the atmosphere, leading to more leaf growth in northern forests. Now, with the data that lets us understand the phenomenon at really small scales, we see that humans are also contributing.”

China's outsized contribution to the global greening trend comes in large part(42%) from programmes to conserve and expand forests. These were developed in an effort to reduce the effects of soil erosion, air pollution and climate change. Another 32% there—82% of the greening seen in India—comes from intensive growing of food crops. How the greening trend may change in the future depends on numerous factors, both on a global scale and the local human level. For example, increased food production in India is promoted by groundwater irrigation. If the groundwater is running out, this trend may change.

The researchers point out that the gain in greenness seen around the world and led by India and China does not offset the damage from loss of natural vegetation in tropical regions, such as Brazil and Indonesia. The consequences for sustainability and biodiversity in those ecosystems remain.

Nemani is pretty excited about the findings, and not just because the greener, the better. “Once people realise there's a problem, they tend to fix it, ” he said. “In the 70s and 80s in India and China, the situation around vegetation loss wasn't good; in the 90s, people realised it; and today things have improved. Humans are incredibly adaptable.”