The Indian Ecological Society (IES) was established in 1974 at College of Agriculture, Punjab Agriculture University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India, under Prof. A.S. Atwal, an eminent ecologist, educationist and administrator, as the Founder President. During that era the main emphasis was on increasing production which leads to ‘Green Revolution’, however, its impact on ecology, natural resource, environment etc were not the prime issues. The Indian Ecological Society, one of the pioneering organizations of India, is engaged in advances in ecological sciences and environmental protection. The Society is managed by senior faculty members, assisted voluntarily by scientists from various fields, in addition to their regular assignments.
Aims and Objectives: The specific aims and objectives of the society as 1974 documented were
- To advance the cause of ecology in India;
- To encourage and promote ecological studies in the country and to integrate research in different fields of ecology;
- To cooperate with organizations with related aims and interests, and provide opportunities for communication among ecologists;
- To provide technical know-how for reducing environmental pollution through proper recycling of industrial and agricultural wastes.
These objectives were amended time to time keeping in mind the priority areas in the field of ecology and environment:
Vide Amendment 12 -97: which also included ecological agriculture, sustainable development, crop environment interaction, planning for sustainable agriculture and rural development. The emphasis was on environment issues.
Vide Amendment 18-2016: which also included natural resource management.
Vide Amendment 19-2017: which also included the impact of natural resource management and environment on socioeconomic status, economics and marketing system including agricultural ecology, aquatic ecology, conservation ecology, ecological genetics, forest ecology, invasive species, ecology & evolution, soil and plant health, environmental pollution and climate change relevant to ecology and environment.
Covid 19 was included as special objective with respect to impact on environment, socioeconomic status and policy planning within frame work of ecology and environmental issue.
Moreover, there is change in definition and area of ecology during the last 5 decades; the updated objectives have also been included in ‘Web Site’ under ‘Objectives’. In addition, it was also suggested to involve policy planners, not directly related, but having critical role in planning issues related to environment, pollution, climate etc
More than 160 members joined as ‘Life members’ during the last five years and 691+ joined as ‘Annual members’ in 2021. Further, to have more interaction in the related fields, the Society has initiated ‘State and Institution Chapters’.
Indian Journal of Ecology
The Society attempts to fulfil the objectives by publishing the ‘Indian Journal of Ecology’ (ISSN-0304-5250since 1974), proceedings and other such publications, as may be considered desirable. The ‘Journal’ is considered ‘a premier journal’ reporting the research findings in the field of basic and applied ecology. The ‘Indian Journal of Ecology’ is an official publication of ‘Indian Ecological Society’ and is refereed and peer reviewed journal for the members of ‘Indian Ecological Society’. The ‘Journal’ is not paid but it is only for the members of IES. It is an open assessed ‘Journal’. Recently, the ‘Society’ has also considered the publication of research articles from different institutions‘ outside India’ and at present the contributions are from 21 countries. Due to the tremendous response and participation of number of institutions within/outside India, the issues per year were raised from 2 (2016) to 4 (2018) and to 6 (2021).The time frame for manuscript acceptance varies from 41 to 189 days, with average of 88 days. The acceptance percentage varied from 31.71 to 41.3 during the last five years
KEY LINKS
Abstracts of research papers: http://indianecologicalsociety.com/indian-ecology-journals/
Membership: http://indianecologicalsociety.com/memebership/
Manuscript submission: http://indianecologicalsociety.com/submit-manuscript/
Status of research paper: http://indianecologicalsociety.com/paper-status-in-journal-2/
