Affidavit filed by the Chief Wildlife Warden, Assam in the matter of news item titled "the last feral horses in India" appearing in Mongabay, November 5, 2024. The matter relates to the critically endangered status of feral horses in the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park as well as of smuggling of these …
The death of wild animals in a zoo is, indeed a shocking phenomenon. On one hand the government and international agencies spend crores of rupees to save the tiger and on the other we murder 12 tigers due to gross negligence. The highly qualified doctors who vaccinated the tigers at …
Past experiences have shown that centralized management of natural resources, based on a culture of exclusion and rules, has not contributed to the sustainable management of natural resources. This important realization has led to a series of policy changes in the recent past that provides an ever-widening democratic space to …
on May 8, 1999, the Rural Litigation & Entitlement Kendra ( rlek ), a Dehradun-based non-governmental organisation ( ngo), moved an application with the National Human Rights Commission ( nhrc), saying that the Uttar Pradesh ( up ) government is not complying with nhrc 's orders which had directed the …
This book outlines the first alternative management plan proposed for the protecte areas of India. It provides both a general mode of community forest management in protected areas, and specific proposals for implementation in the proposed Rajaji national park. It is based on the expertise of the Van Gujjars and …
THEY can't do what th.ey want if the people of the forests retain their home rights. So, India's forest bureaucracy and t~ political mandarins insist that the 5,OOO-odd Van Gujjar's and their12,300 buffaloes must leave the Rajaji National Park ( RNP ) .The pristineness of the Park must be maintained, …
I WOULD like to strongly denounce the message sent by Rajesh Pilot to this august assembly to discuss people's management of the Riljaji National Park by the Van Gujjars. It appears from his message that he has completely missed the purpose of this gathering. The minister is trying to push …
THE conflict between people and the managers of national parks is growing in leaps and bounds. Van Gujjars, a nomadic tribe practising transhumance living in hilly northern Uttar Pradesh, were deprived of their winter headquarters in the forests of the Shivalik foot hills. This rather callous administrative step in the …
The presence of Gujjars in the Rajaji National Park could be responsible for the significant increase in elephant numbers in the past four years, wildlife observers claim. According to them, the Gujjars have minimised poaching and regulated the monitoring of the elephant population in the park. The number of elephants …
ENVIRONMENTAL issues are making their mark on Indian television. Doordarshan features the science and environment programme Turning Point each week in a prime-time slot, hitherto reserved for Hindi serials. News programmes such as The World This Week and Parakh also frequently spotlight coverage of environmental conflicts. A recent edition of …
WHEN GUJJAR Zahur Hussain got into a trifling argument with a forestry official who was on his way to a temple in the Rajaji National Park, little did he expect what followed. That evening the official -- a deputy director of the park -- came to Hussain's hut accompanied by …
ALL OVER the country, there are tensions around national parks and sanctuaries. People living in and around these forests see them as the last remaining sources of biomass and depend on them heavily to meet their fuel and fodder needs. Grazing and other regulations imposed by wildlife managers have cut …
GUJJARS are up in arms because they resent being thrown out of their homes by the proposed Rajaji National Park in Uttar Pradesh. In coastal Orissa, Chilika fisherfolk are protesting the allocation by the government of a slice of their environment to the House of Tata. What binds these disparate …
"WE WILL stop all traffic on the Dehra Dun highway if our demands are not met by December 5," roared a crowd of more than 1,000 Gujjars and ban (rope) workers on November 5 at Mohand, 20 km from Dehra Dun, outside the Rajaji National Park (RNP). When the migrant …
