The National Biodiversity Authority has released a new set of rules to manage sharing of benefits generated through the use of biological resources. The Biological Diversity (Access to biological Resources and Knowledge Associated thereto and Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits) Regulation 2025 was approved by the Central government and …
OVERTURNING age-old fears, free trade is now being seen as the market miracle that will bail out the earth from the environmental mess it finds itself in; free trade is expected to bring about the most efficient allocation of natural resources. Environmental concerns -- so far stubbornly kept out of …
DAY after day last February, scores of students in an Uttar Pradesh village spent hours outside their classrooms. They were not playing truant -- they were in the fields collecting leaves and plants for a biodiversity competition. The contest at the secondary school in Gangagarh village in Bulandshahr district was …
How do you know the uses of these ? Did you take help? I am from this area and know about these plants -- I see them being used everyday. I also asked my father and brothers and the elders in my neighbourhood. Even though my brothers don't go to …
The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) has been charged with disturbing the flora and fauna in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Goregaon near the Film City for a proposed conservation education project conceived by the late ornithologist Salim Ali. Park officials refused to grant a no-objection certificate for the …
THE government's efforts to develop legislation to control access to the country's wild as well as cultivated biodiversity are indeed laudable: the ministry of agriculture has already prepared a bill to control the use of cultivated biodiversity and the ministry of environment and forests is working on a bill that …
MORE than 30 years after the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act was passed, a lot still remains to be done to prevent maltreatment of animals, whether they be pets, live-stock or wild animals. The main problems have been exposing and preventing unkind acts perpetrated on animals. To deal with …
A PROPOSED forest conservation programme in Thailand has met with fierce resistance from non-governmental organisations, academicians and forestry officials who feel the project may dislocate forest dwellers. The $93-million Conservation Forest Area Protection, Management and Development Project is to be funded partly by a Global Environment Facility grant of $20 …
THE ministry of environment and forests (MEF) has drawn up a grandiose eco-development plan to garner funds from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) for biodiversity conservation. MEF sources say a proposal for GEF funding was rejected in 1992 because it did not have much significance for the global environment. Now, …
IN THE desert state of Rajasthan, forests have always been managed by communities. Over the years, with "modernisation" and flawed official forest management systems, the practice faded. However, traditional forest management is making a comeback in Alwar district and the success of the revival is spreading. And, all this is …
"WHAT DID we achieve in 1993?" The simple answer is: "Not much!" If that is an unsatisfying note to begin a new year on, we could rephrase the question: "What did we lose in 1993?" The answer, once again, is: "Not much!" Wordplay and sarcasm aside, 1993 was an extremely …
THE CONVENTION on biological diversity, which was signed by 167 nations, came into force on December 29, 1993, with only 37 countries having ratified it. Many countries that have signed are in the process of securing ratification. The signatories pledge to make sustainable use of the world's plants, animals and …
FIVE YEARS ago, the social forestry department in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra cleared several trees from a forest near Nandivse village to plant acacia trees. It did not know that the 4-ha patch was a sacred grove surrounding the temple of a powerful local deity, Kal Bhairon. The villagers, too, …
WHEN UNION environment minister Kamal Nath announced he would introduce in the budget session of Parliament in February comprehensive legislation for biodiversity conservation, many people were pleasantly and otherwise surprised. Officials of the Union ministry of environment and forests (MEF) were among those taken unaware by the minister"s announcement on …
THE CORDILLERA People's Alliance (CPA), a grouping of 120 indigenous people's organisations in northern Philippines, has called for a halt to the Human Genome Diversity Project. The project has been launched to collect blood samples, tissue and hair samples from endangered communities all over the world, to preserve biodiversity. However, …
SUSTAINABLILITY has both its preachers and practitioners. Despite their intellectual self-righteousness, biodiversity conservation promoted by the first group is still largely informed by an economic valuation of a disappearing resource. Significantly, it is suspicious of many schemes of the people whose use of natural resources is imbued by a cultural …
The present framework for NGO involvement and environment education is based on a background of visits to a large number of PAs over the last tow decades and recent visits to TRs with a more specific purpose of focusing atentionon these issues. Talking to local people, field staff of the …
ALTHOUGH world trade in forest products continues to be dominated by the industrialised countries, exports of forest products have come to play an important economic role in many developing countries, too. Over the last decade, Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia have increased their export of forest products at a rate much …
WITH THE passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the US House of Representatives and Senate, US President Bill Clinton has scored a major victory. However, to ensure approval of the agreement, which will gradually eliminate almost all trade and investment restrictions between the US, Canada and …
• Since the beginning of this century, about 75 per cent of the genetic diversity among agricultural crops has been lost. • In India, agronomists predict just ten rice varieties will soon cover three-quarters of the total rice-cultivating area in place of more than 30,000 varieties. • Rice, wheat and …
ECONOMIC demands are nullifying the efforts of the World Wide Fund for Nature, which is trying to save the rich biological diversity of the Sulieman mountain range in Pakistan. The Chilghoza pines growing here produce edible seeds, which bring in a lot of money to an otherwise not-so-prosperous area. But …
