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 …
DEFORESTATION in the Brazilian Amazon since the 1970s is lower than estimated, but its effect on biological diversity is greater. Estimates of deforestation ranged as high as 50,000 square kilometres per year to 80,000 sq km in the late 1980s. But a NASA-University of New Hampshire study published in Science …
VEERAPPAN'S involvement with sandalwood smuggling came to light when he organised massive felling in and around the Makkampalyam, Kottamadain and Argiyam areas of the Satyamangala forests division in Tamil Nadu between July and December 1989. About 50 truckloads of sandalwood were smuggled out of Jellipalyam in Mysore and the adjacent …
THE BIOLOGICAL Diversity Convention meeting, which was held in Geneva from October 11 to 15 and attended by representatives of 130 countries, failed to establish ground rules for its implementation because most countries gave priority to their own interests. Consequently, the governments have asked for two more meetings to be …
INDIA'S conservation laws have become the scourge of local communities in and around national parks and sanctuaries. The restrictions governing these protected areas curtail the indigenous peoples' access to natural resources to the extent their very survival becomes threatened. On the other hand, several cases have come to light of …
Which is better: a forest where trees and plants grow wild and free or a plantation of one or two species of trees, lined up neatly? Forests in their natural state are generally regarded as useless and chaotic whereas orderly plantations are considered to be "sustainably yielding" for logging. The …
RECENT press reports have cast aspersions on the Gujarat government's commitment to wildlife and biodiversity conservation. A notification issued by the state department of forests and environment on July 27, cancelled a 1981 notification, under which specified areas of Lakhpat taluka in Kutch were designated as the Narayan Sarovar sanctuary. …
THE WORLD Bank recently organised a conference in Washington on 'Valuing the Environment'. There is probably no other way that market economists can deal with the environment except by treating it as an externality that ought to be 'internalised' through suitable valuation and appropriate fiscal interventions in the marketplace. The …
THOUGH retaining environmental issues high on their G-7 policy agenda, the leaders of the world's seven richest nations confirmed their determination to maintain the global Environmental Fund (GEF) as the sole funding agency for implementing the biodiversity and climate change conventions, adopted in Rio last year. In doing so, the …
ANALYSIS of satellite imagery publicised in June has cheered environmentalists because it shows Brazil's Amazon forests are being cleared at a much slower rate than had been widely estimated. David Skole of the University of New Hampshire and Compton Tucker of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre in the US …
BRITISH scientist William Bateson, who is responsible for coining the word "genetics", had an unusual scientific career. He started out as a student of animal morphology -- a branch of zoology that emphasises such obvious aspects of an organism as its form and the way it looks to us. Later, …
THROUGHOUT the tropics, both natural and modified wetlands are extensively exploited for a variety of biological resources. These wetlands are the creation over centuries of rural populations who have nursed and managed them with care and experience. However, increasing population pressure and rapid economic growth have led in recent decades …
Moderator: I understand your centre was against the forest convention, which was presented in Brazil. For me it's amazing, because as an NGO, how can you possibly go against the convention? Sunita Narain: Through this convention we will actually end up destroying forests. We strongly believe that the forest convention …
IN AN ERA of global economics, global epidemics and global environmental hazards, a central challenge of our time is to promote our national interest in the context of its connection with the rest of the world. We share our atmosphere, our planet, our destiny with all the peoples of this …
THIRD World Network (TWN), a Malaysia-based environment group, has voiced its concern over some basic issues in USA's controversial interpretative statement of the Biodiversity Convention, which US President Bill Clinton has agreed to sign (Down To Earth, June 15, 1993). The US interpretation says, "Private parties (read companies) should have …
THE FIFTH meeting of the members of the Global Environment Facility, held in Beijing in May, ended with the South getting some assurance on additional finance, and many conditions on how the money would be spent. Also under discussion were the governance structures of the GEF. With the "pilot" phase …
• You take my genes; I'll take your technology -- the acceptance of this argument was seen as a victory for the South. Article 16 of the Biodiversity Convention states: "Access to and transfer of technology...to developing countries shall be provided and/or facilitated under fair and most favourable terms..." The …
US PRESIDENT Bill Clinton had good news and bad news to announce on Earth Day, April 22, 1993. The good news is that he will sign the Biodiversity Convention -- something his predecessor George Bush refused to do. The bad news is that he intends to issue an "interpretative statement" …
PRODUCING a newspaper or a newsmagazine is something like an unending string of little miracles. As technologists designing new machines well know, "if anything can go wrong, it will." The same happens with us too, all the time. Yet, the publication must and does come out regularly and, more or …
A HINT that Washington may soften its opposition to measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions was given at the recent session of the Framework Convention on Climate Change in New York. In an implicit dig at the Bush administration's attitude -- which was widely blamed for watering down the terms …
EVEN THOUGH tough environmen- Indian delegation that took part in tal negotiations are still ahead in the the earlier discussions have been post-Rio Summit phase, many on the replaced. This could easily put India. at a disadvantage in forthcoming Ozone, Biodiversity and Climate Change convention and at meetings of the …
