Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
The Supreme Court today again refused to grant interim permission to Chandigarh's controversial Forest Hill Golf Club and Resort for its commercial use but said that it will have the detailed hearing in the case in May to finally dispose it of. A Bench of Chief Justice K. G Balakrishnan …
Even as the Opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh, especially the BJP and the Samajwadi Party (SP) continue to rally against Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati's pet project, the Ganga Expressway, the state government remains unmoved in its bid to go ahead with the project. The Opposition's scathing attack on the …
This publication, the main report of the forestry outlook study of West and Central Asia, provides a long-term perspective of changes in the forest sector. Implemented in partnership with the countries, the study covered 23 countries in West Asia, Central Asia and the southern Caucasus. This report outlines the probable …
Brazil is losing its Amazonian forests to farmers at an unprecedented rate, latest satellite observations have shown. The destruction has so alarmed the Brazilian government that it called an emergency meeting in the last week of January, attended by the president, Lula da Silva. Only six months ago Brazil touted …
This study deals with a range of selected issues in the areas of natural resource accounting in land and forest sectors namely physical accounting and valuation issues which are imperative in conversion of physical accounts into monetary accounts and for the integration of the latter into the ‘green’ national/state income …
Using biofuels instead of fossil fuels will do little to cut carbon emissions, and could even increase them because of the extra land the crops will require.
The wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC issued a wake-up call to the Indonesian authorities this week: stop the illegal trade in Sumatran tiger body parts or the species will be hunted to extinction.
you see a lot of butterflies hovering around coffee plantations. The reason is the plantations have scattered stands of trees for shade. And a change in ecology can affect their numbers. Over the past five years, the native trees in the coffee plantations at Chikmagalur in Karnataka have been replaced …
Livelihoods of fisherfolk is at stake as the Mundra special economic zone (sez) on the northern shore of the Gulf of Kutch gets underway. Potentially the largest sez in the country, it covers 28 km of coastline and is spread across 13,000 hectares (ha). While the Adani Group, the promoters, …
For the past 15 years or so, Rabindranath Das has been watching the ground slip away from beneath his feet. Back in the 1990s, his family had about 3.5 hectares (ha) of paddy fields along Ghoramara island's northwestern shores. But every year, especially during the monsoons, the Hooghly's strong undercurrents …
Many species of trees in the Amazon rainforests, and animals that depend on them are disappearing more rapidly than previously thought, an international research team reported recently. Led by William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, the research team has been studying nearly 32,000 Amazonian trees for …
Bowing to pressure from consumer and environmental groups, Brazilian soy traders have stopped buying soybeans grown in the Amazon basin for the time being. The move is an effort to preserve the world's largest rainforests, the Amazon. The moratorium will continue for two years and apply to soybeans planted in …
in march 2006, Himachal Pradesh gave the go-ahead to proposals denotifying four sanctuaries and redrawing boundaries of 15 areas, including protected areas. Not surprisingly, the areas are required for either mining or hydro-electric projects or roads. Ridden by controversy The Majathal Wildlife Sanctuary in Shimla district is still caught up …
the west Bengal government's proposal to acquire over 15,000 hectares (ha) of land for nine industrial and infrastructure projects has created fissures within the ruling Left Front. Farmers who stand to lose land are not too impressed either. The state government had passed the proposal on March 31 and plans …
What is the value of our forests? Right now, as per the net present value (npv), a hectare (ha) of forestland costs anything between Rs 5.8 and 9.2 lakh. The amount represents more than just timber. It is actually a one-time payment that a user has to make for diverting …
After 22 years, things appear to be moving at the Namdapha National Park in Changlang, Arunachal Pradesh. On January 20, 2006, the park management for the first time organised a meeting between the district administration, state forest officials, the Project Tiger director, and the Lisu , the dominant tribal community …
function map() { var popurl="image/20051215/too_close.pdf" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=675,height=450,scrollbars=yes") } Tourism is flourishing in Ranthambore, with hotels mushrooming around the tiger in its reserve. Till the mid-1990s, there were just over 10 hotels in and around the forests of the reserve and in the town of Sawai Madhopur some 12 kilometres (km) from …
desperate people can do desperate things. But desperate people with no fear of regulation and no knowledge of the consequences of their action would definitely do desperate things that cause irreparable harm. Consider the case of how developers in Mumbai are buying real estate to build residential complexes on lands …
function graph() { var popurl="files/images/20050731/26-graph.jpg" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=400,height=300,scrollbars=yes") } Here is a piquant contradiction: forest-rich states in India are beginning to grumble about the natural wealth they possess, and are protecting. In his speech to the 12 th Finance Commission (fc), Virbhadra Singh, chief minister of Himachal Pradesh
