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 …
WITH changing values, increase in population, development pressures and apathy the part of government departments - many of which did not give the concept due merit - sacred groves are fast deteriorating. If steps are not taken to stop their decline, these microcosms will disappear from the face of earth, …
" medicinal Plants for Survival" was the theme at the International Conference on Medicinal Plants held in Bangalore from February 16 to 19. The conference was organised by the Foundation for the Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions (frlht), a Bangalore-based non-governmental organisation (ngo), and was held at the National Institute …
today, western science is contrasted with superstition and the occult, and scientists with primitive people. Western science is even contrasted with the sciences of ancient Indian and Chinese civilisations as if oriental science existed only in the past; and as if western science has not derived anything from them. Western …
THE relatively new field of ethnoveterinary medicine, which is establishing itself as a serious discipline, has far-reaching implications for the well-being of livestock in the developing world. Ethnoveterinary medicine is the knowledge possessed by non-literate cultures with regard to animal health and disease that is passed on in the form …
THERE is euphoria at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the New Delhi-based government institute, over the decision by the us Patent and Trademark Office (US PTO) to withdraw its patent no 5401504 for the use of turmeric powder as a wound-healing agent on August 13. The move …
The governance systems of India - bequeathed to us by the erstwhile colonial masters which we embraced with great eagerness - are today in a state of deep crisis. The British built bureaucracies to control and manage India's natural resources and to deliver a variety of services like education and …
The latest Western celebrity to seek the East's heating touch is British billionaire and father-in-law of cricket icon lmran Khan, Sir James Goldsmith. The healer is the renowned metal therapist based in Dehra Dun, Uttar Pradesh,'Vaidya Balendu Prakash, who is treating Goldsmith, 64, in Paris for cancer. The cancer, that …
PYROMETALLURGY, or the process of producing iron, was introduced in India around the second millennium BC. The Harappan people were not familiar with iron, although they made artefacts from copper and bronze and jewellery from gold and silver. Production of iron and steel is mentioned in the Rig and the …
on agricultural productivity in India before the imposition of the British system: Sketches and descriptions of tools give us an idea of productivity in agriculture and seed varieties in previous centuries. According to data collected by the British, agriculture productivity was quite high around AD 1800. In the journal Edinburgh …
THE home-made concoction that cured your stomach ache may soon be unavailable. More than 150 of the known species of medicinal plants in India have already become extinct due to unsustainable methods of harvesting and many more face the threat of extinction. The loss is great because in India, even …
A. The quick and the dead Human pressure, lack of research and shrinking forests coupled with a thriving international trade in wildlife threatens to turn a zoologist's Garden of Eden into a poacher's paradise on november 25, 1996, Vietnamese Premier Vo Van Kiet issued a dire warning to his audience …
The present century has seen very few discoveries of new mammalian species. Of the four discovered so far, Vietnam itself accounts for three. In the 1990s, two new species of big mammals
With Vietnam slowly opening up to Western scientists in the last decade, numerous organisations have been vying with each other to study the country's flora and fauna. After Ho Chi Minh ousted the French in 1954, Vietnam's leaders closed the country and its forests were effectively locked to outsiders. Even …
Ornamental fish breeding has expanded recently in Hanoi because of rising incomes. Increased incomes and a liberalised foreign trade is also taking a heavy toll of orchids and rhododendrons. Ethnic minorities collect rhododendron plants in large quantities in the high mountains and bring them regularly for sale in the cities, …
about 26 per cent of Vietnam was covered by natural forests in 1991, compared to 67 per cent in 1943. In the past 25 years, the total area of natural forests (both upland and coastal) has declined at an average rate of 350,000 ha per year. This has led to …
The 72 million litres of herbicides sprayed by US forces in Vietnam during the war will continue to plague several generations of post-war populations with a high rate of reproductive abnormalities. Some 40 million litres of Agent Orange were sprayed; the herbicide contained 170 kg of dioxin, which is the …
The threat to deforestation comes from several basic reasons: the nature of the country's economy; its high population growth rate; firewood demand; shifting cultivation and fire damage; economic liberalisation; and, the pressure on the country to earn foreign exchange through biomass exports like wood and rice. The per capita income …
Afforestation : In 1993, a 10-year programme was initiated to regreen the barren lands of Vietnam. But as one diplomat in Hanoi pointed out, the government went about the task of greening the land "in a militaristic manner', and planted eucalyptus and other exotic species over large stretches of the …
what makes Vietnam particularly worthy from a biodiversity point of view is also its very rich base of traditional medicine. This means Vietnam has the potential to make a worthwhile contribution to the global food and health sectors. Says Nguyen Duc Tao of the Vietnam Pharmaceutical Corporation, which is trying …
