Affidavit on behalf of Union Territory of Puducherry in the matter of a news item titled "India lost 2.33 million hectares of tree cover since 2000 Global Forest Watch" which appeared in the Indian Express, April 13, 2024. The report dated April 25, 2025 said that there is no loss …
"In my mountaineering wandering I have not seen a more beautiful valley than this... this valley of peace and perfect beauty where the human spirit may find repose," said Frank Smythe, who came across this valley of dreams during one of his mountaineering trips in 1931. Unfortunately, the Valley of …
While wildlife scientists believe forest officials have very little technical knowledge, the latter feels that scientists are "conducting research for their objectives of impressing funding sources" rather than on need-based criteria. It's a virtual war of words between the two groups. The obvious result: gross mismanagement of protected areas and …
On the beginning of conservation in India The idea of conservation was more of protection of wildlife. Protection is different from conservation, which includes management. Till the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were no real wildlife laws pertaining to the entire country. In 1971, the then prime minister Indira …
"this is more easily said than done," says Daniels of mssrf . Whether it is the Korkus in the Melghat Tiger Reserve, the Maldharis in Gir National Park or the Van Gujjars in the proposed Rajaji National Park, most of these communities are under tremendous pressure to give up their …
The Keoladeo Ghana National Park in Bharatpur, Rajasthan is known as much for controversies as for the famous Siberian Crane, which migrates to the park every winter. Succumbing to pressures from environmentalists and scientists of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), including the well-known ornithologist Salim Ali, the region was …
Clearly, human pressure over the centuries have influenced the way in which several present-day ecosystems have shaped up. Suddenly lifting this pressure can alter the dynamics of these ecosystems, which may actually go against the objectives of conservation. Therefore, to manage a np , it is very important to first …
While there are several reports every year of marauding elephants trampling numerous people to death and destroying crops, there are cases when science has come to the rescue. Wildlife scientist Sushant Choudhary and his team at the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, found that 40 per cent of the human-elephant …
this is a story of human solidarity and struggle for survival in the face of all odds. It is also a story of an individual's endeavours succeeding long after he is gone. And it took 15 years for his efforts to bear fruit in the small village of Ashrubahal in …
It is not the kind of death that makes a front-page story in a newspaper. Actually, it does not make news at all in most of India. Bhawani Ram is another name in the list of people who have been killed by wild animals. Had it been the killing of …
Ministry clueless on diesel quality It came as a surprise when the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas ( mpng ) recently informed the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority ( epca ) that oil companies would be able to supply diesel with 0.05 per cent sulphur content in Delhi …
A task force to assist developing countries integrate environment, trade and development policies has been set up with the assistance of the United Nations Environment Programme (unep) and the un Conference on Trade and Development (unctad). The task force will use the technical expertise of the two agencies and their …
beware the fury of a long-suffering impoverished people, give them back the control of their natural resources so that they can rid themselves of their poverty and allow them to take control of their destinies, was the gist of the President of India's Republic Day speech. President K R Narayanan …
In 1993, the Nepal government decided to hand over certain forest areas to rural communities. Six years later, 8,559 such communities are managing 621,942 hectares of forest land in the country. They are bent on accomplishing what the government has not been able to do
For British historians and administrators, Indian villages were self-sustaining units and they termed these units as village republics. Later, this terminology was done away with by historians and sociologists. Although utopian, villages situated along the Arvari river in Alwar district, Rajasthan, have retained the basic essence of a "self-sustaining republic,'
Forest-Users' Group (FUG): It comprises households using or dependent on forest resources. They are identified by the district forest officer (DFO) after a house-to-house survey to check their dependence on the forest. Once the users' group is identified, it charts its own constitution (a five-year plan) for the management and …
Man Bahadur Chettri of Sarang Kot is aware of the gradual plunder of the forests and the evolution of cfm in his country. "For the rulers of Nepal, forests were an infinite source of revenue,' he says. The strategy varied from ruler to ruler. But there was only one agenda: …
"Notwithstanding anything contained elsewhere in this Act, no part of any national forest, which is suitable for being handed over to a users' group in the form of a community forest shall be given away in the form on a leasehold forest,' reads Nepal's Forest Act, 1993. It defines a …
The Samudaik Ban Upabhokta Mahasangh or the Federation of Community Forestry Users (FECOFUN) in Nepal is an association founded by and for community forest users. The federation has been established to increase awareness, expand and strengthen the role of forest users in Nepal. After the enforcement of the 1993 Forest …
On November 2, 1999, the department of forests ( dof ) and the Community Forestry Development Programme ( cfdp ), both under the ministry of forests and soil conservation, issued a circular to forest officials across the country to ask fug s to immediately stop commercialisation of timber. "However, all …
Perhaps the Nepalese forest department had never expected communities to regenerate the forests to the point that they would become cash-rich. But now that the communities have done the
