The report presents a mixed picture. Over the past 25 years, there have been notable improvements in child well-being in the group of countries examined in this report: steady decline in child mortality, overall reduction in adolescent suicide and increase in school completion rates. But the last five years have …
"The Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) shall have powers to remove any member who is found guilty of having committed offence under any of the Forest Acts and Rules
There was and still is a lot India can learn from Nepal. Nepal's success in increasing power availability in remote areas through community participation and micro-hydel schemes is laudable. Therefore it doesn't make sense that Nepal is putting an end to an enlightened Community Forest Management Programme and trying to …
seabuckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) grows in the cold desert regions in Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Scientists value it for its medicinal properties. The deciduous bushy-tree is another one of the plants found in India that private companies from the rest of the world trade in but which the Indian …
the skeletonised frame of 68-year-old Manglu Bhoi doesn't shiver with the chilly spring breeze on a bright February morning, but with the thought that he has to walk for two kilometres to fetch a bucket of water. A resident of India's poorest district, Balangir, he is one of the million …
These systems were evolved keeping in mind the unique topography of the region. Earlier, kings used to give agricultural lands to those maintaining tanks as incentives. Today, most of these structures are in a dilapidated condition, and in some cases have simply vanished. bandh: A traditional pond that is usually …
Melchhamunda is an oasis in the parched western Orissa. The village in the Bargarh district is fighting the drought with its 400-year-old pond that still contains water. The village depends on agriculture for survival and is only source of irrigation is the around 10-hectare Kata. As Deepak Bhoi, a resident …
• Community structures transferred to government after Independence. Community lost their rights l Attention shifted to modern irrigation projects often not suitable to the local topography. l Rich farmers converted tanks into agriculture lands earlier shared by the community for irrigation l Deforestation led to siltation in the catchments areas …
The melting of Arctic permafrost could accelerate global warming. Scientists from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warned that carbon stored in the permafrost of Arctic lands, which accounts for an estimated 14 per cent of the world's total carbon, is getting released as rising temperatures cause the permafrost to …
THEORITICAL and empirical studies of collective management of natural resources have proved the efficacy of common property as an efficient institutional arrangement. In India, joint forest management (JFM), involving partnerships between forest-based communities and the forest departments for the protection and management of forests, was initially successful but certain core …
The three villages of Hamirpur, Haripura and Bhaonta-Kolyala, situated near the Sariska Tiger Reserve in the Alwar district of Rajasthan have been given Rs 1 lakh each for their efforts to conserve water and protect forests and wildlife in their area for the past 15 years. The award has been …
Sahashradhara, Dehradun, India. A soft drink shop greets thousands of tourists at this confluence of a thousand streams. So what's the big deal? Well, its just that the shop is located right inside a microhydel powerhouse that supplied electricity to three nearby villages for over four years. Two year ago, …
As the world wakes up to a depleting finite sources of power like coal and the growing opposition to big dams, countries all over the world with water resources and difficult areas to electrify are opting for the community mode of electricity generation and distribution. "Today, a confluence of technological, …
In India, the Central Electricity Act, 1948, does not allow individuals, communities or cooperatives to take up electricity generation and distribution. Only a private company bound to sell power to the government can do so. Of course the company has to sell power at rates the government fixes. Since such …
Three years ago, when Chija Maya, a resident of Piughar, spoke about a run-of-the-river microhydel power station in her village, many people thought that she was whistling in the dark. Though hydro-electricity first came to Nepal in 1911 to light the King’s palaces, it still remains a dream for 85 …
The Arvari Sansad, or Arvari Parliament, is a shining example of community ownership and management of natural resources. After reviving the rivulet with assistance from the voluntary organisation Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), the people are absolutely confident of one thing: natural resources are best managed when communities regenerate these through …
A demand to revoke four forestry-related laws of Thailand has been made by various grassroots groups. The groups believe that these laws do not give recognition to community rights in natural resource management. They declared the Forestry Act of 1941, National Park Act of 1960, Forest Reserves Act of 1964 …
The Biological Diversity Bill, which was introduced on May 15, 2000, in the Lok Sabha, is currently under scrutiny of the parliamentary standing committee on science, technology and environment. The committee is conducting a series of hearings with experts from across the country to get their opinion on the bill. …
communication is vital for progress, and road links are crucial for this. A novel and viable approach for building rural roads and maintaining them was evolved in Madagascar in 1995. The approach advocates that the government, business institutions and local communities jointly undertake road construction projects. The need for such …
In our January 15, 2000 issue, Down To Earth had highlighted the situation in drought-struck areas of Gujarat. The conclusion was that villages with structures to harvest rainwater were faring much better than villages which had forgotten the value of rain (see:
Achampet mandal of Mahabubnagar district, Andhra Pradesh (AP), was in the clutch of drought six years ago. But it is doing well at present. “Satellite images show an improvement of about 300 per cent between February 1994 and March 1998 with regard to the groundwater table,” says Ramesh Reddy, head …
