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 …
Mention the word local community and bureaucrats in India wince. So what's new? It seems the bureaucrats have realised that little moves without the participation of the local community in this country. When it comes to implementing decisions taken by the government to benefit the environment, it is local communities …
according to a national survey conducted in the late '80s, 69 per cent of India's protected areas ( pa s) have human populations and a large number of them have community rights. Therefore, the viability of setting up pristine wildernesses sanctuaries which are declared total protection areas as a remedy …
imagine this terrifying scenario - the industrial town of Jamshedpur, which is home to Tata Iron and Steel Co Ltd, India's pioneering steel plant, suddenly goes bankrupt and declares a lockout. Because, a more efficient South Korean company based in Vijaywada has forced the inefficient Tata management out of the …
Wildlife conservation has been a contentious issue with indigenous communities for whom wildlife remains a valuable source of income. The people of Masoka, a village in northern Zimbabwe, have tried an alternate way of conservation that can boost Africans' standard of living as well as animal populations. Three years ago, …
the forest and wildlife statutes of the country finally seem to be making some headway towards becoming more responsive to peoples' needs. The new minister for environment and forests, Jaynarayan Prasad Nishad, in a reply to a question in Parliament, declared that the government is making suitable changes to allow …
The debate that took place recently on the Taper industry's demand to access state forest lands for industrial plantations takes me back to a key, yet, unresolved governance issue. The very first edition of Down to Earth had carried a debate on the environmental impact of the policy of liberalisation, …
Nepal has become the first country to implement the concept of community forest use effectively, by assembling its grassroot forces, especially the rural women. The first Regional Community Forestry Users' Group Workshop was inaugurated by Salim Miya Ansari, state minister for forests and soil Conservation on May 23, at the …
In the last 2 decades India has seen 2 major exoduses triggered by health catastrophes: the first, after the Bhopal gas leak in 1984; and Surat's plague-scare exodus exactly 10 years later. But were the risks as great as the rumours which induced the panic? Perception of a risk is …
It was a blazing mid-March afternoon in Ahwa, 130 km from Surat. Some "modern" men were enacting what seemed for all practical purposes a medieval drama. The lawns of the Ahwa collectorate, the headquarters of the Dangs district, were suitably decorated. The local maibaaps (virtual satraps) -- the district"s bureaucrats …
According to David Hardiman, a historian at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, the Bhils came to the Dangs around the 14th century, almost simultaneously with the Konkanas, who were initially subjects of the Bhils. The Konkanas practiced rab cultivation in the flatter regions of the valleys. Forest …
The Dang durbar (court) that opened this year on March 13, and continued till Holi (March 17) is an annual pageantry coming down from the Raj days. What actually happens here clearly symbolises the plains-people's and the bureacracy's patronising, condescending, yet authoritarian attitude towards forest tribals. The Dangs durbar dates …
It is an anomaly: the privy purse was abolished 24 years ago, yet, here, in the Dangs, they still exist. The British ruled in the Dangs under the foreign territories regulations. In 1947 it acceeded to India by default. So when the privy was abolished for the former states, the …
In the pre-British era, the Dangis, part of a larger trade circle in forest products, dictated the terms of trade in forest produce. Merchants from the peripheral towns, bought permission to cut timber from the Bhil chiefs. The rate, in 1826, was Rs.2.25 per cart. Payments were often in kind, …
Gandhian leader Chotubhai Nayak had dreamed that they would be the key to the tribals' prosperity, these jangal mandalis, or forest labour cooperatives. They have been a feature of the Dangs since 1948 and operated till 1960, when the Dangs district was a part of Bombay state. They were dissolved …
The international decade for indigenous peoples has just been ushered in with the usual brouhaha that accompanies all such gala events. vips will make speeches, money will be asked for and perhaps allocated. But the fate of millions of indigenous peoples all over the world will probably not change unless …
THE scorching sun fissures the salt-encrusted soil of the desolate Bhal, the region near the Gulf of Khambat in Gujarat. In the midst of this, the Vankars, traditionally weavers and agricultural labourers, have transformed wastelands into green acres through cooperatives, helped by the Behavioural Science Centre (BSC), an Ahmedabad-based NGO. …
SUCCOUR came from Rome. For the "pro-lifers" in the US -- as the members of the anti-abortion camp style themselves -- the 11th encyclical of Pope John Paul II, a 189-page pronunciation of papal wrath against abortion and euthanasia -- came at a moment when the battle for the fate …
In 1986, the Foundation for Community Organisation and Management Technology installed the community management system in 5 municipalities in Negros Occidental -- Bago, Pulupandan, Valliadollid, Salvador-Benedicto and Murcia. The project was supported by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) for 2 years. These 5 municipalities are integrated by a river …
