This brochure offers decision-makers in the real estate and energy industries, as well as urban and municipal developers, a broad overview of the topics of decentralised energy generation and supply, and raises awareness of the goal of decarbonisation by 2050 at the latest. The advancing digitalization in the construction and …
MORE films are being made on environmental issues than ever before; films that closely document issues, as well offer different points of view on the growing global environmental crisis. Many NGOs, activist groups and individual filmmakers have been have being driving their points across through the powerful and seductive medium …
THE RECENT controversy over the national and global role of non-government organisations (NGOs), generated at the preparatory meeting for the United Nations-sponsored International Conference on Environment and Development (ICPD) in New York is seething with portents. It seems to be one more issue over which the North and the South …
Over the past 30 years, the environmental movement in the West has grown dramatically and moved from strength to strength. But little has been written about how this movement has been organised. The early heady days were full of writers like Rachel Carson, Barbara Ward and Barry Commoner, and of …
THE British chapter of Friends of the Earth began with a blaze of publicity: opposing the fur trade and getting pictures on the front pages of newspapers by returning thousands of "non-returnable" bottles. From these beginnings, FoE grew steadily, recruiting student radicals and campaigning on everything from dirty rivers to …
WHEN German local and regional environment organisations formed the Bund fur Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (German Association for Nature Conservation and the Protection of the Environment), their main objective was to strengthen their influence on the environment policy of the federal government. Today, BUND has become a major opinion leader …
AT ONE time, the Danish Society for the Conservation of Nature (Danmarks Naturfredningsforening -- DN) had more members than Denmark's political parties. Its large support base made DN the most powerful green NGO in Denmark, influencing decision-making at both the local and national levels. For example, an ambitious and costly …
THE logo of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SNF), a peregrine falcon in flight, may not be the most imaginative. But in the minds of many Swedes, the symbol of the threatened predator suggests something honest, close to nature and authentically Swedish. One out of every 40 Swedes is …
I AM happy that a large number of leading non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are meeting for a consultation with key development ministries. I had addressed a gathering of NGOs in December, 1991, where I had offered to withdraw the government from certain areas altogether, provided the NGOs take over the responsibility …
IT HAS taken decades of singleminded toil for the world's leading green organisations to move centripetally from what was considered the lunatic fringe to a position of such popular power and eminence today that governments disregard their opinions only at their own risk. This is civil society at its best: …
FOR INDIA'S aged citizenry, some good news lies ahead. The country is expected to have 76 million 60-plus people by the turn of this century, but the government's response remains blinkered to pension schemes. Now, many voluntary groups have taken on the work of providing care and warmth to the …
AT THEIR most convivial, Indian NGOs tend to keep a wide no-person's-land between themselves and the government. So when Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao called for voluntary organisations to cooperate with the government in order to eradicate poverty, they considered the possibility with lips pursed in doubt. They made …
Non-governmental organisations have accused the Union ministry of environment and forests (MEF) of succumbing to pressure from the Rajasthan mining lobby and de-reserving a part of the Sariska National Park to allow mining. MEF reiterated the area of the park is 866 ha, 279 ha less than the previous figure …
Although about 4.5 per cent of Australia's population is of Asian origin, local whites know little about Asia's economy or culture. But today, growing economic ties with southeast Asian countries have made it imperative for Australians to understand the East. Changing Times, a series of film clips, examines Australian assumptions …
ESTIMATES of air pollution in Delhi caused by various sources vary, except in the case of vehicles. K P Nyati of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), says about 70 per cent of the air pollution is caused by vehicles, about 20 per cent by power plants and the rest …
RESPONDING to the lack of awareness on environmental and developmental issues in the country, some non-governmental organisations are trying to spread information in these areas on two fronts. The first is by providing news to agencies and individuals involved in environment-related issues, which is essentially an updating programme. The second …
Who organised this meeting and what was the specific purpose of this convention? The meeting was convened by the Global Infrastructure Research Foundation (GIRF) of Japan -- a body set up 10 years ago, with the Japanese government and business community as members, to sponsor very large infrastructures spanning countries …
BRITAIN'S voluntary bodies should be stripped of their charitable status, says Voluntary Action, a report published by the home office of the UK. The report, which is a comprehensive review of 1,200 organisations and hundreds of local groups in 14 different communities covering one million people, recommends that tax concessions …
NEGOTIATIONS on how to structure a more democratic Global Environment Facility (GEF), which will finance the environmental treaties signed at the Earth Summit, broke down once again in Cartagena, Colombia, in December 1993. Participating countries were unable to agree to the proposed changes to restructure the GEF, set up by …
The present framework for NGO involvement and environment education is based on a background of visits to a large number of PAs over the last tow decades and recent visits to TRs with a more specific purpose of focusing atentionon these issues. Talking to local people, field staff of the …
Simultaneous cultivation of several crops , using organic manures and pesticides, can raise productivity, says Karnataka's L Narayana Reddy. CATTLE urine fights pests such as white flies far more effectively than chemicals such as malathion; besides, dung manure doesn't lower paddy productivity, says organic farmer L Narayana Reddy, of Sorhanese …
