Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
TREE-felling has evolved into a big business involving mafia, guns and lots of money, says a parliamentary report released on March 13. Rising population, mining, i,ndustrialisation, construction of highways and other development activities have left only 20 per cent of the.Indian land mass under green cover, according to the 30th …
The state of forest report 1995 is the fifth assessment of the forest cover of the country pertaining to the period 1991-93. It is for the first time that the data obtained from the Indian Remote Sensing Satellite has been used by the Forest Survey of India for this assessment. …
"LARGE parts of Uttarakhand now lie denuded ... the whole region is turning into a desert. If this trend continues for another 50 years, it will become impossible to save the Himalaya from total collapse," environmental activist Chandi Prasad Batt had said at a public rally in 1980. One could …
MINOR forest produce. To tribals anywhere, they form the demarcating line between plentiful food and persistent hunger. But present government policies are pushing more for commercial exploitation of the forests and monoculture plantations. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that today the struggles of adivasi (tribal) movements all over the country …
The Saiga adivasis of Ghanneri village, living in Achanakmar sanctuary area of Bilaspur, have nothing but their undying spirit of struggle to fall back upon. Many at them, basods by profession (who make their living by selling bamboo-based goods like brooms, mats etc), have been ruined, since the forest policy …
The most promising solution to the deepening power crisis in developing countries may be found in renewable energy systems, particularly from biomass resources (primarily wood and biomass residues from forestry, forest products industries, agriculture and agro-industries). However, these opportunities are only realisable in the context of sustainable resource production and …
WRAPPED AND bound in red tape, the 276 obstinate deodars growing near Tutu village in Rampur sub-division of Himachal Pradesh's Shimla district were an uncomplaining target for freewheeling woodcutters roaming the area. This time round, they were saved from the axe by a bunch of gritty village women. The deodars …
THE ministry of environment and forests (MEF) has drawn up a grandiose eco-development plan to garner funds from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) for biodiversity conservation. MEF sources say a proposal for GEF funding was rejected in 1992 because it did not have much significance for the global environment. Now, …
ARE forests linked with the spread of malaria? Or, for that matter, do terrain, agricultural practices, water-bodies or ground-water have any bearing on the disease? Now, a computer-based analysis technology -- the Geographical Information System (GIS) -- may provide answers to these complex questions. The Malaria Research Centre (MRC) in …
BRITAIN'S Overseas Development Agency (ODA) has washed its hands off Kenya's forest reserves. It has unceremoniously withdrawn a L12 m grant for a forestry convention programme launched in Kenya because it has fallen out with the ruling party on the issue of illegal allocation of protected forest lands. ODA claims …
INDIA'S conservation laws have become the scourge of local communities in and around national parks and sanctuaries. The restrictions governing these protected areas curtail the indigenous peoples' access to natural resources to the extent their very survival becomes threatened. On the other hand, several cases have come to light of …
IN THE context of the forest department's increasing sensitivity to participatory programmes such as joint forest management, the "anti-people" stance of the article by a senior forester like A N Chaturvedi is shocking. In his article, he gives priority to specific uses of forests than to people and thus advocates …
FOREST degradation around a Nepali mountain village has been reversed in a span of 10 years despite an annual population growth rate of 2.5 per cent. In 1980, grazing and fodder collection was a major cause of degradation in Bhogteni, a village in the hills of central Nepal. However, in …
TROPICAL timber-producing countries insist temperate forests must be included in any accord reached to replace the International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA) when it expires next year. Their demand was made at a meeting of timber-producing and -consuming countries held in Geneva recently, even as Bruno Manser, a Swiss anthropologist, staged …
THIS IS the scam of all scams. The fat and pampered paper industry, which has thrived because it gets forest resources at throwaway prices, is crying out hoarsely for yet another subsidy: cheap forest land for plantations. The industry proposal must be denounced as extremely anti-poor, anti-environment and a blatant …
THE BRITISH blamed the improvidence of the Indian peasantry for the destruction of India's forest wealth. Even with Independence, the bureaucracy continued to toe this line and with such effect that in the 1950s, the new forest policy asserted local people should not enjoy special rights over forests in their …
WHEN I first visited the Alaknanda valley in the 1960s, there were few footprints on the path leading to the Hemkund-Lokpal shrine and the Valley of Flowers and nature was resplendent in all its pristine glory. But by 1969, when I set up a research station at Joshimath to study …
WHEN ALL the good-sized trees had vanished from the forest around Khudamunda hamlet in Sambalpur district, Orissa, a villager went into a reserve forest nearby in search of poles for his hut. He was caught and beaten by a forest guard, who then took a hefty sum and a goat …
VILLAGERS in Lapanga, Sambalpur district, assert they initiated forest protection as long ago as 1936, making Lapanga one of the first villages to do so. The villagers protect about 250 ha of forest, of which 75 ha. are ryoti (private) land, donated for use as a community-run forest. The protection …
