Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Nayar river is vanishing - a yatra reveals conservation goes beyond science and policy" appearing in ‘The Down To Earth’ dated 03.06.2025. The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Nayar …
IT WAS icing gone sour on a cake you can break your teeth on. On January 4 this year, the Madhya Pradesh food and civil supplies minister, Ramesh Solomonand, griped to the press about his disapproval of the state forest department's decision to impose a total ban on the collection …
Salient points • The village or hamlet should be the operational unit for managing their resources • Village communities should haw enough powers and control over natural resources to plan and develop such lands. Community institutions will ensure equitable sharing of benefits • Local institutions for the management of natural …
• The state governments have the right to declare any government land as "reserve forests". The Centre will monopolise the decisions directed towards the state government to constitute reserve forests • No people's rights will be enteriained in the reserved forests • The state governments can bypass procedural necessities in …
AS A professional forester, I feel that the draft Forest Bill is a highly progressive document. The Act, which will come out after the Bill is passed, will greatly improve upon the existing Indian Forest Act of 1927. It is a comprehensive piece of legislation dealing with the preservation of …
IN THE face of mounting public criticism of the Union ministry of environment and forests' draft Forest Bill, environment minister Kamal Nath's quick sidestep to dismiss the document as a "non-paper" is nothing if not adroit strategy. Only this move could have saved his "green" ministry the embarrassment of getting …
The forest protection initiatives of villagers in Bihar and Orissa, while arising out of crises, are marked by pragmatism. The people have realised that protection is possible only once their often-conflicting needs have been met first, which is why villagers' committees closely regulate the use of forest resources. Unfortunately, for …
THE powerment of people living in and around national parks and sanctuaries seems a distant dream as the divergent views on wildlife conservation of the parties involved belie all hope of consensus. This discord came into sharp focus when environmental activists, wildlife experts and forest officials met in Delhi recently …
When a village watchman self-righteously stopped Navlibehn from cutting firewood in the forests adjoining Kotha village, she retorted, "To kya main apne haath jala kar roti pakaun (Should I burn my hands to cook food)?" In Boriya village, Manibehn and her sister-in-law were caught redhanded cutting wood. The watchmen seized …
President Suharto of Indonesia is under fire for allegedly diverting $189 million intended for the forestry ministry's rainforest preservation programme to the state-owned aircraft maker, Industri Pesawat Terbang Negara, as an interest-free loan. Suharto now faces a legal challenge from 11 Indonesian environmental groups who plan to take their case …
"I CAME to Los Haitises in 1951 when I was abruptly evicted from my farm by the government to make way for a sugarcane plantation. One day I was in my farm, the next day I had to leave. I established a farm in the area the logging companies had …
RICHARD Leakey, director of the Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS), resigned again on March 24. Leakey had earlier stepped down from office in January this year, responding to a campaign spearheaded by the minister for local government, William Ole Ntimama and the minister for tourism and wildlife, Noah Katana Ngala, who …
People's action in West Bengal have been commended in the form of the J Paul Getty conservation prize to the forest Protection Committees (PFCs) of the state by the World Wide Fund for Nature, "in recognition of their efforts to ensure community-based conservation through sustainable management". At a ceremony in …
A RECENTLY developed species of a native Australian tree -- the northern black wattle (Acacia auriculiformis) -- may save the precious tropical teak forests from being wiped out by offering high-quality furniture wood. Already well-established in China, India and south-east Asia, the black wattle is not a favourite for good-quality …
What have been Finland's major environmental concerns? How has your government responded to global environmental issues in general? Finland and other industrialised countries use 80 per cent of the world's resources. We are part of a problem and are responsible for it. That's why our emphasis has always been on …
FIVE YEARS ago, the social forestry department in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra cleared several trees from a forest near Nandivse village to plant acacia trees. It did not know that the 4-ha patch was a sacred grove surrounding the temple of a powerful local deity, Kal Bhairon. The villagers, too, …
IT WAS nearly a decade ago that the government of India had tried to revise the Indian Forest Act of 1927, a British legacy that brought immense misery to forest-dwellers and has been unable to save the forests. The row that took place over the last revision forced the government …
GOVERNMENT involvement in urban waste management in India is limited and includes sharing the subsidy component for low cost sanitation for the economically weaker sections, imposing a 20 per cent duty on import of garbage and setting up of water supply and sewerage boards. This woefully inadequate effort is supplemented …
The Karnataka forest department will launch joint forest planning and management programmes beginning this September, according to forests and wildlife minister M P Keshavamurthy. The programmes are intended to "obtain the willing participation of forest-based communities in an active effort to check the state's fast degrading forests". Official surveys indicate …
THE LIMITED success of social forestry on non-forest lands has shifted attention to forest lands that form the bulk of India's lands that are uncultivated but capable of supporting vegetation. In 1988, the Union government revised its timber-oriented policy and asked state governments to treat subsistence requirements of forest-dwellers as …
IN US President Bill Clinton's nightmares, an endangered owl species must play a starring role, for he is trapped in the dilemma of protecting it or the jobs of thousands of loggers. The spotted owl once haunted his predecessor, George Bush, but Bush decided in favour of the timber interests …
