Reply by Army in OA No 782 of 2023 (News item titled Forest Department sends notice to Army HQ for tree offences, which appeared in The Times of India dated 18/12/2023). The report of December 23, 2024 was uploaded to the NGT site on April 17, 2025. The affidavit was …
Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of Suresh Vs State of Maharashtra & Others issued on 25/09/2013 regarding measures taken for shifting of villages from the forest area, the status about manner in which the contracts are given for collecting Tendu leaves from the forest area and …
This is a study of three villages in the Aravalli Hills of south Haryana, which have full title over the common lands and forests and have taken three radically different alternatives. One community, Mangar, is on the verge of losing the battle to the allure of real estate. The second …
This article demonstrates the central role of ambiguity in the (re)production process of conservation practice. It argues that some current political economy as well as environmentality approaches to research conservation practice fail to capture the complexity of the lived experience of local conservationists. The article focuses on the multiple identities …
A two-day workshop, titled “Fishery-dependent Livelihoods, Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity: The Case of Marine and Coastal Protected Areas in India”, was held in New Delhi during 1-2 March 2012. The workshop was a follow-up to the one held in Chennai in 2009, which was titled “Social Dimensions of …
Despite the legal provisions for the functioning of expert bodies like the National Board of Wildlife and the Forest Advisory Committee, the forest bureaucracy disdains the experts and often overrides scientific evaluations. The training course of the India Forest Service too lacks a social science component that can help new …
Describe your study and its findings. From 2006 to 2009 over 70 per cent of the forest staff in the reserve, which lies in a protected area in the Eastern Himalayan global biodiversity hotspot, suffered from malaria. Its treatment cost park managers nearly three per cent of their total budget …
Recently, on discovering that I work in the forest department, a lady co-passenger in a flight asked, “Are you people really doing anything for the forests?” The unconcealed taunt set me and my friends discussing with the sceptic the scenario of green governance in India. How are we managing our …
Madhya Pradesh set out on a generous note. The state’s 1990 JFM resolution promised 20 per cent of the net profit from the felling of timber to forest protection committees in case of dense forest and 30 per cent of the net profit in the case of degraded forests. In …
Harvest time has come and gone but the residents of Sitarampeth village in Chandrapur district did not get a penny in return for protecting nearly 300 ha of reserve forest for over a decade. “No valuation has ever been done of the work done by us,” says Rambhau Dhande, a …
Beyond Jethiabhai Basawa’s mud house in the foothills of Aravali extends a 75-hectare patch of barren land. It was once lush bamboo forest worth Rs 9 lakh. After joining the JFM programme in 1996, his village Munkapada in Rajpipla district had nurtured it in the hope of making some money. …
Andhra Pradesh is the only state that claims to have calculated exact timber and bamboo revenue shares transferred to communities under JFM. The World Bank funded the programme with generous loans of Rs 1,000 crore for 15 years till March 2009. Benefits shared are impressive. According to the World Bank’s …
The concept of JFM is alluring enough to keep people engaged in conservation for years. But when it comes to sharing the fruits it is a practical joke. For every hundred rupees earned from timber sale a JFM committee usually gets only Rs 17.5 in cash, thanks to the forest …
The JFM programme faces existential crisis. On the one hand, pieces of legislation like the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, and the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act, 1996, have come into existence, giving rights to tribals and forest dwellers over forest resources and their management. On the other …
THE NEXT time labourers in Chhattisgarh working for projects under the Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority, or CAMPA, get paid, their wages will not be deposited in a bank account. They will be paid in cash. This July 26 order of the state forest department violates a Supreme Court …
The fresh cool forest breeze and the greenery appears to act as a magic wand on the residents of village Ghati. Middle-aged men and women who just a few minutes ago had been involved in hard-core legal talk suddenly speak like children. Forty-something Gyaneshwar Sahare, who had been pouring forth …
Gadchiroli in Maharashtra may have acquired the model district status for clearing a record number of community forest rights (CFR) claims, but its 298 villages are angry with the forest department for stripping them of the basic right to manage forest produce. http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/forest-department-s-cheat-act
GADCHIROLI in Maharashtra may have acquired the model district status for clearing a record number of community forest rights (CFR) claims, but its 298 villages are angry with the forest department for stripping them of the basic right to manage forest produce. The department has also burdened them with conditions, …
About two years ago, a fire broke out in the Biligiri Rangaswami Temple Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka. The police arrested 35 community leaders of Soliga tribe for causing the fire. Five people still have cases against them. Yet the forest community recently submitted a bold proposal to the Centre advocating …
LIVING a legally non-existent life for more than six decades, the Taungya forest-dwellers in Gorakhpur and Maharajganj districts of Uttar Pradesh finally got their share of rights on forestland. On July 25, state forest minister Fateh Bahadur Singh distributed land titles to 651 Taungya families in six villages of the …
In what could set a precedent for forest rights struggles, six villages in Madhya Pradesh have stalled a government plan to notify their forest as wildlife sanctuary. Gram sabhas of these villages have passed resolutions against the proposed Katthiwada wildlife sanctuary in Alirajpur district. While the government is yet to …
