Deforestation

Order of the National Green Tribunal regarding large scale felling of toddy yielding palm trees in Bihar, 05/06/2025

Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Are missing palm trees causing more lighting deaths in Bihar appearing in ‘The Times of India’ dated 29.05.2025". The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Are missing palm trees causing …

The wealth of tradition

what makes Vietnam particularly worthy from a biodiversity point of view is also its very rich base of traditional medicine. This means Vietnam has the potential to make a worthwhile contribution to the global food and health sectors. Says Nguyen Duc Tao of the Vietnam Pharmaceutical Corporation, which is trying …

Knowledge and despair

About 89 per cent of the Vietnamese population consists of lowland Kinhs and the Muong people, who occupy the two agricultural deltas of the Red River and the Mekong river, besides the narrow coastal strip. The remaining 11 per cent consists of ethnic minorities, most of whom live in the …

Cash crunch

Vietnam has an Association of Herbal Traditional Doctors with a nationwide membership of about 20,000, which is recognised by the government. But the association is starved of funds. These traditional doctors often offer their services free and are usually very poor. Berit Richter, a Danish activist working in Hanoi, is …

MADAGASCAR

Sun-kissed sands and fisherfolk cracking coconuts at the edge of palm-fringed villages - this could very well be another day in Paradise! But the truth is that Madagascar's ecology is just living on the edge. The world's fourth largest island today has as much as 90 per cent of its …

Rainmaker

Droughts in west Africa over the past 20 years may have been caused by the destruction of rainforests in countries such as Nigeria, Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire, and further deforestation in the region "could cause complete collapse of the west African monsoon', says Xinyu Zheng of the Centre for Global …

Water wise in Uttarakhand

the hilly regions of the central Himalaya are facing problems in the storage of sufficient water, especially during summers, for drinking and irrigation purposes. The eight hill districts of Uttar Pradesh (up), spread over 51,000 sq km, have a population of approximately five million, for whom the water resources have …

Cutting disgrace

DEFORESTATION in Pakistan has increased manifold in recent years. Over-grazing, taking over of forest land for cultivation and the increased demand for timber, have led to an increase in logging operations, which has resulted in the forest cover decreasing from 14 per cent to 5.2 per cent of the total …

Business as usual

IN SPITE of stringent laws and regulations, illegal timber trade is flourishing in South American Countries. Investigations carried out by the Amsterdam-based Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) in Brazil, Cameroon and Paraguay have revealed that rampant illegal logging not only continues to threaten sustainable forest management, but also creates …

Deep rumblings

IN 1996, Kerala, considered a seismically safe zone, witnessed a tremor of magnitude 2.8 (on the Richter scale). This is not 4D isolated case, for the state has lately been seeing an increase in the frequency of tremors in its central and southern parts. Studies by C P Rajendran and …

Project disaster

the world's only known natural habitat of the rare Kitti's hog-nosed bat (Craseonycteris thonglongyai) could be threatened by Thailand's bid to bring natural gas from offshore fields in Myanmar. The size of a bumble bee and weighing only two grams when fully grown, the bat is considered to be the …

One long yarn?

THE largescale destruction of west Africa's tropical forests by farmers has been projected as a well-known environmental scandal. But recently, two British scientists have turned the controversy on its head by suggesting that almost half of the tropical forests that are said to have been destroyed by logging and farming …

Double standards

a recent report of the us state department has turned a blind eye to the illegal timber trade across the border of Thailand and Cambodia. In order to preserve its cordial relations with Thailand, the department has notified the us Congress that Thailand has effectively sealed its border with Cambodia …

MAHAKALI MATTERS

According to an early February report, the highly ambitious Mahakali project implemented by the Nepalese government requires much more organised effort to control flooding, river shifting and leakages of irrigation canals. This assessment is based on past experiences of the Sarada barrage of the project

The awareness here is dismal

On not being assigned any environmental cases, although he is known for being interested in environmental affairs: I have been deliberately kept away from anything to do with the environment as far as assignments are concerned. The reason for not assigning any such case to me can only be answered …

INDIA

The Centre will transfer more authority to the West Bengal pollution board, announced the governor on January 24. The state government also plans to prepare an environmental status report and implement risk management plans for the Asansol Durgapur and Haldia industrial areas. The ministry of environment and forests has demanded …

Brazil

Woodcutters operating in the Apyterewa indigenous area in the Para state are luring local Parakana Indians into facilitating smuggling mahogany. Carlos Fausto, an expert from the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro, said that the crisis has been denied by the ministry of justice which has done nothing to mitigate …

Forest scam unearthed

in rohtak district of Haryana, a scandal involving the illicit felling of about 10,000 trees worth about Rs 50 lakh has recently surfaced. Apparently, several persons including some forest department (fd) officials have been framed in several cases. The trees which belonged to the fd, were reportedly felled between December …

CAMBODIA

Devastated by three decades of war and currently mounting corruption, the state of environment in Cambodia seems to be faring the worst. Accor-ding to environmentalists, unchecked harvesting of trees, which has stripped the nation of half its forest cover since 1970, has recently escalated alarmingly following political infighting in the …

Saviours turn killers

madhya Pradesh's (mp) government and its forest bureaucracy have found an innovative way of earning notoriety: destroy whatever tree cover exists in the biodiversity-rich state. Unable to mow down the state-owned natural forests following the Supreme Court's ban on any kind of commercial activity in these forest areas, and the …

Law for the jungle

REACTING to the increasing deforestation under commercial pressures in the country, the Supreme Court has banned all commercial activities inside forests without prior approval from the Central government and established stiffer control over tree-felling and timber trade in forest areas. An interim order to this effect was passed by Justices …

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