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 …
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 …
IT'S NOW almost taken for granted that if a flood occurs in the plains, then a forest must have disappeared in the mountains. However, this notion, which indicts the land-use practices of the mountain people, is fast losing its punch for lack of evidence. Two recent studies sponsored by the …
"For a long time now, we have been calculating the number of people below and above the poverty line. And, these numbers have become a hot political issue. But the important thing is to eradicate hunger. This can be done by identifying the critical areas of poverty and helping the …
Ask anyone to locate Papua New Guinea on a map and there are very good chances that he or she wouldn't know where to start. Till recently, Papua New Guinea was a relatively obscure archipelago on the western rim of the Pacific. Portuguese colonisers first landed on the island in …
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, …
DEVELOPMENT discourse in the post-World War II era centred on social and economic inequality. Rural poverty was linked directly to iniquitous land ownership and it was felt public policy had to take cognisance of this skewed distribution of land-holdings. It was also widely felt that the only path to social …
THE PEOPLE of the Aravalli region are tired of waiting for the authorities to rescue their habitat from destruction caused by unbridled mining and deforestation. In November, about 300 villagers from Rajasthan, Gujarat and Haryana reached New Delhi after undertaking a padyatra to spread awareness about the issue. Rajendra Singh, …
THERE is something very beautiful about lakes -- not just aesthetically, but also intellectually. Lakes do not just mirror their environment. They also mirror the society around them. Clean water in a lake is either the result of an absence of humanity or the presence of very disciplined human beings …
• Since the beginning of this century, about 75 per cent of the genetic diversity among agricultural crops has been lost. • In India, agronomists predict just ten rice varieties will soon cover three-quarters of the total rice-cultivating area in place of more than 30,000 varieties. • Rice, wheat and …
ECONOMIC demands are nullifying the efforts of the World Wide Fund for Nature, which is trying to save the rich biological diversity of the Sulieman mountain range in Pakistan. The Chilghoza pines growing here produce edible seeds, which bring in a lot of money to an otherwise not-so-prosperous area. But …
DEFORESTATION in the Brazilian Amazon since the 1970s is lower than estimated, but its effect on biological diversity is greater. Estimates of deforestation ranged as high as 50,000 square kilometres per year to 80,000 sq km in the late 1980s. But a NASA-University of New Hampshire study published in Science …
THE WORLD'S first certification system for "sustainably produced timber" has been set up. At an early October meeting in Toronto, environmentalists, businesspersons and human rights groups launched the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which will verify claims that wood products and wood pulp come from sustainable forests. Producer countries have treated …
Which is better: a forest where trees and plants grow wild and free or a plantation of one or two species of trees, lined up neatly? Forests in their natural state are generally regarded as useless and chaotic whereas orderly plantations are considered to be "sustainably yielding" for logging. The …
BOREAL forests -- consisting of mostly coniferous and some deciduous trees in the northern hemisphere -- are being destroyed faster than before and may be making the world a hotter place. Boreal forests comprise one-third of the world's forests and cover almost 8 per cent of the land surface. About …
THOUGH the State of Forest Report 1991 says India's forest cover increased from 6,40,134 sq km in 1989 to 6,40,694 sq km in 1991, the feat the report describes is impossible: Forest products are primarily used for human and livestock consumption, and as human and livestock population increased by about …
Some are lawyers, others are teachers, doctors or businesspersons. Many are retired defence personnel and coffee planters, in addition to being paddy cultivators. This diverse group makes up the Kodagu Ekikarna Ranga (KER), an organisation fighting to preserve and protect the culture and heritage of Karnataka's Kodagu district (formerly known …
What led to the formation of KER? Kodagu is divided both politically and according to caste and politicians exploit this. We are the smallest district, yet our contribution to Karnataka's kitty is the highest. When Kodagu was merged with Karnataka in 1956, development stopped. Politically, the scene is dismal. The …
CONFUSION reigns in the hills of Uttar Pradesh (UP) where a decade-old ban on the felling of trees growing above 1,000 metres in the Garhwal Himalaya has been lifted by the state government. However, in the face of protests by environmentalists and the displeasure of the Union ministry of environment …
IN JUNE 1983, the ministry of agriculture recommended certain measures for the protection of the Himalayan ecology, on the basis of which the Uttar Pradesh government imposed a ban on felling of trees above 1,000 metres. The Centre's recommendations were: • Imposition of a complete moratorium, for one growth cycle …
US PRESIDENT Bill Clinton was right when he predicted not everyone would be pleased with his solution to the timber crisis in the northwestern states (Down To Earth, May 31, 1993). Both environmentalists and timber workers are up in arms against his proposal, which calls for reducing logging to 25 …
