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 …
CIVILISATIONS have grown by clearing jungles, draining swamps and reclaiming deserts to produce more food, build cities, mine the earth, establish a variety of infrastructure and develop industry. This displaces people who must obviously be compensated and resettled. And nothing displaces as many people as dams. Understandably these have attracted …
WITH SUPPORT from the Ethiopian government, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are implementing programmes to create environmental awareness among the people to counter deforestation that has reached crisis proportions in the mountainous country. The central Ethiopian highlands, which support more than 78 per cent of the population, have been virtually deforested by …
ANTS ARE hindering the return of forests on millions of hectares of abandoned pastures in Brazil by feeding on seeds of trees. According to a team of Brazilian and American researchers, two ant species -- Pheidole puttemansi and Solenopsis aurea found in the grasslands -- are voracious consumers of tree …
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 …
ANALYSIS of satellite imagery publicised in June has cheered environmentalists because it shows Brazil's Amazon forests are being cleared at a much slower rate than had been widely estimated. David Skole of the University of New Hampshire and Compton Tucker of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre in the US …
THE RADICAL Khmer Rouge has won enough seats in the May 1993 Cambodian elections to pose a definite threat to the newly elected Norodom Sihanouk government. But to sustain its success, the Khmer Rouge has ensure its teak trade with Thailand - a major source of its income - gets …
Everyone these days is aware of the phenomenon of global warming, even if they find it difficult to distinguish between stratospheric ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect. Global Warming: The Economic Stakes is about the greenhouse effect and the resultant environmental pollution and global damage. Incoming radiation from the sun …
BESET by famine and drought, large sections of Orissa and Bihar are beginning to mirror the stark images of hunger in Somalia and Sudan. In Orissa, more than 10 million people -- the majority of whom are tribals -- are reeling under a famine. In tribal-dominated south Bihar, too, more …
PEOPLE in Orissa's famine-hit regions are desperately selling their children -- not for the money but to ensure two square meals a day for them. So far, 16 cases of children being sold have been exposed in the local media, but the state government is yet to admit even one. …
Even as the state government continues to accuse Tata Iron & Steel Company (TISCO) of unchecked deforestation around Jamshedpur, it has also locked horns with TISCO over riparian rights in the nearby Suvarnarekha river. Bihar's firebrand minister of irrigation, Jagdanand Singh, is demanding Rs 15 crore as the state's "rightful …
RICH INDIVIDUALS usually tend to be arrogant. So do rich institutions, such as the World Bank, which is prepared to accept, albeit after much pushing and prodding, that it may have been wrong in hindsight. But it is definitely not prepared to accept, at any given moment, that it is …
FOLLOWING an extended drought and widespread deforestation, Jambhoji, the son of a village headman in Rajasthan, had a vision that the hard times were a result of the conflict with nature. In 1485, Jambhoji, who was now known as Swami Jambeshwar Maharaj and the founder of the Bishnoi sect, laid …
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 …
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 …
"NO WOMAN ever had to hug a tree to protect it," says Chandi Prasad Bhatt, the founder of Chipko. "It was not necessary to do so, for the mere threat was enough." The concept of hugging a tree to defend it was so powerful, it brought in a new consciousness …
WHEN GAURA Devi of Reni village died on July 4, 1991, she must have been disillusioned. Two decades earlier, she inspired a group of women to chase away employees of a forest contractor -- and this act of courage and spontaneous defiance was hailed by the media as the start …
WOMEN were involved in popular agitations in Uttarakhand long before Chipko, but it is Chipko that produced courageous women who even dared to take on the state. In the Vyali forest agitation in Uttarkashi in 1974, women acted as messengers and lookouts because the men were under police surveillance. Some, …
IN JANUARY 1978, about 300 villagers from Almora district got together under the aegis of the Parvatiya Van Bachao Andolan and camped for 39 days in the Chanchridhar forests near Dwarahat. Bipin Tripathi, the block pramukh (chief) of Dwarahat, explained why: "We did not want Kashmiri Lal, the contractor of …
1973 • Chipko is born when villagers of Mandal, near Gopeshwar, led by Chandi Prasad Bhatt and the Dasholi Gram Swarajya Mandal, stop contractors of an Allahabad-based sports goods company, Symonds, from felling 14 ash trees on April 24. • In December, villagers again stop Symonds agents at the Phata-Rampur …
TWENTY years ago, the people of the remote Garhwal village of Mandal decided to resist commercial felling of the trees on which they depended for their basic needs. Their resistance soon spread to other parts of Garhwal and Kumaon, where local pressures on the area's limited grazing resources had reduced …
