The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
We need to give the devil his due. Finance minister, Yashwant Sinha, has drawn flak from almost all sides for his nightmare budget 2002. But there was one item, which missed most eyes, which said that the budget would provide deduction for afforestation projects on degraded non-forest land. The crucial …
Unquiet woods With the ban and without access to forest revenue, Northeast economy is in doldrums THERE is an unusual quietness in the forests of India's northeast, arguably the country's best timberlands and one of the world's biodiversity hotspots. Brought about by the Supreme Court's blanket ban on tree felling …
THE ban comes at a time when the region's economy is in an inertia and is desperate for an economic miracle. The post-ban realisation of the economic potential of forests and the apex court's instruction to measure the sustainability of forests comes as a reminder of the development model that …
Ban blessing Some people in the region regard the ban as a blessing in disguise. Though the situation was difficult initially, they have ventured into other sources of income. In Tirap district, many people once involved in timber trade have now switched to tea cultivation. Says Mithi: "We are promoting …
Reinforcing laws The court acted methodically. First, it asked states to define forests. Interestingly, a clear definition of forests is not given in the existing legal instruments - Forest Conservation Act (FCA), 1980, Forest Conservation (Amendment) Act, 1988, and the Indian Forest Act, 1927. Under Section 2 of the FCA …
The poor in Nepal appear to possess the Midas touch. Wherever the government has handed over control of degraded forestland to them under the leasehold forestry programme, the Himalayan country's ecology has staged a magical turnaround. In the process, the below poverty line (bpl) households have unfolded economic miracles also. …
A river tells its story through its geological history and the life that it supports. Much can be revealed to the discerning observer, as in the case of the Indravati river, which traverses the Bastar district of Chhattisgarh. The predominantly tribal population here, whose livelihood depends on this river, is …
according to recent reports, the mountain pine beetle epidemic in Canada threatens around us $3.81 billion in lumber in British Columbia's forests. Eight million hectares of lodgepole pine trees are being infested and killed by the beetle, thanks to four years of warm winters in British Columbia, Canada's largest lumber …
In india , natural resources belong to the government. As natural resources provide livelihood to a vast majority of Indians, it can be concluded that the people of India belong to the government. So the Indian people are of the government, for the government, and by the government. But isn't …
India's forests have been a site of conflict for centuries. But it is only over the last decade that their history has become the subject of serious enquiry. The first wave of work focussed on the struggle put up by resistance movements against imperial and post-independence power structures from the …
several vital issues pertaining to the manufacture and marketing of non-timber forest products ( ntfp s) was thrown up at a national seminar on sustainable management of ntfp s organised in Thiruvananthapuram by the Kerala forests and wildlife department. Participants at the seminar discussed a paradigm shift from timber-oriented management …
Delegates representing more than a hundred governments have agreed to set-up a permanent United Nations ( un ) body to protect forests. This was decided at the Fourth Session of the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF). The world's forests are in grave danger with only 20 per cent of the …
reeling under a total halt to its timber trade after the Supreme Court imposed a ban on all timber-related activities in the Northeast five years ago, the state government of Assam has formulated a new set of "Assam Wood-based Industries (Establishment and Regulation) Rules, 1999'. This has come in response …
In 1993, the Nepal government decided to hand over certain forest areas to rural communities. Six years later, 8,559 such communities are managing 621,942 hectares of forest land in the country. They are bent on accomplishing what the government has not been able to do
Forest-Users' Group (FUG): It comprises households using or dependent on forest resources. They are identified by the district forest officer (DFO) after a house-to-house survey to check their dependence on the forest. Once the users' group is identified, it charts its own constitution (a five-year plan) for the management and …
Man Bahadur Chettri of Sarang Kot is aware of the gradual plunder of the forests and the evolution of cfm in his country. "For the rulers of Nepal, forests were an infinite source of revenue,' he says. The strategy varied from ruler to ruler. But there was only one agenda: …
"Notwithstanding anything contained elsewhere in this Act, no part of any national forest, which is suitable for being handed over to a users' group in the form of a community forest shall be given away in the form on a leasehold forest,' reads Nepal's Forest Act, 1993. It defines a …
The Samudaik Ban Upabhokta Mahasangh or the Federation of Community Forestry Users (FECOFUN) in Nepal is an association founded by and for community forest users. The federation has been established to increase awareness, expand and strengthen the role of forest users in Nepal. After the enforcement of the 1993 Forest …
On November 2, 1999, the department of forests ( dof ) and the Community Forestry Development Programme ( cfdp ), both under the ministry of forests and soil conservation, issued a circular to forest officials across the country to ask fug s to immediately stop commercialisation of timber. "However, all …
Perhaps the Nepalese forest department had never expected communities to regenerate the forests to the point that they would become cash-rich. But now that the communities have done the
