Wood residues – the materials left over when trees are logged and processed – hold the potential to support resource-efficient energy access, revitalize rural economies and help mitigate climate change, according to this new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). In many countries, wood …
A green war raging at sea is the use of driftnets by fishing fleets. Driftnets have been called "walls of deaths" by conservationists as these immense nets, at times 40 km long, strip mine the oceans. The US has already enacted legislation to prohibit trade in fish caught by driftnets. …
IN LATE 1989, Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi demonstrated his government's commitment to the preservation of the elephant by setting fire to nearly 12 tonnes of ivory worth US $3 million. Moi's dramatic act was the climax of a sustained campaign by conservationists, which caught the hearts of many across …
TIMBER worth crores of rupees is being stolen from the UP forests. Trees are cut either without permission or with the connivance of those in authority. Timber worth Rs 30 lakh was seized in a single seizure recently, reflecting the magnitude of the problem, which is complicated further by terrorist …
AT THE rate at which the world's forests are disappearing, it would appear that the price for human development is the destruction of forests. This is true wherever civilisations have risen and flourished, observes author and amateur explorer John Perlin, in his new book A Forest Journey, brought out by …
THE GOVERNMENT is learning to lead by example. Its largest construction agency, the Central Public Works Department (CPWD), has decided that the use of wood in its housing projects will be banned from April 1993. The urban development secretary, Raj Bhargava, points to the paradox of the government borrowing for …
ARUNACHAL Pradesh is one of the greenest states in India. Yet today, despite having only seven persons to a square kilometre and about 8.4 million ha of rich vegetation, the state is gravely threatened by deforestation. Forest officials claim an almost 14 per cent increase in forest cover between 1980 …
Energy problems have reached alarming proportions in the Tawang and Bomdilla areas. Since the last five years, Choizm, of Khamba hamlet of Lohu basti in Tawang, has been hiring help at the rate of Rs 40 per day and paying Rs 1,000 for a truckload of firewood. She has also …
Arunachal Pradesh's tribals believe they have an absolute right over the state's land and forests. The state takes a different view of the matter. The entire area lying between the McMohan Line and the Inner Line is technically owned by the state. In actual practice, government land constitutes only 26.16 …
Colorless, odorless, and poisonous, carbon monoxide is one of the six major air pollutants regulated in the United States and in many other nations around the world. When carbon-based fuels, such as coal, wood, and oil, burn incompletely or inefficiently, they produce carbon monoxide. The gas is spread by winds …
