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 …
Bambusa tulda Roxb is distributed in Northeast India, Orissa, Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia. In Andhra Pradesh it has distribution in Visakhapatnam district.
To offset the effects of climatic change and global warming in the country, the Pakistan Forests Institute (PFI), Peshawar has completed a comprehensive study to determine the climatic change scenarios in Pakistan’s various ecological zones and its impact on forests resources. “It is the first professional attempt to address the …
For over 16 years the Supreme Court has been hearing two major petitions concerning forests and wildlife. Writ petition 337/1995 filed by the Centre for Environmental Law (part of WWF) concerns protected areas (PAs) and writ petition 202/1995, is the omnibus forest petition widely known as the Godavarman case. The …
Exploring the prospects of the ecosystem services approach for natural resource management and poverty alleviation in India, this paper points out that it is vital to have an understanding of the political economy of negotiations over natural resource use. An appreciation of the synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem services is …
The Government has announced the creation of six projects in public-private partnership mode in non-timber forest produce (NTFP), covering around 60 Naxal-affected districts in the country. The projects, to be executed within six months, will cover Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, according to a Rural Development …
A response to “A Rational Taxation System of Bidis and Cigarettes to Reduce Smoking Deaths in India” (EPW, 15 October 2011). It is important to first have better information on the production of tendu leaves and bidis, and then to correct the prices of inputs (including wages) if tax policies …
The mainstream paradigm of understanding grass-root environmentalism in India as “environmentalism of the poor” might be challenged by an alternative prototype forest movement in the Bengal Dooars prior to the Chipko movement. It was fought against the exploitative design of ecosystem governance under the taungya method of artificial regeneration as …
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment reviewed the government rules for allocation of title deeds to forest dwellers in this report on Forest Rights Act, 2006. This Report of the Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment deals with the action taken by the Government on the …
Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act was enacted 15 years ago. Do you feel helpless because it has not yet been implemented? As the minister of panchayati raj, my first job is to remind people about the existence of PESA. If need arises I can go for further legislation …
There are various stakeholders who are poising major threat to the sustainability of the forest resources. The categories of these stakeholders are the state and its agents, capitalist and private contractors and local communities. The present study focuses on the third types of stakeholders and their contest over the forest …
Recently, on discovering that I work in the forest department, a lady co-passenger in a flight asked, “Are you people really doing anything for the forests?” The unconcealed taunt set me and my friends discussing with the sceptic the scenario of green governance in India. How are we managing our …
Some 40 years ago an experiment began in Arabari forest range of West Bengal that caught the fancy of the nation. The forest authorities roped in the people living in the area in regenerating degraded forests. In return they offered them a share in forest resources and revenue. It worked. …
Madhya Pradesh set out on a generous note. The state’s 1990 JFM resolution promised 20 per cent of the net profit from the felling of timber to forest protection committees in case of dense forest and 30 per cent of the net profit in the case of degraded forests. In …
Harvest time has come and gone but the residents of Sitarampeth village in Chandrapur district did not get a penny in return for protecting nearly 300 ha of reserve forest for over a decade. “No valuation has ever been done of the work done by us,” says Rambhau Dhande, a …
Beyond Jethiabhai Basawa’s mud house in the foothills of Aravali extends a 75-hectare patch of barren land. It was once lush bamboo forest worth Rs 9 lakh. After joining the JFM programme in 1996, his village Munkapada in Rajpipla district had nurtured it in the hope of making some money. …
The concept of JFM is alluring enough to keep people engaged in conservation for years. But when it comes to sharing the fruits it is a practical joke. For every hundred rupees earned from timber sale a JFM committee usually gets only Rs 17.5 in cash, thanks to the forest …
Forest departments across the country owe millions of rupees to communities. For 20 years communities toiled under the Joint Forest Management programme in the hope of getting shares in revenue from timber and bamboo sales. As forests mature for harvesting, forest departments apply mathematical tricks to bring down monetary share …
