Judgment of the Supreme Court in the matter of In Re: Zudpi Jungle Lands. A batch of applications involved a peculiar issue concerning the situation prevailing in the six districts of eastern Vidarbha region namely Nagpur, Wardha, Bhandara, Gondia, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli. The issue pertains to the status of the …
On the beginning of conservation in India The idea of conservation was more of protection of wildlife. Protection is different from conservation, which includes management. Till the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were no real wildlife laws pertaining to the entire country. In 1971, the then prime minister Indira …
"this is more easily said than done," says Daniels of mssrf . Whether it is the Korkus in the Melghat Tiger Reserve, the Maldharis in Gir National Park or the Van Gujjars in the proposed Rajaji National Park, most of these communities are under tremendous pressure to give up their …
The Keoladeo Ghana National Park in Bharatpur, Rajasthan is known as much for controversies as for the famous Siberian Crane, which migrates to the park every winter. Succumbing to pressures from environmentalists and scientists of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), including the well-known ornithologist Salim Ali, the region was …
Clearly, human pressure over the centuries have influenced the way in which several present-day ecosystems have shaped up. Suddenly lifting this pressure can alter the dynamics of these ecosystems, which may actually go against the objectives of conservation. Therefore, to manage a np , it is very important to first …
While there are several reports every year of marauding elephants trampling numerous people to death and destroying crops, there are cases when science has come to the rescue. Wildlife scientist Sushant Choudhary and his team at the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, found that 40 per cent of the human-elephant …
It is not the kind of death that makes a front-page story in a newspaper. Actually, it does not make news at all in most of India. Bhawani Ram is another name in the list of people who have been killed by wild animals. Had it been the killing of …
lapodia is a small village of some 189 families in the Dudu block of Jaipur district in Rajasthan. Located in a semi-arid area, the residents of Lapodia are primarily agro-pastoralists, and their livestock subsists on the pastures in the neighbouring areas. In the past four-five years, the people of this …
SCENE I: 5 am in the morning, a household in any part of India. The milkman rings the doorbell. The sleepy-eyed customer takes the daily quota of the white fluid and prepares for the day ahead. There are more than 900 million people in the country. The demand for milk …
Simply put, grasslands are for grazing. With India's economy dependent heavily on agriculture, and farmers, in turn, relying significantly on cattle rearing, grasslands are very crucial to the health of India's rural economy. About 90 per cent of the cattle population in the country subsists on natural grasslands or pastures. …
Scientists complain that overgrazing does not give the grasslands a chance to recover. Consequently, perennial grasses are replaced by seasonal varieties that have a low nutritional value. "Overgrazed rangelands also get infested by a variety of exotic weeds, many of which have spread at a really alarming rate over the …
india has about 450 million livestock and only 10 million hectares (ha) of pastureland. This has resulted in overgrazing as well as pressure on forest lands for grazing. "The farmer breeds more cattle as a cash-reserve. But due to the unavailability of fodder or grain, farmers let their cattle graze …
according to a court judgement, almost 80 per cent of Australia's land could be subject to claims by aborigines. The Wik people of north Queensland had claimed title to pastoral land leased to white farmers in 1915. The court decided by a narrow majority in favour of the Wik people …
The smoke coming out of the south-eastern corner of the Amazon has badly affected the region, causing nosebleeds and forcing airports to close for days. The countless fires in the Amazon rain forest are conducted to make way for cattle pasture. Environmentalists say the fires are a part of increasing …
NOTWITHSTANDING the self-applause the government claims on its wasteland development programme in the recent spate of advertisements in leading national dailies, community work at the local level is still being impeded by archaic regulations and the unbending attitude of the officials. Lapodia in the Dudu block of Jaipur district in …
Sacred groves are the embodiment of a multitude of human impulses, energies, relations and creeds. But, lack of holistic perspective leads to a dangerous reduction of this wide spectrum to a one-dimensional rationalisation. From there, it is only a short step to theological, legal and technological definitions, leading to appropriation …
ABOUT 10 million ha of trees have been planted as part of a 'Green Wall' scheme, to address the problem of desertification, in North China. By the end of the century, the government plans to complete construction of the 7,000 km 'Green Wall' which stretches from eastern inner Mongolia to …
WHILE foresters and policy-makers cry themselves hoarse calling for bans and pointing accusing fingers at goats, the animals themselves go on unperturbed, secure in the fact that for the poorer sections, they are often the only means of survival. The primary accusation against goats is that of desertification, though all …
A N CHATURVEDI, former chief conservator of forests of UP and now with the Tata Energy Research Institute, New Delhi, is appalled at the attempts to glorify the goat. According to him, the animal should have no part in the natural environment. Goats attack the foliage of trees and bushes, …
IN a semi-arid environment, keeping goats is considerably more rational for the local people than rearing buffaloes, according to a field study done in the degraded lands of Tilonia in Rajasthan. The results of the study are quoted in the report of the task force that evaluated the impact of …
This report was published by CSE for a presentation to the Parliament of India on the impact of environmental destruction on floods and droughts. See Also CSE Video The Wrath of nature CSE Report ( a chapter) Havoc in the Himalaya
