Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
This research initiative in Arunachal Pradesh is a build-up on the first phase of studies in the north-east that led to the publication of an earlier UNESO-sponsored MAB book series, entitled "shifting agriculture and sustainable development: an interdisciplinary study from North-East India". Emphasising upon linking knowledge systems, this volume expands …
Global environmental change (GEC) is among the most severe challenges facing mankind today. It is a suite of environmental change problems, climate change being the most studied of all. Global environment includes physical, chemical, and biological processes that are necessary for life-supporting services on the earth. No studies on a …
function map() { var popurl="image/20051215/too_close.pdf" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=675,height=450,scrollbars=yes") } Tourism is flourishing in Ranthambore, with hotels mushrooming around the tiger in its reserve. Till the mid-1990s, there were just over 10 hotels in and around the forests of the reserve and in the town of Sawai Madhopur some 12 kilometres (km) from …
desperate people can do desperate things. But desperate people with no fear of regulation and no knowledge of the consequences of their action would definitely do desperate things that cause irreparable harm. Consider the case of how developers in Mumbai are buying real estate to build residential complexes on lands …
function graph() { var popurl="files/images/20050731/26-graph.jpg" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=400,height=300,scrollbars=yes") } Here is a piquant contradiction: forest-rich states in India are beginning to grumble about the natural wealth they possess, and are protecting. In his speech to the 12 th Finance Commission (fc), Virbhadra Singh, chief minister of Himachal Pradesh
the Schedule Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill 2005, re-asserting the rights of tribal people over land and forest produce, has been stalled. In a last minute change, the bill was dropped from the agenda of the cabinet committee meeting, held on May 4, 2005. Consequently, it was not tabled …
The new policy initiatives of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests aim at improving the forest cover in such a way as to benefit all the stakeholders - the forest departments, local communities and investors. The world over sustainable forest management has become a buzz word, thanks to the …
M/s. Sterlite Industries (India) Limited (SIIL), a public limited company, is the flagship company of the Sterlite Group. The proposed project will bring an investment of Rs. 4500 crores to the state of Orissa where the per capita income is about half of the national level. The Lanjigarh bauxite deposit …
The objective of this article is to study the implications of changes in land use induced by economic growth, economy-wide policies, and governance on deforestation and forest-induced atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions. Economic growth, democracy, and trade policy explain an important share of the variation in two key determinants of deforestation: …
The formulation of a practical conservation policy will involve a fuller consideration of human needs also. Conservation plans need to be so developed that they minimize restriction on the people of area. The disturbance map and biological richness map may help to plan and better manage possible nature reserves, to …
This paper examines the main ways in which Payments for Environmental Services (PES) might affect poverty. PES may reduce poverty mainly by making payments to poor natural resource managers in upper watersheds. The extent of the impact depends on how many PES participants are in fact poor, on the poor’s …
The Terai-Duar Savanna Ecoregion is spread over the southern slopes of the Himalayas in India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. The Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) lies within this ecoregion covering an area of approximately 49,500 sq km in India and Nepal stretching from the Bagmati River in the East to the …
The paper describes the effect of rains on vegetal cover, different traditional practices and soil properties in the dry and monsoon period. Seven landuse systems i.e. open pine forests, tea plantation, rainfed agriculture, degraded land, grassland, recently restored site and a bare land were identified in the Bhetagad watershed of …
Western Ghats form the catchment of all the 44 rivers that sustain the agroeconomy of Kerala. A study was conducted to assess the effect of land use on runoff from small watersheds of Western Ghats. Three small mono-culture watersheds, planted with cashew, coffee, tea and one small watershed with dense …
Wetlands provide a range of valuable ecosystem services from water purification and nutrient retention to recreation and aesthetics. The value of these services is often difficult to quantify and document to policy makers and the general public. Economists have developed non-market approaches to address difficult issues related to valuation of …
The draft National Environment Policy marks an advance from the past approaches but has basic flaws that would limit its effectiveness. A BOLD, visionary policy, dealing with India's environmental crisis, is an urgent necessity. Even the most conservative official figures reveal the serious extent of deregulation of forests, pollution of …
The Delhi Development Authority (dda) has come up with another loophole-infested plan. Its draft Zonal Development Plan (zdp) for the Yamuna suggests major changes in the land use pattern of the riverbed. Outlawing riverbed farming, considered the most legitimate and ecologically useful activity on the riverbed, is one such change. …
A recent direction by the Supreme Court of India (sc) on the upcoming Akshardham temple in Delhi has opened a can of worms: blatant master plan violations, by the Delhi government itself. These
Hydrological characteristics and sedimentation loading in Hokersar wetland of Kashmir Himalaya was monitored from November 2000 to october 2001. The compound water budget showed a substantial (91 percent) input from various surface inflows and just 9 per cent through precipitation. Major water discharge (67 per cent) occurs through surface outlets, …
