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. …
The Supreme Court today directed all the states not to let any shrine or statue come up on roads infringing on people’s right to move freely. “Henceforth, the state governments shall not grant any permission for installation of any statue or construction of any structure on public roads, pavements, sideways …
This paper by Shankar Gopalakrishnan analyses case studies from different states and shows how governments & industries are subverting rights of the people to acquire common land and calls for accountable system to regulate land use. Control over land and natural resources has recently become a subject of heated debate …
During the present study it was observed that the Forest Development Agencies and Village Forest Committees play an important role in National Afforestation Programs by protection and conservation of natural resources through their active involvement.
Touted as the panacea for Delhi's drinking water problem, this dam can only be constructed by breaking a host of forest and environmental laws and riding roughshod over the livelihoods of farmers in about 30 villages of Himachal Pradesh.
A fundamental principle of livelihood is that work has a foundational value. It is opposed to the labour-commodity process where the foundational value of work is thoroughly undermined and where work is disembedded from society and taken out of it. In adivasi livelihoods, work is foundational and only through work …
This article is based on a visit to Mundra taluka of Kutch district, Gujarat in January 2011 to understand first hand the plunder of common property resources. It focuses on the Mundra Port and special economic zone developed by the Adani Group and a thermal power plant of OPG Power …
The Guassa area of Menz in the Central Highlands of Ethiopia is an Afro-alpine ecological community with an indigenous resource management system. The local community harvest different resources including collecting grass and firewood from the Guassa area. Cattle and other livestock are also grazed in the Guassa area, especially during …
In the past few years the struggle on ‘commons’ has intensified around the natural resources by the subaltern people. There is a direct conflict between people whose livelihoods are dependent on these resources and the state. This conflict is getting sharper with the growing onslaught of the neo-liberal policies of …
In this final verdict on Ramgarh dam case, the Rajasthan High Court has ordered the state government to remove all encroachments from water bodies across the state and also cancel the illegal land allotments made close to them since 1955. Read text of the final vedict on Ramgarh dam case …
Some states have banned mechanised mining, but the mafia is not ready to obey. Illegal mining is hollowing the riverbed putting at risk the stability and ecology of rivers. This special report in Down To Earth examines the murky business of sand mining. Where there is a river, there is …
The traditional water harvesting system that existed decades ago in various Indian states is as relevant today as it was then and perhaps even more. Present day India is no stranger to nature’s fury like floods, drought, famine and hurricanes, and it would be well to learn from the old …
Rural common property resources represent the historically evolved institutional arrangements made by communities in dry regions (in the present case) to guard against the vulnerabilities and risks created by the biophysical and environmental circumstances characteristic of these areas. Despite their valuable contributions, CPRS are faced with decline in terms of …
The livelihoods of poor livestock keepers in India primarily depend on the productivity of edible biomass available from common property resources (CPRs) like village commons, the roadsides, along railway tracts, canals, bunds etc. A pro-poor livestock development programme should focus on rejuvenating these resources through enabling policy measures and appropriate …
From an understanding of the commons as a rural artefact, the concept has expanded to include urban spaces and practices. The destruction of common resources and the communities that depend upon them is a long-standing outcome of capitalist expansion. It is also a cause for concern, given the ultimate centrality …
Mumbai is in reality a city of places that are not a part of the current set of fantasies that rule the minds of urban planners but are yet integrally linked to capitalist processes, to urban practices of place-making and to urbanism itself. From this perspective, this enquiry seeks not …
The right to the city, an idea mooted by French radical philosophers in 1968, has become a popular slogan among right to housing activists and inclusive growth policymakers. In Indian cities unprecedented and unregulated growth, incremental land use change, privatisation and chaotic civic infrastructure provisioning are fracturing resources created over …
The transformation of human settlements over time can affect the relationship between communities and commons when, for example, social geographies change from rural to urban, or from traditional systems of management to modern bureaucratic systems. Communities that were dependent on particular commons could become less dependent, or abandon those commons. …
This article highlights the land tenure implications of payment for environmental services (PES) mechanisms to reduce carbon emissions and enhance carbon sequestration, and offers suggestions for incorporating tenure into PES strategies.
Scientific evidence suggests that increasing amounts of carbon in the atmosphere are causing climate change that will result in global warming, sea -level rise and more extreme weather events. In response to anthropogenic climate change, market-based mechanisms have been proposed to mitigate these rising carbon dioxide emissions. One of these …
About fifty literatures published during 1980 to date were reviewed for the common property resources, CPRs, especially pasturelands. They were categorized in three aspects viz. linkages, livelihood and share of income, and effect on CPRs and role of CPRs. It was analyzed for their linkages, the strong and the weak …
