The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
The Planning Commission's approach draft for the 11th Five-Year Plan has raised concerns regarding the environmental and socio-economic impacts of the ongoing jatropha plantations for developing bio-diesel in various parts of the country. The report says being a water-intensive crop jatropha plantations could lead to a drinking water shortage, and …
Everybody knows one hand of the government does not know what the other is up to. But it does make a difference when a proposed programme of the government contradicts and, perhaps, even fatally undermines a flagship initiative. This is the case with the proposed programme of the Union ministry …
On 17 May 2005, the Government of Gujarat issued a resolution (GR) to bring wastelands under cultivation inviting big corporate houses and rich farmers – a beginning of corporate farming in a big way in the state. The GR has the provision of giving wastelands up to 2000 acres for …
Ecological impact of joint forest management (JFM) in India was assessed using the studies undertaken at national, state and forest division levels. It was found that there are very few studies that have specifically addressed the ecological aspects under JFM. The study noted that there are significant strides made in …
Indian government classifies wetlands as wastelands despite the fact that they serve as reservoirs of ecological diversity. During times of floods, they act as sponge, which hold water and release it slowly, allowing groundwater to recharge. Also, they are excellent cleansers of pollutants discharged into the water upstream. Their value …
MONEY grows on trees, especially teak trees. This concept made headlines in the early 1990s in India. The idea was to get people to invest in teak trees, which would be harvested in 20 years. The profit that would accrue from the harvested tree would then be shared with the …
WELCOME to Sakwa, a small tribal village in Valia taluka in Gujarat's Bharuch district. The population comprises some 473 persons living in 88 houses. And there are about 179 cattleheads: 83 cows, 24 buffaloes and 72 bullocks. In 1988, when the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme-India (AKRSP-I), a nongovernmental organisation …
wastelands in 14 districts of Andhra Pradesh were recently mapped by the state's remote sensing applications centre (apsrac) under the aegis of the National Wasteland Development Board. The information obtained would be used for wasteland reclamation, said apsrac director, R S Rao. The director informed that the centre was preparing …
Finding itself without any resources, the wasteland development department of the reconstituted ministry of rural areas and employment (previously the ministry of rural development) has hit upon an intelligent idea of involving the corporate sector to invest in wasteland development. Meetings with various industrial heads have yielded a positive response, …
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 …
Different estimates of the extent of the country's wastelands area has forced the ministry of rural development to call for a remapping of such areas. The ministry's wasteland development department has asked the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) in Hyderabad to prepare a detailed map of the wastelands by the …
Why is the government keen on corporate investment in wasteland development? The problem of wasteland development is so vast and complex, neither our department nor all the government departments put together can solve it, without the participation of the corporate sector and the people. The only source of fodder and …
There is mixed official opinion on the budgetary allocation for environment, which shows an increase of Rs 40 crore over the previous year's amount of Rs 329.81 crore. But, says Vinay Shankar, additional secretary, MEF, "The real increase this year is by about Rs 66 crore. We should take into …
THE TITLE of this book is somewhat misleading for what it does is to examine in depth the interaction of social disciplines with forestry in its entirety. Agro-forestry, as the term is used here, embraces all related disciplines, such as farm forestry, wasteland development, reclamation of degraded lands and management …
THINGS could not have turned out more badly in the fight over the fate of the wastelands board. Last fortnight's cabinet notification lays to rest the uncertainty over where the new minister for wasteland will sit. The notification certainly also does another thing: It dug a grave for the entire …
THREE YEARS after the National Wasteland Development Board (NWDB) launched the "Greening the Himalaya" project in the Jadhera panchayat of Himachal Pradesh, the balding hills of the panchayat are turning green once more. But this achievement is not so much due to the NWDB as because of the villagers of …
IN PLACES like Uttar Kannada, M D Subhash Chandran, a botanist from the Dr Baliga College of Arts and Sciences, Kumta, in Karnataka, claims that the ban on shifting cultivation was largely motivated by the need to release labour for the new plantations that were coming up in the area. …
In Food or Fuel, the second episode of the Future Food series, Kenyan Farmer and campaigner, Moses Shaha is cynical about ‘biofuels’, energy extracted from crop plants. He journeys through southern Kenya where farmers are starting to grow jatropha, to understand if this biofuel crop is a threat to farmland …
