Order of the National Green Tribunal (Central Zone Bench, Bhopal) in the matter of Daulat Ram Vs State of Rajasthan & Others dated 09/04/2025. The application has been filed by the applicant alleging that a license agreement was executed on March 2, 2015 between the Governor of Rajasthan acting on …
THE DREAM of environmentalists to mpnitor the world's natural resources was boosted with the establishment of the UN Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD), which will analyse the progress of agreements reached at the Earth Summit. CSD was meant to increase the accountability of governments concerning environmental policy. Some developing countries …
THE RIO summit in June 1992 has turned out to be a midsummer night's dream. Only five countries -Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Finland - have fulfilled in the past the promised inter- national goal that a country's overseas aid should be equal to 0.7 per cent of its …
AFTER the hype and pomp of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, diplomats met again in Geneva in December to start work on implementation of the emasculated climate convention that world leaders were so eager to sign as proof of their green credentials. Despite warnings from Bert Bolin, chairman …
• 1992 was the year of environment. More than 100 heads of state and government gathered at Rio to discuss the health of the planet. But the conference refusea to look at underlying issues -lack of global democracy at one level and local democracy on the other -that favour exploitative …
"THE CLIMATE negotiations have just begun. And it is important that developing countries pay heed to them. What was signed in Rio was simply a framework convention. It just says that all nations should protect the world"s atmosphere. What actions we need to take, which will greatly affect how we …
THE BRITISH government is finding it easier to preach than practice. After lecturing developing countries in Rio on the importance of controlling global warming, it has now been forced by a nationwide protest to rescind its decision to close British Coal's 31 pits and lay off three-fifths -- some 30,000 …
NORTHERN donors are being forced to rethink their basics after the Rio conference. Prominent among these are the Swedish Agency for Research Cooperation with developing countries (SAREC) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), both of whom fund research projects in the developing world. Before they can get on with …
THE PROPOSED establishment of the Commission for Sustainable Development (SDC), hailed as "one of the quiet victories" of the Rio conference, is becoming a source of North-South contention that is expected to peak at the 47th session of the UN General Assembly in New York. Among the issues to be …
THE EARTH Summit was over three months ago, but its decisions may already be coming apart. Africa's victory in securing support for the negotiation of a desertification convention may have been run into the sand, says a Panos Institute report. Even if the next session of the UN General Assembly …
LEADERS of developing countries today find in environment a cause of great worldwide concern -- a concern that is steadily growing in their own countries and one that already has deep roots in the rich North. Political leaders from the South, who attended the recent 10th summit of the Non-Aligned …
WITH THE biodiversity and climate treaties fully negotiated and ready for signature, it was obvious that the Rio conference would have had to confront the contentious issue of the forest convention proposed by the North. A last-minute insertion of fresh sentences into the text of the Agenda 21 -- the …
THE FIRST World has just discovered the relationship between environment and indigenous people. This is the primary reason for putting indigenous people on the environmental agenda. They have realised that if the world's rainforests are in danger so are the forest's inhabitants. "If they go, so do the forests," says …
• SEVERAL northern governments and large northern NGOs have proposed the idea of a global forest convention or agreement. We wish to place on record our strong and total opposition to this idea. We believe this step will be anti-poor, lead to highly bureaucratic and ecologically unsound forest practices, and …
THE NISGA: are a proud people who live in the Naas river valley of northwestern British Columbia in Canada. Today, they are still attached to their land. Joseph Gosnell, a NISGA:, who was in Rio, puts it this way, "Ours is a land like no other. Rich in salmon, steelhead, …
AT RIO, while the forest convention was being resisted tooth and nail by developing countries, yet another idea was being floated. This was to establish a World Commission on Forests on the lines of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC). This would help broaden the scientific consensus and sort …
The forest convention got its impetus from a group of northern NGOs who have consistently pushed and prodded their governments to support this idea. The largest groups have been the Sierra Club and the National Audubon Society in the US and the Friends of the Earth (FOE) and the World …
THE WORLDWIDE consciousness about environment is now demanding action. And Rio was an important staging post in this global effort to set up a framework for future action. In many ways, the framework set up in Rio is extremely inimical to the long-term interests of the South and goes counter …
WESTERN NGOs and media built up certain myths about the South in the run-up to Rio. These perceptions then clouded the visions of numerous Northern negotiators. Myth: Rio is suffering from a North-South conflict and this will contribute to its failure. Reality: In reality, the North-South conflict was secondary to …
• THIS IS how the paragraph in Agenda 21 text came to Rio: "To facilitate and support the effective implementation of the non-legally binding authoritative statement of principles for a global consensus on the management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests, adopted by the UNCED, and on …
NOT EVERYTHING was smooth sailing for the indigenous community in Rio. Shock and outrage gripped the community when Paulinho Paiacan, one of the chiefs of the Caiapo nation in the Brazilian Amazon region, was accused of having raped a white woman. Paiacan, incidentally, was the winner of the UN Environment …
