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 …
Are environment and forest clearances a hindrance to development in the country? No, says a study by Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment. The study analyses the environment and forest clearances granted during the 11th Five Year Plan, from April 2007 till August 2011. The pace of such clearances …
Eight months ago the Centre constituted a group of ministers (GoM) to look into the increasing perception that delay in acquiring forest clearance was hurting the country’s coal and power production. The GoM’s terms of reference comprised suggesting measures on “efficacy and legality of forest clearance norms” and for ensuring …
Recently, on discovering that I work in the forest department, a lady co-passenger in a flight asked, “Are you people really doing anything for the forests?” The unconcealed taunt set me and my friends discussing with the sceptic the scenario of green governance in India. How are we managing our …
Some 40 years ago an experiment began in Arabari forest range of West Bengal that caught the fancy of the nation. The forest authorities roped in the people living in the area in regenerating degraded forests. In return they offered them a share in forest resources and revenue. It worked. …
Madhya Pradesh set out on a generous note. The state’s 1990 JFM resolution promised 20 per cent of the net profit from the felling of timber to forest protection committees in case of dense forest and 30 per cent of the net profit in the case of degraded forests. In …
Harvest time has come and gone but the residents of Sitarampeth village in Chandrapur district did not get a penny in return for protecting nearly 300 ha of reserve forest for over a decade. “No valuation has ever been done of the work done by us,” says Rambhau Dhande, a …
Beyond Jethiabhai Basawa’s mud house in the foothills of Aravali extends a 75-hectare patch of barren land. It was once lush bamboo forest worth Rs 9 lakh. After joining the JFM programme in 1996, his village Munkapada in Rajpipla district had nurtured it in the hope of making some money. …
Andhra Pradesh is the only state that claims to have calculated exact timber and bamboo revenue shares transferred to communities under JFM. The World Bank funded the programme with generous loans of Rs 1,000 crore for 15 years till March 2009. Benefits shared are impressive. According to the World Bank’s …
The concept of JFM is alluring enough to keep people engaged in conservation for years. But when it comes to sharing the fruits it is a practical joke. For every hundred rupees earned from timber sale a JFM committee usually gets only Rs 17.5 in cash, thanks to the forest …
The JFM programme faces existential crisis. On the one hand, pieces of legislation like the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, and the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act, 1996, have come into existence, giving rights to tribals and forest dwellers over forest resources and their management. On the other …
THE NEXT time labourers in Chhattisgarh working for projects under the Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority, or CAMPA, get paid, their wages will not be deposited in a bank account. They will be paid in cash. This July 26 order of the state forest department violates a Supreme Court …
Raping the forest for ephemeral fashions The alleged rape in Brazil of an 18-year-old teacher by Paulinho Paiakan, chief of the Kayapo tribe, may be seen as symbolic of the rape of the Amazon rainforests using as a lure the theory that marketing forest produce is more economically beneficial and …
INDIA’S ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY, VOLUMES 1 AND 2, Edited by Mahesh Rangarajan and K Sivaramakrishnan, Permanent Black, Rs 1,850 This reader brings together some of the most interesting writings on India’s ecological pasts. Volume 1 has essays that range from prehistoric India to the middle of the 19th century. Volume 2 …
GADCHIROLI in Maharashtra may have acquired the model district status for clearing a record number of community forest rights (CFR) claims, but its 298 villages are angry with the forest department for stripping them of the basic right to manage forest produce. The department has also burdened them with conditions, …
This refers to the editorial “When business rules our kitchens” (June 16-30, 2011). Do we want to sensationalise the issue of poor food safety regulations and use big companies as a whipping boy or work on the solutions? How are we going to deal with the fundamental issue of feeding …
About two years ago, a fire broke out in the Biligiri Rangaswami Temple Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka. The police arrested 35 community leaders of Soliga tribe for causing the fire. Five people still have cases against them. Yet the forest community recently submitted a bold proposal to the Centre advocating …
The Khandadhar waterfalls is a favourite picnic destination of many college students in Odisha. But it may soon be a pleasure of the past. The falls spring out from the Khandadhar hills that are home to 69 working sponge iron units. And with more than 150 mining projects approved, the …
THE Supreme Court has allowed French construction giant Lafarge to resume limestone mining in an eco-sensitive area in Meghalaya. The ruling came on July 6 after a bench said it is “satisfied” with the revised clearance by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF). The court also issued several …
CALL it a pressing need to meet the growing thirst of the Mumbai metropolitan area or plain negligence, but the Maharashtra government is building a dam in a quake-prone zone. Worse, work is going on without environmental clearance or the consent of people who stand to lose their homesteads, livelihoods …
For green cause: Bangalore, Brikesh Singh knows all about scaling great heights to protect environment. Be it the UK Parliament or trees on the sides of Sankey Tank Bund Road – thankfully spared by the axes of the city corporation – he had used his skill to climb buildings and …
