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 …
On the direction which economic growth is likely to take in the future, considering the fact that reconciling it with environmental protection has been one of the greatest challenges of the latter half of this century: Unfortunately, the world is still trying to solve its problems by growing more. I …
AT THE latest meeting of the Conference of Parties to theConvention on Biodiversity (CBD) at Jakarta (Indonesia) inNovember 1995one of the issues that held the centrestage wasthe"rights of indigenous peoples. The focus on this issue hadfollowed the Rio Earth Summit agreement (1992) that indigenous peoples were a "major group"who should …
The prospect of an International legal Instrument recognising Indigenous peoples, rights to self-determination has had Asian governments in a tizzy. These governments have taken the stand that international human tights standards deny collective rights and consensus politics. Instead, they have insisted that since all Asians are 'Indigenous' to Asia, an …
THE issues of sustainable development are indeed very complex and varied; besides, they are also inter-linked, indicating that weakening of one may seriously jeopardise the achievement of the other. Here I shall discuss four major issues which, I believe, form the basic paradigm of sustainable development: conceptual/definitional issues; institutional issues; …
THE World Bank's (wB) staff have recently prepared a report -Mainstreaming the environment -docu- menting the progress made by the Bank in its effort to emerge as an active partner in implementing the Rio commitments for devel- opment which is environ- mentally sustainable. It is primarily an annual exercise which …
Reduction of poverty remains one of the foremost global challenges. An estimated 1.3 billion persons in the developing world will live in. absolute poverty by the turn of the century. While the Headcount method of measuring poverty counts the proportion of people whose income or consumption is below a certain …
PROMOTING the cause of sustainable development and spreading environmental awareness in the Asian and Pacific regions, formed the main agenda of the three-day United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) workshop held in Madras, India. The workshop, which began on December 12, also discussed the strategy framed by the Regional Office for …
This book provides a balanced international overview of the way forward, showing how choice of materials and construction processes, response to landscape and climate, and - not to be forgotten - the involvement of users, can together solve environmental problems and produce a diverse architecture to suit human and regional …
This publication focusses on the Aral Sea crisis - the result of economic processes set in motion by the planners of the erstwhile Soviet Union in the 1950s. It is one of the biggest ecological disasters, second only to Chernobyl, leading to a total collapse of the socio-economic life of …
Environmentally sustainable development is the high point of talk in almost all international fora these But a key policy question is the extent to which the existing tax and subsidy regimes encourage or sustainable use of the environment. The subsidies in 1991 for electricity and fossil fuels are estimated around …
ARE flowers no longer pure symbols of beauty or spirituality? The facts revealed in the book, though preliminary, present a sad story of the flower export industry in the Third World countries. The economic, social and ecological issues of flowergrowing and its role in sustainable development in the countries of …
Science must contribute substantially to the development of the society as a whole in the country: this is the new policy being promoted by the government's Foundation for Research Development (FRD), that has recently come up with the Reconstruction and Development Programme, a scheme which enjoys cross- party support, and …
The debate that took place recently on the Taper industry's demand to access state forest lands for industrial plantations takes me back to a key, yet, unresolved governance issue. The very first edition of Down to Earth had carried a debate on the environmental impact of the policy of liberalisation, …
PALAMAU, a district in south Bihar, is the archetype of an unfair and increasingly common socioeconomic paradox: rich land, dirt poor people. Despite its vast natural resources, forest cover, rainfall and low population density, Palamau has a dismally low development index, further lowered each passing year under the double trouble …
Friends of the Earth - Europe's 'Sustainable Europe Campaign', launched in November 199j, entered its second phase recently. The campaign aims at enhancing the development and diffusion of concrete ideas on sustainable development among all the key social groups: business, industry, NGOs, trade unions and other institutions. National teams from …
The concept of Chakriya Vikas Pranali (CVP) can roughly be translated into English as "Cyclical System of Development". As with all translations, it is a poor copy of the original meaning. The concept originated from the famous Sukhomajri experiment. (Sukhomajri is a village in the Ambala district where the first …
The government of the Netherlands has pledged to churn out the funds for producing solar energy in Bhutan. The deal is a part of the bilateral sustainable development agreement signed between the two countries in March 1994, which envisages cooperation in biodiversity, energy, culture and human resources. So far US …
ENDING over 3 decades of mutual mistrust and hostility on April 5, 1995, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam inked the Mekong River Treaty for "cooperation in the sustainable development of the Mekong River Basin" in Chiang Rai in northern Thailand. Supported by the United Nations Development Programme and after more …
WE are a tribal people from Western India, from a predominantly tribal area, about 125 kilometers north of Bombay. Though barely a 2-hour journey from the suburba prima of India, we are part of a third world within the Third World, so we are really 6 worlds away from you. …
