Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Are missing palm trees causing more lighting deaths in Bihar appearing in ‘The Times of India’ dated 29.05.2025". The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Are missing palm trees causing …
Central African countries, sharing the world's second largest tropical rainforests, second only to the Amazon, have decided to come together to protect their biodiversity and face the challenges posed by economic globalisation. Conservationists from the six central African countries - Cameroon, Central African Republic (CAR), Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, …
THIS century's biggest - and worst - contribution to environmental degradation has definitely been global warming: the much-debated and discussed phenomenon arising from build-up of "greenhouse" gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2). These gases trap heat and consequently lead to an increase in global temperatures. So far, those concerned by …
MYTH: The only way you can make money out of a forest is by exploiting its biodiversity, cutting and logging the trees. Fact: there is more to the story than just that. And this is a point that the Iwokrama International Rain Forest Programme, the world's largest project in sustainable …
The popular image of termites as timber-munching pests needs to be overhauled. In tropical forests, the vast majority of termites do not conform to the stereotype, say researchers at the National History Museum in London. Instead, most termites eat rotting vegetation in the soil and nest underground. They may be …
TROPICAL forests have been disappearing at alarming rates for the past three decades. Farmers, ranchers and timber industries have denuded millions of acres, and only in the past few years has the resultant damage to the ecosystem has become agonisingly clear. A new study by botanists at the University of …
The moist tropical forests of the Western Ghats of India are pockmarked with savanna-grasslands created and managed by local agricultural communities. A sample of such savanna-grasslands with differing growing conditions was studied in terms of peak above-ground biomass, monthly growth and cumulative production under different clipping treatments.
THE largescale destruction of west Africa's tropical forests by farmers has been projected as a well-known environmental scandal. But recently, two British scientists have turned the controversy on its head by suggesting that almost half of the tropical forests that are said to have been destroyed by logging and farming …
In an attempt to check the degradation of the Amazonian rainforests, Brazil's Chamber of Commerce will soon begin a nine-month investigation into various Asian logging companies operating there. Brazilian greens have for long maintained that logging has increased manifold and was primarily financed by companies which had poor environmental records. …
The ports of Cambodia and Thailand are doing a brisk business. Huge piles of logs sawn from Cambodia's dwindling rainforests make their way daily from the main port of Sihanoukville to the Thai seaport of Klong Yai. Investigations by the British Broadcasting Corporation ( bbc ), which carried a documentary …
This small republic on the west coast of central Africa stands as a test case for Africa's rainforests which are suffering the fastest rate of logging in the world. Gabon has nearly eighty five per cent of green cover which consists of some of the most diverse tropical forests in …
what has been a traditional practice of farming could actually be detrimental to the world's tropical forests, according to a report prepared by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (cgiar). The report, which was released in the first week of August, draws attention to slash-and-burn, a practice followed by …
IT STARTED with a big hype but is now veering towards a rather unfortunate collapse. A us $65-million experiment, which had the backing of the Commonwealth leaders, to save tropical rainforests in Guyana, is now coming apart as funds to sustain the programme have been difficult to come by. The …
FROM the humid green of the Amazon to the drier climes of the deep Congo, shifting agriculture has been practised down the ages by communities confronted with lush forests. Today, tropical forests are recognised as a global resource and attract international concern. And the swidden cultivator is increasingly being perceived …
"I CAME to Los Haitises in 1951 when I was abruptly evicted from my farm by the government to make way for a sugarcane plantation. One day I was in my farm, the next day I had to leave. I established a farm in the area the logging companies had …
The Amazon drama all over again, but this time without the cameras: that"s what has happened to the rainforests of Paraguay. A dense forest makes way for pastures and crop lands. A host of once sparkling rivers polluted during the United Nations" drinking water and sanitation decade (1981-90). Abundant rainfall …
SWELLING concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are threatening the diversity of tree life on Earth, say 2 US ecologists (Science, Vol 263, No 5149). O L Phillips of the Missouri Botanical Garden, USA, and the late A H Gentry (1945-1993) analysed independent surveys of tropical forests worldwide and …
OVERTURNING age-old fears, free trade is now being seen as the market miracle that will bail out the earth from the environmental mess it finds itself in; free trade is expected to bring about the most efficient allocation of natural resources. Environmental concerns -- so far stubbornly kept out of …
What are you doing to check the massive deforestation in the Amazonian rainforests? In the past three years, we have been able to substantially reduce the annual rate of deforestation from 20,000 sq km to 9,000 sq km. And how did you achieve this? In Brazil, fire is the only …
THE LAST patches of virgin rainforest in Kerala are up for grabs for anyone with an axe who can cut around bureaucracy. Although the state government maintains that the state's forest cover is 27.83 per cent, independent observers stress that it is actually less than 10 per cent. And they …
CAMEROON'S forests are being hijacked by France. The Cameroon Post, the country's leading news daily, recently reported that France had agreed to cancel half the
