Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Nayar river is vanishing - a yatra reveals conservation goes beyond science and policy" appearing in ‘The Down To Earth’ dated 03.06.2025. The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Nayar …
The pharmaceuticals industry in India is agitated over the finalisation of a list of 56 herbs whose export is to be banned. Drawn up by the ministry of commerce in consultation with the ministry of environment and forests (MEF), the list, which includes Jatamansi, is being expanded by the MEF …
the Peruvian Army has embarked on a new defence mission: guarding the vicuna, a woolly animal that is an ancient symbol of Peruvian identity. The scientific name of this distant cousin of the llama is vicugna vicugna . It has been celebrated richly in Peruvian literature and memorialised on the …
OTULA OWUOR THE Mostly Somali nomadic community in Garissa, the capital of the North Eastern province of Kenya, recently took the Kenya Wildlife Services (Kws) to court in an effort to stop it from translocating the endangered hirola antelope, also called the Hunter's harte-beest, from the region to a new …
UP To half of the world's biological wealth is threatened with extinction if the current protective measures are not extended to cover more land area. This is the conclusion of a report, Moving Beyond Brundtland, which was commissioned by Greenpeace and released recently in Vancouver, Canada. The report is based …
Using trade as a weapon has always resulted in giving the big, the strong and the rich, a whip which can be used to brutalise the small, the weak and the poor. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is just one more such weapon in the hands …
OVERFISHING and environmental degradation have pushed the endangered blind dolphin in the Indus river to the brink of extinction. Water pollution and construction of dams has shrunk the habitat of the dolphins, which once stretched over 2,800 km of the river, into a 170 km section of the river between …
THE home-made concoction that cured your stomach ache may soon be unavailable. More than 150 of the known species of medicinal plants in India have already become extinct due to unsustainable methods of harvesting and many more face the threat of extinction. The loss is great because in India, even …
MORE than 1,800 sq krn of the country's remote northeast region bordering China and India will soon be declared a protected area called the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area. The government of Nepal is working with experts in India and China on plans to conserve the unique wildlife, forests, flowers and ethnic …
The war of whales goes on. With the whaling season about to begin in the north Atlantic and the north Pacific, leading conservation groups recently urged US President Bill Clinton to take immediate action to protect the worlds endangered whales. The groups including Greenpeace and tW World Wide Fund for …
A POLITICAL, moral and biological debate has been raging in the US about the fate of the endangered flower-loving fly found in the dunes of Delhi sands in Colton, California. Saving the fly would effectively mean halting progress, loss of money and jobs. The fast shrinking habitat of the fly …
People in the US can now file a lawsuit seeking less protection for endangered species. The Supreme Court of the US recently ruled that people who have suffered economic harm could use the Endangered Species Act to file lawsuits accusing the federal government of having gone overboard to protect some …
The European Union (EU) was once again in the grip of a fishing controversy. After stormy discussions, EU fishery ministers agreed to reduce fishing capacities by up to 30 per cent over the next five years in a bid to save dwindling fish stocks in European waters. The agreement allows …
A. The quick and the dead Human pressure, lack of research and shrinking forests coupled with a thriving international trade in wildlife threatens to turn a zoologist's Garden of Eden into a poacher's paradise on november 25, 1996, Vietnamese Premier Vo Van Kiet issued a dire warning to his audience …
The present century has seen very few discoveries of new mammalian species. Of the four discovered so far, Vietnam itself accounts for three. In the 1990s, two new species of big mammals
With Vietnam slowly opening up to Western scientists in the last decade, numerous organisations have been vying with each other to study the country's flora and fauna. After Ho Chi Minh ousted the French in 1954, Vietnam's leaders closed the country and its forests were effectively locked to outsiders. Even …
Ornamental fish breeding has expanded recently in Hanoi because of rising incomes. Increased incomes and a liberalised foreign trade is also taking a heavy toll of orchids and rhododendrons. Ethnic minorities collect rhododendron plants in large quantities in the high mountains and bring them regularly for sale in the cities, …
The 72 million litres of herbicides sprayed by US forces in Vietnam during the war will continue to plague several generations of post-war populations with a high rate of reproductive abnormalities. Some 40 million litres of Agent Orange were sprayed; the herbicide contained 170 kg of dioxin, which is the …
The threat to deforestation comes from several basic reasons: the nature of the country's economy; its high population growth rate; firewood demand; shifting cultivation and fire damage; economic liberalisation; and, the pressure on the country to earn foreign exchange through biomass exports like wood and rice. The per capita income …
Afforestation : In 1993, a 10-year programme was initiated to regreen the barren lands of Vietnam. But as one diplomat in Hanoi pointed out, the government went about the task of greening the land "in a militaristic manner', and planted eucalyptus and other exotic species over large stretches of the …
what makes Vietnam particularly worthy from a biodiversity point of view is also its very rich base of traditional medicine. This means Vietnam has the potential to make a worthwhile contribution to the global food and health sectors. Says Nguyen Duc Tao of the Vietnam Pharmaceutical Corporation, which is trying …
