Ecology

Reply affidavit on behalf of Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change regarding CRZ clearance for the construction of coastal road from Amra Marg to …

Reply affidavit on behalf of Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in the matter of Gavhan Koliwada Matsyavyavsayik Sahakari Sanstha Maryadit Vs City & Industrial Development Corporation & Others dated 28/01/2025. City & Industrial Development Corporation submitted a proposal for CRZ clearance for the construction of coastal road from …

Disappointing effort on ecological economics

This book is a collection of papers from the inaugural conference of the International Society for Ecological Economics held in 1990 in Washington. The society defines ecological economics as the study of "the ecology of humans and the economy of nature," and of "the web of interconnections uniting the economic …

Quarrying for trouble

WHEN STATE governor B R Bhagat cancelled plans for two major cement plants and banned limestone mining near main roads and tourist sites, he warned, "No one will be allowed to play with the ecology of the environmentally fragile state of Himachal Pradesh." Now, the environment has become a political …

The case that closed the Walia mines

IN 1987 Chet Singh Chauhan and a group of residents from Sangraha, a village in Sirmaur district, filed suit demanding the closure of the V K Walia limestone mines near the village. They accused of Walia of causing severe environmental damage because of unscientific mining operations: "Haphazard mining was not …

Curbing selfish sprawl in Tamil Nadu hills

RESIDENTS of hill stations in Tamil Nadu are sceptical that much-publicised legislation by chief minister J Jayalalitha can protective the states hill stations from ecological devastation. The law enforced as an amendment to the Tamil Nadu District Municipalities Act of 1920, seeks to protect the Nilgiri and Palni hills from …

A year of despair and hope

PRODUCING a newspaper or a newsmagazine is something like an unending string of little miracles. As technologists designing new machines well know, "if anything can go wrong, it will." The same happens with us too, all the time. Yet, the publication must and does come out regularly and, more or …

An obituary for "development"

MEDIEVAL theologians would have burned Wolfgang Sachs, the editor of The Development Dictionary, and his fellow contributors as heretics and proscribed the book. A second reading has convinced me of this. A dictionary is rarely re-read, but the explosive ideas in this one demanded it. The book debunks all human …

Need to integrate human ecology and nature

IT IS TIME for a grand reconciliation between nature and us. Ecological economists fear we may have already entered an era of "uneconomic growth", which impoverishes rather than enriches. They remind us that however sophisticated our technology may be, it cannot hold back the sea or replace lost topsoil. A …

Chipko: an unfinished mission

"NO WOMAN ever had to hug a tree to protect it," says Chandi Prasad Bhatt, the founder of Chipko. "It was not necessary to do so, for the mere threat was enough." The concept of hugging a tree to defend it was so powerful, it brought in a new consciousness …

The tragedy of Reni

WHEN GAURA Devi of Reni village died on July 4, 1991, she must have been disillusioned. Two decades earlier, she inspired a group of women to chase away employees of a forest contractor -- and this act of courage and spontaneous defiance was hailed by the media as the start …

Not a preserve of women

WOMEN were involved in popular agitations in Uttarakhand long before Chipko, but it is Chipko that produced courageous women who even dared to take on the state. In the Vyali forest agitation in Uttarkashi in 1974, women acted as messengers and lookouts because the men were under police surveillance. Some, …

Another movement, another purpose

IN JANUARY 1978, about 300 villagers from Almora district got together under the aegis of the Parvatiya Van Bachao Andolan and camped for 39 days in the Chanchridhar forests near Dwarahat. Bipin Tripathi, the block pramukh (chief) of Dwarahat, explained why: "We did not want Kashmiri Lal, the contractor of …

Landmarks on the Chipko trail

1973 • Chipko is born when villagers of Mandal, near Gopeshwar, led by Chandi Prasad Bhatt and the Dasholi Gram Swarajya Mandal, stop contractors of an Allahabad-based sports goods company, Symonds, from felling 14 ash trees on April 24. • In December, villagers again stop Symonds agents at the Phata-Rampur …

Targeting the Third World`s Yulnerability

THE DUNKEL draft on the renegotiated GATT is finally becoming a public concern in India and farmers are taking the issue to the streets. Several industrial sectors, too, have expressed concern about some of its provisions. Nevertheless, the government continues to fight shy of revealing either its stand or its …

A Gandhian economist ahead of his time

MAHATMA Gandhi's Sevagram ashram in Maharashtra was the appropriate site for a recent conference marking the birth centenary of J C Kumarappaan economist who became one of Gandhiji's closest associates and the most ardent advocate of his ideas on rural development. Through prolific writing in books and magazines over a …

Economic survey of a once prosperous taluka

MAHATMA Gandhi wanted Indian economics to be based on facts and figures obtained through rigorously scientific surveys. In 1930, he urged J C Kumarappa to conduct an economic survey of Matar taluka, a famine-stricken area in Gujarat's Kaira district. Kumarappa's pathbreaking study of conditions prevailing in rural India is still …

From Kumarappa`s writings

On the virtues of a natural life If we have to utilise as food the nutritious elements found in nature, we may get gur from palm trees that grow wild on uncultivable lands and obtain the whole benefit of the sap, minus the water which it contains, along with the …

Code of ethics for scientific "eco tourists"

OVER THE years, the world at large has come to realise that the results of science must cease to remain the private property of a privileged few. This is all the more significant today, when the results of science have touched the very problem of existence. The need for public …

Large prawn fisheries damage the Sundarbans

THE TREMENDOUS surge in prawn farming, fueled by the high prices they fetch abroad, is threatening ecological disaster for the Sundarbans, a fragile area of mangrove swamps in West Bengal. Several major business houses, including the Tatas, ITC, Britannia and Hindustan Lever have been allowed to operate hatcheries. The local …

What Kamal Nath said

What is your assessment of CG's handling of the spill? I visited the area a few days after the spill along with the environment secretary, the assistant inspector general of wildlife and the NIO director. CG did a commendable job, with the limited expertise at its command. During the 60 …

Big money in prawns

FISHERFOLK get to see little of the fabulous profits prawns fetch exporters. Between harvesting and exporting, the prawns multiply money 80 times over. Prawn seedlings are sold to middlemen at Rs 20 to Rs 50 a kg in summer -- when the seedlings are abundant -- and Rs 150 to …

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