Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of Jagan Prasad Tehriya Vs State of Uttar Pradesh dated 23/05/2025. The applicant has alleged large-scale illegal felling of green trees within the Agra district, Uttar Pradesh. The application revealed instances of illegal tree felling at Fatehabad, Sadar, Kiraoli and Agra …
The Ballarpur Paper Mills belonging to the Thapar group of companies for a long time had monopoly of bhabber which is raw material for paper pulp. An area of forest was leased out to them for havesting bhabber. After the formation of Hill Resources Management Society (HRMS), the mill had …
The Haryana chief minister's office turns down an appointment sought by the Down To Earth correspondent saying-What is special about Sukhomajri. So is the reaction of the local MLA Chander Mohan who does not have time to talk about Sukhomajri. Outside Haryana, however, this village has evinced much interest. More …
Ever since the well-known environmentalist P R Mishra stepped into Sukhomairi to transform its barren landscape in the early 70s, Jethu Ram has been thinking of water and trees. He was among the few villagers who first volunteered to work for soil and water conservation after being convinced by Mishra. …
IT HAD been raining incessantly. On the third day, amid the dankness, everyone heard a roar. Some thought it was the sound of helicopters that had come to evacuate them. Only a few saw a gigantic moving wall of mud rear up into the sky. Before they could react, a …
• Hurricane Mitch dumped as much as 65 cm of rainfall in a single day. • Thousands of landmines, laid during the nations' civil wars, have been scattered all over by floods and mudslides. • Honduras faces the task of rebuilding 94 bridges; 90 per cent of its roads, bridges …
CAN YOU imagine a self-sufficient village that meets it energy, fertiliser, pesticide and food requirements on its own? And all these from cow dung? The answer may be yes, if cow dung is used to its full potential. Its utility ranges from powering a bulb to repelling pests. It is …
THOUGH the world focuses only on one form of poverty that is financial there are two other forms - ecological poverty and povert of the mind or mental poverty - that are even more relevant for the rural poor for they are closely associated with the state of the environment. …
WELCOME to Sakwa, a small tribal village in Valia taluka in Gujarat's Bharuch district. The population comprises some 473 persons living in 88 houses. And there are about 179 cattleheads: 83 cows, 24 buffaloes and 72 bullocks. In 1988, when the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme-India (AKRSP-I), a nongovernmental organisation …
Compelling evidence has been found that the Peruvian government health workers used threats, physical coercion, misinformation and promises of food to meet sterilisation quotas among the poor, rural and illiterate women. The issue has rocked the nation and caused an international outcry. At least 15 women undergoing sterilisations have died …
RALEGAN SIDDHI. An enviable example of what human will and dedication can achieve against staggering odds. When Anna Hazare, then a jeep driver serving the Indian army, visited this drought-stricken village in Maharashtra"s Ambedkar district, the people here did not know what development meant. But now, they can probably teach …
The Responsible Ecological Social Tour (REST) programme, which was launched a year ago, is coming under heavy criticism from environmentalists. The programme was launched in a cluster of villages near the Pra Chang mountain in northern Thailand's Phayao province for the purpose of ecotourism. Officials at non-government organisations running the …
MAKE WATER EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS JUST suppose for a moment, howsoever impossible it may sound: the state just disappears one day. There is nobody to supply you with piped water. What will you do? Even the idea sounds preposterous at the end of the 20th century. But less than 150 years …
Rainwater harvesting started in the country in 1989 as a part of an income-generating programme assisted by the International Development Research Centre, Canada. Under the programme, some 500 storage tanks with capacities between two cubic metre (m3) and 10 m3 were built in the Capiz Province. The project involved building …
Rooftop catchments and cisterns have met the water needs of many small Caribbean islands for over three centuries. More than 500,000 people depend on such systems of water storage. In Saint Lucia, storage systems include 200-litre steel drums, large polyethylene plastic tanks with a capacity of 1,300*2,300 litres, and underground …
Thailand is one of the world's leading rainwater harvesting nations. The National Jar Programme was launched to supply clean drinking water to rural areas under the United Nations Water Supply and Sanitation Decade (1981-1990). It was aimed at catching rainwater in jars. Since the programme was started, there has been …
Captured rainwater has regenerated degraded lands in Kenya. Eroded grazing areas have been rejuvenated by building mini-catchments using a 'pitting and ridging technique' known as katumani. This is accompanied by re-seeding of native grasses and legumes. Pits are dug at the top of an eroded slope below a cut-off drain, …
Builder R Jeyakumar's technique is simple and cost-effective. The areas surrounding building complexes in Chennai are cemented. The rain water is allowed to flow on to the road. The first step, says Jeyakumar, is to prevent this run-off by two to three-inch-high kerbs near the gates. To collect the run-off, …
At Besant Nagar, Chennai, each Sunday morning sees a middle-aged man on a door-to-door campaign distributing pamphlets and talking spiritedly. Meet Sekhar Raghavan, a lone warrior fighting for a cause. Even at 50 and a PhD in physics, he painstakingly explains the merits of rainwater harvesting (RWH) to anyone witling …
Exnora international, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), is involved mainly in solid-waste management and sorting out rural problems. Recently, however, they have entered the field of rainwater harvesting (RWH), propagating water harvesting methods and offering technical support. The NGO has atso succeeded in motivating the villagers of Kovalam, near Chennai, to …
