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 …
Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act was enacted 15 years ago. Do you feel helpless because it has not yet been implemented? As the minister of panchayati raj, my first job is to remind people about the existence of PESA. If need arises I can go for further legislation …
In the last three decades, 12 lakh ha of forests have been diverted for other purposes, including for regularising encroachments, irrigation, power and mining projects. Most diversion proposals get approved because the forest bureaucracy is complicit in promoting them and uses every underhand means to do so. A system designed …
About 80 percent of the forested area of the developing world is held under public ownership. Many critics of state ownership argue that public stewardship of forests has been poor, pointing to high rates deforestation on land owned and administered by governments. These criticisms have given rise to a movement …
India stands today at the cross-roads where it is becoming abundantly clear that not paucity of funds, but deficit in governance is the most significant challenge before the society. A frank assessment of the current functioning of Forestry and Wildlife Establishment brings out that: Given the extremely weak base, often …
This wedding season, anxious grooms from Parsa and Ghatburra, two villages in Chhattisgarh's Surguja district, were offered financial assistance from an unlikely source. Adani Mining Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Ltd, was handing out loans to all those who could prove that the money would be spent on …
Right to land and forest resources still remains a distant dream for women across the country. This fact came to the fore during the concluding session of a two-day national conference on ‘Women, forest and community rights’ in Ranchi on Thursday. Around 100 women took part in the conference, which …
Some 40 years ago an experiment began in Arabari forest range of West Bengal that caught the fancy of the nation. The forest authorities roped in the people living in the area in regenerating degraded forests. In return they offered them a share in forest resources and revenue. It worked. …
The concept of JFM is alluring enough to keep people engaged in conservation for years. But when it comes to sharing the fruits it is a practical joke. For every hundred rupees earned from timber sale a JFM committee usually gets only Rs 17.5 in cash, thanks to the forest …
The JFM programme faces existential crisis. On the one hand, pieces of legislation like the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, and the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act, 1996, have come into existence, giving rights to tribals and forest dwellers over forest resources and their management. On the other …
Forest departments across the country owe millions of rupees to communities. For 20 years communities toiled under the Joint Forest Management programme in the hope of getting shares in revenue from timber and bamboo sales. As forests mature for harvesting, forest departments apply mathematical tricks to bring down monetary share …
Arguing that indiscriminate exploitation of mineral resources was leading to alienation amongst local tribal populations and furthering the cause of Naxalite groups, Minister for Tribal Affairs V Kishore Chandra Deo on Wednesday advocated a ban on export of raw materials like iron ore or bauxite. Mineral resources like iron ore …
TOI jury meets to choose between good and good An unknown crusader could finally get her due when an eminent sixmember jury sits together on Thursday to pick the winners of the inaugural Times of India Social Impact Awards. The awards seek to recognize and encourage the noble efforts of …
PURULIA, 14 SEPT: Despite the Centre having introduced the Forest Rights Act in 2006 to distribute forest land to the tribals, the district administration here is yet to do so for most of the Kheria Sabars due to its lackadaisical attitude. A senior official of land and land revenue department …
The Centre has decided to modify flagship rural development schemes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) to suit the needs of naxal-affected districts. While the schemes will be made more flexible, funds allocated to them will also increase. The decision was taken at a day-long consultation held …
Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, who on Tuesday reached the state’s remotest area of Chhota Bengal in Kangar district — the area still lacks proper road links and other basic infrastructure facilitates — assured that forest rights of the locals will be fully protected after rationalisation of the boundary of …
Shillong: Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma pointedly asked the audience at a two-day seminar organised by the Forest Department here on Thursday, whether it is necessary for Meghalaya to exploit all mineral resources and create a fearful, uncertain future? “Every place in Meghalaya has some mineral or the other. Should …
Arguing that indiscriminate exploitation of mineral resources was leading to alienation amongst local tribal populations and furthering the cause of Naxalite groups, Minister for Tribal Affairs V Kishore Chandra Deo has advocated a ban on export of raw materials like iron ore or bauxite. Mineral resources like iron ore should …
Singrauli: The Coal Curse a report was released by retired Justice Suresh Hosbet, a member of a Fact Finding team that visited the area in July this year. The report documented the impacts of unbridled coal mining and thermal power plants on the environment and the people of the region. …
The fresh cool forest breeze and the greenery appears to act as a magic wand on the residents of village Ghati. Middle-aged men and women who just a few minutes ago had been involved in hard-core legal talk suddenly speak like children. Forty-something Gyaneshwar Sahare, who had been pouring forth …
Gadchiroli in Maharashtra may have acquired the model district status for clearing a record number of community forest rights (CFR) claims, but its 298 villages are angry with the forest department for stripping them of the basic right to manage forest produce. http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/forest-department-s-cheat-act
