-Business Standard Integrates climate change concerns and promotes private investment and role in Forestry The NDA government has made public its draft National Forest Policy to replace the one that was crafted in 1988. Incorporating consequences of climate change but entirely ignoring one of the three Forest related laws, the Forest Rights Act, the policy brings new focus to plantations, growing trees outside the Forest lands  and wood industry. While the policy continues...

-The Hindu A better approach to man-wildlife conflict management requires an integration of scientific evidence, animal behaviour, and landscape and socio-economic context The difference of views on the killing of wild animals between a former and a sitting Environment Minister of the ruling party — one in favour, the other against — has hit the front pages. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change recently permitted three States, Uttarakhand, Bihar, and...

-The Hindu Once slotted as vermin, these animals are "open season" and could become easy game for hunters as well as traders in meat. Since 2015, the Union Environment Ministry has acceded to requests from Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Bihar to declare wild boar, rhesus macaque, and nilgai as vermin within specified territories of these States, and outside Forests and protected areas. This reprieve means that those who kill these animals here...

-Livemint.com There is an emphasis on increasing farm productivity, but this might not always align with greater profitability While inaugurating the Krishi Mela at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealed for a “three-pillared” approach to farming, which included crop farming, agro Forestry—that is, planting timber trees along farm peripheries—and animal husbandry. This is an important enunciation of how Indian agriculture works as an integrated system in...

-International Rivers With an enduring drought ravaging many parts of the country, last month the Prime Minister waxed eloquent on the need to safeguard water during his monthly radio monologue. He raised some valid points on cropping patterns, frugal water use, collection and storage traditions etc., but he was conspicuously silent on the need to protect wetlands. Perhaps it’s no coincidence then that the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change recently...