-Scroll.in At the heart of the problem is a discrepancy between two laws on rights for Adivasis to the bamboo growing on their traditional forestlands. Across the world, taxonomists have classified bamboo as a grass. But under Indian law, it was treated as a tree. This definition has long given state forest departments monopolistic control over the valuable natural resource. On November 23, the central government loosened this grip by amending the...
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India's new wetland rules threaten to destroy 65% of its water bodies rather than protect them -Nityanand Jayaraman
-Scroll.in Notified in September, the rules will facilitate the development of wetlands as real estate, industrial sites and garbage dump After ignoring repeated directions from the Supreme Court to notify stricter rules to protect the country’s wetlands, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has gone and done just the opposite. On September 26, it published the Wetlands (Conservation & Management) Rules, 2017 – replacing the older rules dating back to...
More »CBI books Jayanthi Natarajan, carries out searches -Devesh K Pandey
-The Hindu The case pertains to clearance given for diversion of forest land at Saranda Forest in Jharkhand’s Singhbhum District to a mining company in violation of Forest (Conservation) Act in 2012. The Central Bureau of Investigation on September 9 conducted searches at the Chennai premises of former Union Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan in connection with alleged irregularities in the approval to a proposal for leasing of 56 hectare forest land to...
More »India's elephant population stable: Census -Jayashree Nandi
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: An elephant census released by the Union ministry of environment, forests and climate change on Saturday revealed an expansion in elephant areas, even while the jumbo population remained "stable" at 27,000. The report 'Synchronised elephant population estimation India 2017', released on World Elephant Day, estimates that the exact population of jumbos in the country is 27312, with Karnataka reporting the highest population at 6049, followed...
More »Tiger reserves: Economic and environmental win-win -D Balasubramanian
-The Hindu The headline in a recent PTI report “Saving 2 tigers gives more value than Mangalyaan”’ was intriguing, since it said that saving two tigers yields a capital benefit of Rs. 520 crores, while Mangalyaan cost us Rs. 450 crores. The headline was both exciting and hurtful. Excited by it, I contacted Professor Madhu Verma of the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), Bhopal, and she shared with me both...
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