-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In a fresh threat to the fragile ecosystem of the Aravalis, the Haryana forest department has reversed its earlier order and asked officials not to designate lands in the range as forests, other than those formally recorded as such. The order implies that vast tracts of forests, including most parts of the sacred Mangarbani grove, would now be recorded as 'not forest'. This reverses the department's...

-Business Standard About 100 changes have already been effected through executive orders; new amendments involve structural and policy-level alterations The Centre is all set to overhaul environmental and forest regulations, policies, and laws once the two-day conference of state forest ministers and officials is over. The conference will start on Monday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing it. After effecting some 100-odd changes to regulations through executive orders, the Union environment ministry has...

-The Hindu As power lines and roads slice up forest cover, it becomes clear that a knowledge economy must tackle development with a wider perspective than that of mere short-term gains In just two meetings in August 2014 and January 2015, the National Board for Wildlife considered projects involving over 2,300 hectares of land in and around wildlife sanctuaries and national parks. In four meetings between September and December 2014, the Forest...

-The Indian Express In a last-ditch effort to stop moves that it says will "entirely defeat the purpose" of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), the Ministry of Tribal Affairs has strongly objected to the revised guidelines for forest clearance that the government is in a hurry to notify. Prepared by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) after a push from the Prime Minister's Office, the new rules will ease the...

-The Indian Express   Three weeks before Greenpeace activist Priya Pillai was stopped from travelling to London where she was to speak on the alleged violation of forest rights of tribals in the Mahan coal block area of Madhya Pradesh, the Ministry of Environment and Forests asked the Ministry of Coal not to auction the block as it is "located in inviolate forest area". Pillai was stopped at Delhi airport on January 11...