-The Hindu Sabotaging the Forest Rights Act damages democracy Since 1980, through the Forest Conservation Act (FCA), the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF) has “diverted for non-forest use” (bureaucratese for destroyed) over 1.5 million hectares of forest. How many Adivasis and forest-dwellers have been evicted by this ‘lawful’ forest destruction? Stripping these forests has yielded thousands of crores of rupees for corporations to which a bulk of these forestlands...

-The Hindu Plea against nod for felling of trees New Delhi: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has held that Aravallis in Faridabad district will be considered as deemed forest. The NGT was hearing a plea against the Haryana government permitting felling of more than 7,000 trees for a group housing project, to be undertaken by Bharti Land Limited. A Bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel said, “It is difficult to uphold...

-The Hindu Trees in plantations, private lands should not come under it, says expert panel A high-power committee constituted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has recommended that forest surveys — the biennial exercise by the government to estimate forest cover — explicitly demarcate trees grown in forests from those grown outside, that is, in plantations and private lands. Currently, the government counts both towards estimating the portion of...

-The Hindu The new CRZ notification of 2018 now reads as a rejection of science and the anticipated impacts from climate change In late December, the government approved the Draft Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, 2018, which had been earlier circulated by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC). The CRZ consists of designated areas along the coast that are regulated by the government. The government introduced the new CRZ...

-The Indian Express An RTI query filed by The Indian Express with the MoEF revealed that the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) was questioned as early as June of 2016 over its jurisdiction to draw up federal guidelines to regulate animal markets. New Delhi: Fifteen months before the controversial cattle trade rules were withdrawn by the Centre, questions were raised internally during the framing stage on whether the central government was...