-India.Mongabay.com * India’s 2022 Wetlands Change Atlas mapped 231,195 wetlands, covering 4.86 percent of the country’s geographical area. The Atlas concluded that the number and extent of these wetlands have increased during the 2006/7-2017/18 period. * Given that mapping wetlands is a complex task, 2022 Atlas likely presents the lower bound of the actual wetland extent in the country and the overall number is higher than what is recorded. * It is high...

-The Telegraph In the last two decades, forest and biodiversity Conservation in the country has meant ruthless and unjust evictions of the people and communities living in their midst Earlier this month, a small hamlet called Bothli in the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district pressed for the legal recognition of its community forest rights. Wildlife Conservationists promptly filed a public interest litigation claiming that the people living in the...

-The Hindu Business Line They have shown the way in water Conservation, waste management and solar energy Be it climate change adaptation or mitigation, cooperatives have set the agenda to collectively provide solutions to the looming impact of rising temperature, loss of jobs, depletion of water resources, degradation of land and forest resources and accumulation of wastes leading to health hazards. The explicit adoption of eco-social agendas by cooperatives is contributing to co-op...

-TheWire.in * The proposed Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill 2021 encourages a conducive environment for investments and to simplify the patent application process. * Farmers in India have historically been against any kind of IP rights – whether patents or plant variety protection over seed and planting materials. * In a confused mix of laws, the government also grants IP rights to BMCs for farmers’ varieties – formed under the Biological Diversity Act –...

-Hindustan Times DSR ‘tar-wattar’ (good soil moisture), a low-cost mechanical sowing technique to reduce water footprint in the cultivation of water-guzzling rice by 20%, was indigenously developed by scientists of Ludhiana-based Punjab Agricultural University BATHINDA: As farmers are expecting a sharp rise in farm labourers’ demand to charge up to ₹6,000 per acre for paddy sowing this season, direct seeding of rice (DSR), which for the first time comes with an incentive...