-Livemint.com The National Forest Policy will be an overarching policy for forest management, with the aim of bringing a minimum of one-third of India’s total geographical area under forest or tree cover New Delhi: India’s environment ministry has unveiled a draft of the new National Forest Policy (NFP) that proposes to restrict “schemes and projects which interfere with forests that cover steep slopes, catchments of rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, geologically unstable terrain...
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In Fact: Why India doesn't lose forest cover -Jay Mazoomdaar
-The Indian Express Despite deforestation and human encroachment, the country’s forest cover has remained stable around 20% since Independence. This is because the loss of natural old-growth forests is compensated on paper by expanding monoculture plantations. Since Independence, a fifth of India’s land has consistently been under forests. The population has increased more than three times since 1947, and from 1951-80, a total 42,380 sq km of forestland was diverted — some...
More »What We Can Learn From the Tribals About Forests as a Source of Food Security -Bharat Dogra
-TheWire.in New research shows the resilience and strength of tribal food systems. Recent findings from a research conducted with the close involvement of tribal communities disprove the view that the tribal food system is inherently backward. Several of these forest-based foods have been found to be rich in nutrition. The importance of forest-based food increases during adverse weather such as frequent drought conditions. Hence, its role in fighting hunger and malnutrition is...
More »Grass or tree?: A rule reclassifying bamboo claims to benefit tribals - but industry will gain more -Nitin Sethi
-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...
More »With No Water and Many Loans, Farmers' Deaths Are Rising in Tamil Nadu -Jaideep Hardikar
-TheWire.in While suicides and shock deaths have seen a sudden spike in Tamil Nadu’s Cauvery delta region, the government does not believe the drought is the cause and is continuing to direct water away from rural areas. From the banks of the Kollidam river, S. Selvaraju’s farm is barely a mile away. The huge river, actually a tributary of the Cauvery that drains its surplus water into the sea, runs along the village...
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