-The United Nations   Faced with increased poaching and illegal trade in ivory and horns of elephants and rhinoceroses, 300 government and civil society experts worldwide are seeking to strengthen conservation with new financial mechanisms at a United Nations-backed meeting in Geneva this week. “Innovative financial solutions are required to achieve the huge conservation task before us,” John Scanlon, Secretary-General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and...

A senior forest official from the Centre is visiting Jharkhand tomorrow to review a state proposal to declare Dalma forests and its adjoining areas in the Singhbum region an eco-sensitive zone, a move that has been opposed by Tata Steel. In March, the state forest department had drafted an exhaustive plan to create a protective zone around 10km perimeter of the Dalma forests to protect the area that is a natural...

Minister for Municipal Administration and Rural Development K.P. Munusamy on Saturday distributed Rs. 22.36 lakh as compensation to 834 farmers whose crops were damaged by Wild Elephants. The farmers who got the compensation cheques are from Krishnagiri, Hosur, Royakottai, Jawalagiri and Denkanikottai ranges. Four hundred and ninety nine farmers in Denkanikottai forest range, who were the worst affected, got Rs. 11,12,300. In Jawalagiri forest range 239 farmers received Rs. 7,65,950 as...

A number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including Greenpeace, on Wednesday lashed out at the Pranab Mukherjee-headed Group of Ministers (GoM) on coal mining for working in an “undemocratic manner” and sought greater transparency and openness in its functioning. “We are demanding that the process be opened up and made transparent. There has to be proper consultation with the stakeholders and issue experts,” Ashish Fernandes of Greenpeace India said in a statement...

Returning home from work recently, farmer Baidhar Singh was aghast to find his thatched hut in Balasore district, Orissa trampled to the ground. Just a few hundred metres away stood the culprits, huge and grey against the darkening sky: a herd of 65 Wild Elephants. That was a few weeks ago. Up till now, Singh and his wife are still calling a polythene-covered lean-to home. Singh’s experience has become quite common in...