What are the political drivers for land rights of forest-dependent communities?
Prakash Kashwan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Connecticut. His research and scholarship focuses …
Bamboo rising
Five years after it was implemented, the Forest Rights Act finally takes root. Communities across the country rush to claim rights over forests …
Wealth of forests withheld
Forest departments across the country owe millions of rupees to communities. For 20 years communities toiled under the Joint Forest Management …
How government is subverting Forest Rights Act
Does this official data betray a conspiracy? Only 1.6 per cent of the 2.9 million claims approved under the Forest Rights Act recognise community …
‘Forest department is the encroacher’
When V Kishore Chandra Deo became the Union Minister for Panchayati Raj and Tribal Affairs three months ago, both the ministries were in inertia.…
'Community rights must figure in the Forest Bill'
The raging controversy over the regressive draft Forest Bill has dumped the onus of defending it on minister of state for environment and forests …
‘Forests can’t survive without communities’
Nepal’s Forest Act of 1993, which allows communities to manage their forests, is admired and emulated by governments and movements across …
Forest war
Naxalism started as a movement against land alienation. Today it has become a popular movement against natural resource alienation, …
Lost Eden
For over 2 months now, the hills of Simlipal in Orissa have been inundated by fierce monsoon showers. Thick foliage dripping water on the …
Forest conservation is too complex an issue to be resolved by executive fiat
The condition of India's forest and her forest dwellers is extremely grave. A fresh round of police attacks on tribal people -- four dead in Dewas,…
Logjam
Whenever the Supreme Court pulls the trigger, why does it miss the target? Because governments like those of the seven Northeast states work …
Rights without benefits
Over 1.3 million tribals and forest dwellers have got rights over the land they had been using for years under the Forest Rights Act. This can, …
Private affairs
The invitation was innocuous. The Confederation of Indian Industry (cii) -- the grouping of the large and most powerful industries -- was …
On The Warpath
They prefer to be called the 'forest castes'. They are the 2,000,000-odd villagers living in some 10,000 villages across Orissa. After …
Enter -The green rating project
Indian industry is huge. But most environmentalists believe it has done little to reduce pollution, which will only rise as the economy grows. …
India will soon play a major role
SIRPA Pietikainen, Finland's environment minister, says the world has quite a few things to learn from India, especially when it comes to …
The spirit of the sanctuary
Sacred groves - tracts of virgin forests - are vestiges of an ancient practice in which people protected a forest to avoid the wrath of its …
Sarpamitras to get ID cards in Maharashtra
Some voluntary snake rescuers were found involved in smuggling snakes or keeping them in captivity, prompting forest department to fix …
Saga of two villages
Sukhomajri was a dirt-poor village in Haryana. It started pulling itself out of its hole in the late 1970s, making a dizzying ascent to …
OFFICIALLY BANKRUPT
June 30, 2004: The India Eco-Development Project -- a project meant to enhance the country's biodiversity and provide people living inside and …
How Bellary was laid waste
Karnataka’s Lokayukta Santosh Hegde’s report is a sordid story on the rise of India’s mining poster boy, Bellary. The …
Are community reserves the answer to conservation?
The 2002 Amendment to the Indian Wildlife Protection Act (1972) -- the bible of the conservation movement -- calls for a new category of …
Organic goes online
India’s organic food exports have found a new strength—online traceability. Web-based TraceNet can trace an organic product right …
Whitley Award winner's mission hornbill
Hornbills, the awkward-looking birds with over-sized beaks, are important for the regeneration of Himalayan forests in north-east India. They are …
My report is not an industry report: T S R Subramanian
The High Level Committee (HLC), constituted by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) three months ago to …
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