Thousands of acres of uncultivable forested hills in Haryana, Gurgaon and Faridabad face the same prospect

Two decades ago when Sunil’s parents sold off 25 acres of their family’s share of land in the Mangar forests of Faridabad, they and other villagers thought the buyers were fools to buy it up because they were assured that they could continue to use it for grazing cattle and firewood. Today, 25-year-old polio-stricken Sunil has dropped all his other dreams and moves with lightning speed on his crutch, across the forest, in government offices and with fellow activists “to save the forests from a determined State government that wants to open it for colonisation.”

The Cabinet committee on economic affairs is expected to accept the environment ministry’s proposal to create a National Plan for Conservation of Aquatic Eco-systems (NPCA) by merging the existing National Lake Conservation Plan and National Wetlands Conservation Programme.

The objective will be the holistic conservation and restoration of the water quality of lakes and wetlands thereby improving biodiversity. The estimated cost of the proposed project, planned for the 12th Plan period, is `900 crores on 70:30 cost-sharing between the Central government and the respective state governments while for the Northeastern states it will be on a 90:10 basis.

PUNE: The proposal to reserve land in merged villages for bio diversity parks (BDP) has been officially passed.

The environment ministry is hardly a “green roadblock ministry” as is being made out by the PMO.

The MoEF’s Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) on River Valley and Hydroelectric Projects considered a total of 262 hydropower and irrigation projects in the last six years and green signalled every single one of them. Contrary to the PMO’s claims, not a single project has been rejected. This means that between 2007 and December 30 2012, stage 1 clearance was given for hydropower projects with an installed capacity of 48,456 MW which is 25 per cent more than what India has installed in 66 years of independence.

The environment ministry's 'No-go' areas for miners are back on the government's agenda.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has sought Rs 462 crore in its budgetary allocation for improving the forest cover in India by five million hectares over the next 10 years as part of

Pune: The proposal to reserve land in merged villages for bio diversity parks (BDP) has been officially passed. But the major tasks lies ahead as the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and citizens face a stiff challenge to protect the open tracks of lands from encroachers.

The state government has clearly put the responsibility on the civic body asking it to take care of the BDPs on its own. Environmentalists, on the other hand, say the PMC should devise a mechanism to protect the land from slums. Experts say that protecting public lands, parks and water bodies has become an increasingly uphill task. Adequate involvement of people, policy makers and politicians which is most essential for effective management of common resources in the city is shrinking rapidly.

Two-thirds of Britain's 337 species of common larger moths have experienced a substantial decline over the past four decades, a survey has shown.

Jaipur: The environment report card is out and Rajasthan is among the worst performers in the country. A latest compendium of “Environment Statistics India 2012” released by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MOSPI) indicates that Rajasthan’s environment situation is appalling.

The state has the fifth highest consumption for pesticides in the country. This despite Rajasthan’s contribution to agriculture being under 10% nationally. Moreover, agrarian states like Punjab and Haryana have witnessed a dip in usage of pesticides even as it goes up in Rajasthan. The report noted that the due to excess use of pesticides, organisms develop resistance and lead to major health issues.