Judgment of the Supreme Court in the matter of In Re: Zudpi Jungle Lands. A batch of applications involved a peculiar issue concerning the situation prevailing in the six districts of eastern Vidarbha region namely Nagpur, Wardha, Bhandara, Gondia, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli. The issue pertains to the status of the …
The latest UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report highlights the sorry plight of the world's forests. According to the State of the World's Forests 1997, an estimated 11.3 million hectares (ha) of the world's forests are lost each year. The report also estimates that the area of the world's …
astronomists across the world are agog over the comet Hale-Bopp, as during its current run over the Earth, it is spewing tonnes of organic chemicals which could have been the building blocks of life. It is after nearly 4,000 years that Hale-Bopp, a 40-km-wide cosmic snowball of ice and dust, …
herbal medicines are taking a toll of rare plants in several Asian countries. According to a new study conducted by the British firm McAlpine, Thorpe and Warrier, and supported by botanists, 18 species of plants are facing extinction due to sales of herbal potions, growing by more than 10 per …
Officials of 160 countries would soon meet in Bonn, Germany, to negotiate cutbacks in the emissions of heat trapping gases linked to global warming. Although most experts agree that these gases may cause a rise in sea levels, there is a difference of opinion about the scale and severity of …
For decades, Venezuela has been a country rich in oil resources - the nation's principal treasure trough. And this major industry has always been overshadowing the country's petrochemical industry. So far, short of capital and know-how, the industry had been limited to the domestic market, while vast quantities of associated …
according to a national survey conducted in the late '80s, 69 per cent of India's protected areas ( pa s) have human populations and a large number of them have community rights. Therefore, the viability of setting up pristine wildernesses sanctuaries which are declared total protection areas as a remedy …
CLEAN AND SAFE: Cashing in on the growing requirement for clean water, the Pune-based Thermax Ltd is setting up a joint venture company with Culligan Water Technologies Ltd of the US. The new venture - Thermax Culligan Water Technologies Ltd - will provide products and services for quality water in …
A new soil conservation programme in Bhutan is in the pipeline after a recent assessment revealed that there is no proper scheme to regenerate degraded forests in this mountain kingdom. The project will aim to protect the fragile eco-system, check erosion in critical areas and improve the soil condition, said …
Of all the community forests being developed in Nepal's 57 districts, the forest region of Dang district is being fast developed as a model for community forestry. About a total of 27,000 families have been involved in this district as part of the project. An expert said, if the national …
• Only one-fifth of the world's original forests still qualify as frontier forests (large, intact natural forests). • Three countries - Russia, Canada and Brazil - house more than 70 per cent of the world's remaining frontier forests and half of this lies in the far north where resource-extraction costs …
THE largescale destruction of west Africa's tropical forests by farmers has been projected as a well-known environmental scandal. But recently, two British scientists have turned the controversy on its head by suggesting that almost half of the tropical forests that are said to have been destroyed by logging and farming …
green wheels: Greaves Ltd, a New Delhi-based Thapar group company, will be launching eco-friendly petrol and diesel versions of three-wheelers in the coming financial year. The diesel version, known as Greaves Garuda six-seater, will cost around Rs 60,000 per vehicle and will be powered by the Greaves diesel engine. The …
In its search for a strategy for afforestation, a laudable goal in itself, the Madhya Pradesh (mp) government has once again put its foot in its mouth and buckled down unduly to commercial lobbies. Its decision to relax the land ceiling laws to permit timber companies to take up plantations …
India's protected areas (PAs) account for 19 per cent of her forest cover and 4.3 per cent of her landmass. Thus, approximately 15 million hectares of forest land has been effectively locked away from people who have been dependent on them for centuries. Lopsided conservation policies can be apportioned the …
even as the Laotian government held a public discussion on the merits of a proposed us $1.5-billion dam in end-January, logging trucks roared through the village of Nakai Neua at the project site. The Nakai plateau in central Laos, home to 23 poor ethnic villages spread over an area of …
according to doctors at the Royal Northern Infirmary in Inverness in the Scottish highlands, moving house may be a significant factor in contracting asthma and allergic diseases. The doctors say that increasing mobility of families in developed countries could contribute to the rise of asthma in children. The health experts …
private sector participation in forestry projects will only be allowed in degraded and denuded forest lands. The recently approved Approach Paper to the Ninth Five Year Plan (1997-2002) says that the concept of privatisation of forest areas was not conducive in the Indian context and would therefore, not be encouraged …
for a section of the endangered Sumatran rhinoceros, survival is extra tough because they differ from their cousins. dna tests have revealed that about 70 Sumatran rhinos
sharks in the Atlantic are in dire straits indeed. Their plight has led the national marine fisheries service of the us to propose stringent restrictions on shark fishing. There has been a sharp decline in shark populations
