Three decades ago, in 1992, the Constitution 73rd (on Panchayat Raj) and 74th Amendment Acts (on Nagarpalika or urban local bodies) were enacted. These were the first definitive steps to…
The historic rise in temperatures this year has affected the lives of many in India. This has also renewed focus on the impacts of climate change. Even as people are…
An international team of scientists has confirmed that current environmental protections in South and Southeast Asia fail to safeguard tree species and their valuable seed sources. The team studied the…
This summer it will be thirty years since the Rio Earth Summit. Unlike the earlier decadal anniversaries, this year the United Nations is not celebrating an event to mark the…
For every dollar that goes into tree plantation programmes, at least half is wasted, according to an analysis of tree planting data in India’s Himachal Pradesh. The study sheds light…
The months of March and April are busy for the people of Masiyari, a village in Madhya Pradesh, adjacent to a forest. It’s the season for mahua flower collection. Everyone…
The revision of the formula to calculate how India assesses the value of its forests was long pending. In January 2022, an expert committee appointed by the Supreme Court of…
Medicinal plants in the Himalayas are under threat due to climate change, which calls for reviewing current conservation strategies, including protected parks in the mountain ranges, new research shows. The…
Thirty-year-old Bhagbali has vivid childhood memories of life in his village Bokrakachhar, amidst the forests of Chhattisgarh. Reminiscing about the time before his family and many others were displaced from…
On July 5, 2021, during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, BJP member and Rajsamand MP Diya Kumari wrote to the Centre, seeking that the Kumbhalgarh and Todgarh Raoli Sanctuaries…
The Similipal biosphere reserve in the Mayurbhanj district in Odisha was ravaged by devastating forest fires last year in February-March, affecting close to one-third of the area of the Similipal…
The government of India has been trying to change how India’s forests are governed, especially the national forest policy, for at least six years now but has been unable to…
India is yet to fully explore over 80 percent of its reserves of bauxite (an aluminium ore), notes a committee of India’s parliament, while emphasising that issues related to land…
Tree planting or forest restoration has now become one of the important routes to achieve net zero targets by 2070 as committed by India at the climate conference COP26 conducted…
The government of India is planning an ambitious programme for the rejuvenation of 13 major Indian rivers through forestry interventions at a cost of nearly Rs. 19,300 crores (Rs. 193…
In the mountainous district of Wayanad in Kerala, the Meenangadi grama panchayat has launched a process for turning their area carbon neutral. The measures, planned and implemented by the local…
Almost eight years ago, on March 25, 2014, at least 31 women from Jharauta village in Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh were arrested for protesting against the commencement of the…
In January 2022, five people were killed in a landslide at Tosham’s Dadam mining zone in the Bhiwani district of Haryana, a northern Indian state. The incident put the spotlight…
At a time when India’s standing forests are under threat – with 14 percent of the country’s tree cover being lost in 2019-20 alone, according to Washington-based Global Forest Watch -…
A thrilling and evocative read, ecologist Nitin Sekar’s book What’s Left of the Jungle? A Conservation Story might feel deeply familiar to the readers of Jim Corbett’s adventures. A fish-out-of-water…
