Although the collection of NTFPs (Non-Timber Forest Products) is an age-old practice in India and many other parts of the world, there is little concrete knowledge about the sustainability of long-term, intensive extraction of forest fruits, roots, shoots, bark, resins and other products, and what ecological changes follow the commercialization of an NTFP. Such information is required – by foresters, conservationists and local people – to understand the ways in which wild resources are being manipulated, the subsequent ecological impacts, … Read More
Whose Forest Is It Anyway?
The Saxena Committee’s recipe for redressing historic injustices to forest dwellers will precipitate an ecological crisis write Praveen Bhargav and Shekar Dattatri.
While there has been a huge uproar over the auctioning of the 2G spectrum at throwaway prices to private corporations, a far more valuable asset of the nation, biodiversity, is to be handed over to thousands of Grama Sabhas for virtually unregulated and limitless exploitation. This is one of the key recommendations of the Saxena Committee, which was … Read More
Minimum Support Price for Bamboo and Tendu Leaves
The Ministry of Environment and Forests is working with the 12th Planning Commission to ensure a Minimum Support Price for Bamboo and Tendu Leaves. Recently in March, Union Minister Jairam Ramesh had wrote the State Chief Ministers to declare Bamboo as a Minor Forest Produce. Reclassification gives local people and village assemblies control over the produce, thereby improving their incomes. … Read More
Eco-development in Periyar — an Objective Analysis
The India Eco-Development Project (IEDP) in Periyar Tiger Reserve, Kerala, has often been cited as a ‘successful’ project overall. Two years after the completion of the project, Sanjay Gubbi, Matthew Linkie and Nigel Leader-Williams independently evaluated the IEDP around Periyar Tiger Reserve (PTR) in south India and its USD 6 million component. Conservation India (CI) summarises the paper that originally appeared in Environmental Conservation.
Preamble:
The Government of India has requested funding from the Global Environment Facility for a new … Read More
Bamboo declared a Minor Forest Produce
In a letter to the Chief Ministers of all states, Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh has asked that the Forest Departments be directed to treat Bamboo as a Minor Forest Produce as per the Forest Rights Act (FRA) 2006. This directive gives Scheduled Tribes and traditional forest dwellers the right to own, access to collect and dispose of Bamboo. The forest departments have been refusing control in the past, as the Indian Forest Act, treats … Read More
The Myth of Harmonious Co-existence
A version of the article appended below was published as a lead Op-Ed in The Hindu, India’s National Newspaper, on August 13, 2005. It was written specifically to contest the views in a new bill that was being debated in the Indian Parliament, giving ‘forest dwellers’ permanent land rights within India’s tiny and shrinking forest areas, particularly, National Parks, Wildlife Sanctuaries and Tiger Reserves. The lobbies advocating the Forest Rights Act are also pressing for modern amenities to be provided … Read More
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