Figuring out natural costs

ECONOMICS is going green. According to a growing band of experts, now labelled "green economists", sustainable development can only be achieved if economic theory can be utilised to determine sustainable natural resource use patterns.

Building up a dangerous trend

JUST 55 seconds in duration, it left 1,000 people dead. The earthquake, measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale, which devastated the hills of Uttarkashi, Tehri Garhwal and Chamoli districts in UP last October, also left 20 per cent of the houses in the region totally destroyed or severely damaged. What was most alarming was that about 80 per cent of the

Statehood first, ecology later

JHARKHAND today is closer to reality than it has ever been. This summer saw Jharkhand leaders sweat it out in Delhi while waiting for cabinet committee meetings to decide the issue. They don't expect the Centre to grant statehood right away. A senior leader puts it this way, "We will probably get a union territory consisting of the districts of south Bihar, but the Centre has to

Environmental scapegoats

WHILE foresters and policy-makers cry themselves hoarse calling for bans and pointing accusing fingers at goats, the animals themselves go on unperturbed, secure in the fact that for the poorer sections, they are often the only means of survival. The primary accusation against goats is that of desertification, though all evidence points to the contrary. R M

Clearing the clouds

THIS was one storm that the meteorologists couldn't predict. When Vasant Gowariker, scientific adviser to the Prime Minister, and a team of meteorologists from the India Meteorological Department (IMD), announced in early April that the coming monsoon will be on the lower side of normal, the prediction drew a great deal of flak.

Chopping down the future

ARUNACHAL Pradesh is one of the greenest states in India. Yet today, despite having only seven persons to a square kilometre and about 8.4 million ha of rich vegetation, the state is gravely threatened by deforestation. Forest officials claim an almost 14 per cent increase in forest cover between 1980 and 1987. About half this increase can be attributed to the inclusion of areas which satellite images

The global green farce

It was something that nobody would have expected to hear at a global environment conference. The scene: the last preparatory committee meeting for the Rio conference. The US delegation suddenly threw a bombshell. It demanded that all references to control of overconsumption be deleted as these had -very low priority" in industrialised countries.