Jatropha plantation policy has gaping holes

The Planning Commission's approach draft for the 11th Five-Year Plan has raised concerns regarding the environmental and socio-economic impacts of the ongoing jatropha plantations for developing bio-diesel in various parts of the country. The report says being a water-intensive crop jatropha plantations could lead to a drinking water shortage, and encroach on pastoral lands and animal habitats.

Bee species are missing, pollination on high risk

Dense reasoning

Doomsday vault in Arctic to save crop diversity

Biodiversity: Animals protect humans against diseases

if you are living with lizards in your house, don't crib. Once in a while, one of them might drop on your table, but most of the time they are doing you a favour: free pest control.

Floating islands of the world

Surely chunks of solid earth on which we stand cannot drift easily about the surface of a water body. But floating islands do indeed exist on six of the seven continents and sometimes in the oceans between them. These islands are kept buoyant by the light spongy tissues of certain aquatic plants, by gases released into their soil by decomposing vegetation, or by both these forces.

Nitrogen threatens biodiversity

increasing atmospheric concentration of nitrogen threatens plant species in sensitive ecosystems in the developing world, claims a recent study. The Western Ghats and Sri Lanka are likely to be the worst affected.

Online

http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/enviro.nsf/Content/BiodiversityGuide BIODIVERSITY AS A KEYWORD

Slow to share

The Convention on Biological Diversity (cbd), created during the Rio-92 World Summit on Sustainable Development, has three stated goals -- environmental conservation, sustainable use and equitable access and benefit sharing (abs). The last of the three -- access and equitable share in benefits from the use of biodiversity -- excited the developing countries the most, initially.

In Short

jn-nurm gets a chair: The Union ministry of urban development has appointed Ramesh Ramanathan, founder of Janaagraha, a citizens' movement on participatory democracy, as the honorary national technical advisor and chairperson of Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. The mission aims to ensure citizens' participation in the integrated development of infrastructure services in cities. The mission covers 63 cities in India.