Rs 11,000 crore lost in woods

   The drama over Indian forests from a price fix in 2002 to being shortchanged of Rs 11, 000 crore in 2009 Read more...

Rainforest route to clean economy

Kyoto has been a start. The most ambitious attempt to address climate change till date, it has mobilized more than 180 countries to agree on a protocol to reduce greenhouse gases by 5.2 per cent below the 1990 levels by 2012; establish systems to estimate, monitor and report on emission compliances; invest in clean technology exchanges; and build mechanisms for trading carbon offsets.

CAMPA funds unlocked

Rs 11,000 crore to go to states for afforestation THE Supreme Court has ordered that Rs 11,000 crore, collected for diversion of forestland for non-forest uses, be released to state governments. States in India have long fought the Centre to recover the money they gave to the compensatory afforestation fund. Collected over seven years, the money has been lying idle because the states and the Centre disagreed over controlling the money.

The information is public

Supreme Court's Central Empowered Committee bound by law to respond to RTI applications

Badlands can earn

Sirsa afforestation project gets CDM certification eight remote villages of Haryana have entered the global carbon market. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (unfccc) registered an afforestation project on the degraded land of these villages as the world's first small-scale clean development mechanism (cdm) initiative.

CAMPA bill defeated

Apex court steps in, asks states for afforestation plans THE bill that proposed centralized management of funds, collected in lieu of permission to divert forestland to non-forest uses, was defeated in the Rajya Sabha on February 25. Members of the house objected to the bill saying centralized forest fund management goes against the federal system in India.

Pay and chop

Lok Sabha passes forest fund bill THE Lok Sabha on December 23 passed the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill without any amendment. The bill has been severely criticized by conservationists who say it institutionalizes diversion of forests to other land uses through a system of monetary compensation and does not protect forests. The Parliamentary committee on environment, to which the bill was referred October last, also said the bill should be scrapped in its present form.

That's your sink

Cleaning Spain, Canada, Sweden, Japan's air in remote villages of Himachal Pradesh "Money for growing trees on degraded land? Who could have thought of that," wondered Mani Ram, a resident of Ranhog in Solan district, Himachal Pradesh. The village has cautiously committed 32 of 83 hectares (ha) of government common land to the Himachal Pradesh Bio-Carbon Reforestation Project, the state government's clean development mechanism (cdm) initiative.

Afforestation push

New scheme, old proposal THE Union environment and forests ministry has come up with a new scheme for compensatory afforestation in case of forest land being diverted for non-forest use. Under the scheme the user will identify a piece of land, develop a forest and transfer it to the forest department. Called the Green Credit Scheme, it has got administrative approval and has been sent to the Supreme Court for its clearance.

No freeloaders

Nature cannot offer services without payment anymore