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Forests
Anti-POSCO protests gather steam
Issue Date: Apr 30, 2008
south Korean steel giant posco continues to face stiff public resistance in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district where the company is setting up a 12 million tonne steel plant. On April 1, protesters violated the district administration's prohibition orders and entered the Balitutha bridge near the plant site.
It's not just a matter of FAC anymore
Issue Date: Mar 31, 2008
the Supreme Court of India recently included the director-general of forests as a new member in its Central Empowered Committee (cec). The committee was constituted in 2002 to monitor cases related to forests and their diversion for non-forest use. The director-general of forests heads the Forest Advisory Committee (fac), a body under the Union environment ministry that grants clearances for diversion of forestland.
Pug marks hide the truth
Issue Date: Mar 15, 2008
a conference organized by the Union environment ministry on February 12 in the national capital
came out with the Tiger Census 2008 and the State of India's Forests Report 2005. Both came out with dismal figures a little
more than 1,400 tigers are left in the county; and over 725 sq km of forests have vanished between 2002 and 2004. Add to that
forestland diverted between 2004 and 2007--over 2,750 sq km according to the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests' data.
Agitation over forestland
Issue Date: Mar 15, 2008
A dispute over the rights of tribals to forestland in Gujarat took a violent turn on February 13 when two tribals were killed and three others injured in a police firing at Polo in Sabarkantha district's Vijaynagar taluka.
Trouble began when agitated people in the area say the police picked up 15 tribals accusing them of inciting others to claim forestland. After our appeals to release them did not yield any result, we decided to go to the police station, said Kajal Ninama, a tribal activist.
Armenia clears forestland for copper mine
Issue Date: Feb 29, 2008
Amidst protests from environmental groups, the Armenian government has given the go-ahead to an open-pit copper mine in the
Teghut forest.
The project is considered the largest mine in the country. On January 28, the government
cleared 1,570 hectares of Teghut forest for the project. The forest supports a large number of native species, including the
Syrian brown bear and the short-toed eagle. Green groups say the open-pit mine will have a large and lasting damage on the
Environment protection act reduced to a travesty of their mandate
Issue Date: Feb 15, 2008
Since 1980 different pieces of legislations have been enacted for environmental conservation. These include the Forest (Conservation) Act (fca), 1980, the Environmental Protection Act (epa), 1986 and the Biological Diversity Act (bda), 2002. These have the potential to strengthen the conservation agenda.
Butterflies prefer coffee to tea
Issue Date: Feb 15, 2008
you see a lot of butterflies hovering around coffee plantations. The reason is the plantations have scattered stands of trees for shade. And a change in ecology can affect their numbers.
Decoding the Niyamgiri verdict
Issue Date: Jan 31, 2008
On November 23, the Supreme Court of India refused to permit Vedanta Alumina Limited to mine bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills. Many have interpreted it as a blanket refusal to mining in the hills. Nothing could be further from the truth. The judges have only attempted to protect themselves from being charged with permitting mining by a company blacklisted by the ethics committee of the Norwegian government for environmental and human-rights violations.
Foresters, villagers vie for land in Bengal
Issue Date: Jan 15, 2008
tribal villagers in West Bengal's West Midnapore district chopped down around 6,600 young eucalyptus trees on a
six-hectare state forest department plantation recently. The residents claim the land in the district's Chandra forest range is theirs and they want it
back. Forest department officials rubbish the claims and are preparing to slap legal charges on the villagers.
