TO SAVE THE JUNIPER

Juniper forests in Pakistan are likely to get an added lease of life. The Pakistan Environment Protection Council (PEPC) has launched a Rs 15 million pilot project to protect the world's second largest juniper forest in the Ziarat valley of Balochistan.

Forests march

MAKAR Sankranti, January 14, is an auspicious day for Hindus. In Rajasthan, it is the day of reconciliation. This year, a motley group of 15-odd people set out that day on a 15,000 km walkathon through 18 sanctuaries and national parks (NPs) spread over 5 states. Their moving force was a single slogan: "Jangal, jal, zameen bachao" (Save the jungles, the lakes and the land).

Lost in the deep woods

IT'S a bit less than a conspiracy, a bit more than a fetish. Five international organisations have made forest conservation their overriding priority. The gigantic United Nations bureaucracy based in New York, Washington, Tokyo and Rome is breathing in carbon dioxide, breathing out oxygen.

The government encroached

One fine morning in 1990, forest officials informed tribals in Thakkarwari in the Pune district of Maharashtra that they had no right to plant trees in the forest they inhabited. The baffled tribals, of course, had no clue to the fact that the MEF had just issued guidelines for joint forest management.

The woods are lovely

COLONIAL forest administration, which didn't give a damn about the fecund land it was so easily reducing to cinders and stumps, lasted almost a century. The sad thing is that even after Independence, the imperial order of green decimation refused to come unstuck and is now almost pathologically entrenched in the minds of a bureaucracy paralysed by 40 years of self-misrule and a complete lack of a love 0' the land.

Branches into batons

AS A professional forester, I feel that the draft Forest Bill is a highly progressive document. The Act, which will come out after the Bill is passed, will greatly improve upon the existing Indian Forest Act of 1927. It is a comprehensive piece of legislation dealing with the preservation of our national wealth.

Whose forest is it, anyway?

IN THE face of mounting public criticism of the Union ministry of environment and forests' draft Forest Bill, environment minister Kamal Nath's quick sidestep to dismiss the document as a "non-paper" is nothing if not adroit strategy. Only this move could have saved his "green" ministry the embarrassment of getting caught in the act of clandestinely pushing through a draft with Draconian measures against forest users.

Foliage fever

IT WAS icing gone sour on a cake you can break your teeth on. On January 4 this year, the Madhya Pradesh food and civil supplies minister, Ramesh Solomonand, griped to the press about his disapproval of the state forest department's decision to impose a total ban on the collection of any forest produce in the national parks and sanctuaries under its jurisdiction.

The pitfalls of protection

The forest protection initiatives of villagers in Bihar and Orissa, while arising out of crises, are marked by pragmatism. The people have realised that protection is possible only once their often-conflicting needs have been met first, which is why villagers' committees closely regulate the use of forest resources.

Discordant notes dash empowerment dreams

THE powerment of people living in and around national parks and sanctuaries seems a distant dream as the divergent views on wildlife conservation of the parties involved belie all hope of consensus.