Community forest management is the future

It has been 10 years since the Joint Forest Management (jfm) was officially started in India. Ajit Banerjee, who first experimented with the …

A lesson for India

Despite disputes over commercialisation of forest produce, experts believe the movement will not be derailed. Meanwhile, India can take a lesson …

A troubled frontier

A government circular aimed at ending commercialisation of forests in the terai affects the hills, too. In the process, it threatens to derail …

Chronicling CFM

Community forestry, as it is practiced today, is a result of the government's willingness to learn from its past mistakes. Also, traditional …

People in development

THE ART OF FACILITATING PARTICIPATION·Shirley A White·Sage Publications, New Delhi·1999·Rs 250·367pp

Chhattisgarh’s Godhan Nyay: How it aims to revive rural economy, organic farming

A significant number of beneficiaries of the scheme are women and from backward community. Balod, Dhamtari, Durg, Raipur and Rajnadgaon districts …

Inside slum lanes, a Delhi group helps quell hunger

The intiative, led by students and teachers of Delhi University along with lawyers and activists, feeds 800 slum dwellers a day

A decentralised system will lead to sustainable water use

S Vishwanath, a Bangalore-based engineer and planner, started the Rainwater Club to help people manage rainwater efficiently. He spoke to Binayak …

Health care should be cheaper and more accessible

N H ANTIA Director of the Foundation for Research in Community Health, Pune, Maharashtra is striving to promote the concept of better health care …

Who is protected?

The Lok Sabha passed Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Bill with complete amendments on August 9, 2001, twenty months after it …

A bushful of medicine

Seabuckthorn, a plant with numerous medicinal properties, grows wild in India. Rural communities are the losers

Water is wealth

Excerpts from the Statement of Shared Concern by the participants of the CSE conference on Potential of Water Harvesting: Traditions, Policies …

Corporate wastelands

Tamil Nadu seems set to gift community land to corporates under the name of wasteland regeneration

At loggerheads

While the state government is keen to introduce JFM, villagers say there is no need for that since they have been carrying out all protection …

Message in a baton

The decades after Independence saw rampant destruction of trees. This was followed by years of drought. It was then that the villagers realised …

Farmers can only teach traditional knowledge

P S Ramakrishnan , former director of G B Pant University in Nainital, Uttar Pradesh and currently professor at the School of Environmental …

Last mile smile

Communities are coming together in Jharkhand to create vigilance mechanisms to enforce food entitlement programmes

Spreading root

OLD ROOTS, NEW SHOOTS: A STUDY OF JOINT FOREST MANAGEMENT IN ANDHRA PRADESH·C S Rangachari and S D Mukherji·Winrock International …

How Chunar, a small town in UP, is combating COVID-19

How awareness drives involving local bodies, distribution of PPEs and other equipment, helped turn the COVID-19 situation around  

Micropowerful

A microhydel project a day. Communities snatch the initiative from the government to electrify rural Nepal

Proactive planning

It's not about fighting the problem later, it's about pre-empting the problem. Measures against air pollution and plastics are all about taking …

Three avenues, one goal

The focus is on development of hydropower, industries and food production: how sustainably can the targets be achieved?

TRAMPLED DESTINIES

What happens if conservation is based on half-baked knowledge? Ask a person rendered homeless by wildlife managers "No conservation strategy …

WORKING IN ISOLATION

A mutual lack of trust and understanding between forest officials and wildlife scientists may be responsible for the mismanagement of India's …

CONSERVATION TO DEATH

Misguided conservation efforts are leading to depletion of biodiversity and exploitation of poor people