Dial tol-free

Not a blade of grass

...although the now bald pate of Iceland was once resplendent with grass and verdant willow, rowan and birch forests

A motley crew of forest protectors

In Karnataka's Kodagu district, a group of people battling timber traders trying to exploit their region's virgin forests has earned the wrath of …

The parching of India's Venice

Kerala finds its rivers drying up and beginning to die

Shifting greening options

Is jhum cultivation still a viable option for the future?

The axe and human civilisation

The use and abuse of wood is a major theme in the history of humankind according to a new book, A Forest Journey

A Himalayan plunder

RITA ANAND looks at changes in Himalayan forest cover in historical perspective, focusing on the Kaghan Valley in northern Pakistan

Saved from the axe

Spirited village women in Himachal Pradesh save a clump of deodar trees from being chopped by mercenary woodcutters.

Of barren hills and barrel smoke

Militancy has destroyed much more than peace in Kashmir. Kalashnikov-trotting extremists are ravaging the last green frontiers of the 'heaven on …

Saving the earth

Techniques developed by villagers in Himachal Pradesh can be integrated into plans to reclaim rocky wasteland in the hills

Putting trees before human life

On a single day in 1731, more than 350 persons -- 69 of them women -- sacrificed their lives to protect their trees from being felled in Jalnadi …

Power crunch in paradise

Port Blair, port city of the Andamans, is in a developmental cul de sac

Wild & fragile

The Western Ghats in the south of India have forests which are, for some plant species, their exclusive home on this earth. No wonder then, that …

Assessing poverty-deforestation links: evidence from Swat, Pakistan

This blog is based on a paper that contributed to the debate on the links between poverty and forestry degradation; the view that due to poverty …

Death by starvation

About 11 million people in Orissa and Bihar have become victims of a famine that has occurred despite adequate food stocks in the country.

Still in the Woods

The second Intergovernamental Panel on Forests discussed a lot of issues, yet remained more of a warm up for the final session

Green puzzle

A cross-section of opinions in response to 'Dark truths and lost woods' (pages 31-41) by ANIL AGARWAL

Death of a Neem tree

An open letter to the Prime Minister

Drowned

Assam's Dhemaji district faces extermination by floods

There's more to trees than timber

New thinking on forestry management calls for reducing the emphasis on sustainable timber production and concentrating instead on the protection …

Wisdom from an obscure archipelago

In Down To Earth's first Country Report, ANIL AGARWAL and SUNITA NARAIN look at Papua New Guinea, its short but volatile transition to the market …

Fights for space

Once harmonious, the human-elephant relationship has taken an ugly turn. Faulty forest policies and nationwide destruction of elephant habitats …

Eaten hollow

The sal heartwood borer is all set to destroy sal forests in Madhya Pradesh. But this would not have been possible without the assistance of an …

How development loses meaning

The abstract noun 'development' is firmly a part of the public relations language governments use today. But after a recent ordinance passed by …

Stark facts: Forest destruction

“What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another”- M K …