What are the political drivers for land rights of forest-dependent communities?
Prakash Kashwan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Connecticut. His research and scholarship focuses …
Timeline of an unwarranted act: How India has legislated on forests
Does independent India's first amendment to the Indian Forest Act reflect the changes in forest policy?
Telangana’s new forest conflict panels bring Centre-state land rights relation under scanner
FRA empowers Gram Sabhas and the committees headed by the sub collectors and the district collectors to determine and recognise the forest rights …
Letting go of the colonial hangover should be the goal of the new forest policy
Forest department in India needs to reverse its role from being the owner and regulator of forests to becoming a facilitator in community-managed …
Govt needs to address policy ambiguities affecting shifting cultivation: NITI Aayog
The NITI Aayog report recommends doing away with the practice of having divergent approaches towards shifting cultivation
India’s first forest-certification scheme gets global recognition
A Geneva-based non-profit recently decided to endorse the Certification Standard for Sustainable Forest Management designed for Indian forests
10 good news we got in 2018
As this year nears its end, here’s a look at stories by Down To Earth that brought some relief to an otherwise climate change-ravaged period
If passed, new forest policy will benefit private sector and hurt local ecology: experts
The draft policy talks about developing “public private participation models” for undertaking “afforestation and reforestation …
Forest Rights Act: Who is the encroacher and who is encroached upon
Thirteen years after a historic law was formulated to give forest dwellers legal ownership of their traditional land, their fate still hangs in …
Melbourne could go the Cape Town way: Study
A large forest near the city is on the brink of collapse, in turn endangering the city’s water supply
Final National Forest Policy to be out soon
Most comments in the draft policy concern with the dilution of the Forest Rights Act and opening up forest land for private players
COVID-19 has aggravated challenges to manage forests: UN Report
New UN report calls for greater sustainability and a greener, more inclusive economy to tackle the threats of COVID-19, climate change and …
Spirit of forest law being quashed in Gujarat
Petitioners approach Gujarat High Court over rejection of 1,13,000 claims out of the 1,82,000 individual claims from across the 13 districts
Himachal Pradesh’s decision to put wasteland in land bank undermines FRA
The state’s request to put degraded forest land in a land bank comes at a time when the government has been dragging its feet on …
Lack of indigenous people’s participation big barrier to mainstreaming of biodiversity: FAO
Some 15 per cent of global forests are managed as community resources by indigenous peoples and local communities
Missing the woods: The story of India’s vanishing forests in 20 cards
Some 25.87 million hectares of forest is missing from the latest assessment of India’s green cover. Here are some cards that tell the story
Centre uses SC order to turn forest land into revenue land
11-year-old order for relocating three Maharashtra villages used for conversion in 18 states
Forest Survey Report 2021: 11 states have lost forest cover; 21 have lost good forests
India’s forest cover has increased by just 1,540 sq km in two years, mostly due to plantation and agroforestry
Daily Court Digest: Major environment orders (May 6, 2019)
Down To Earth brings you the top environmental cases heard in the Supreme Court, the high courts and the National Green Tribunal
Six-fold increase in forest fires as temperatures rise in many states
The Forest Survey of India’s large forest fires monitoring programme data shows that there are 192 large, active fires in the country today
Forests can keep our planet cool
Improving our forests and farm practices offers a low-risk path for climate mitigation, while securing the lives of traditional communities
Tribal ministry tells states to stop rejecting FRA claims on invalid grounds
In a letter dated June 27, Leena Nair, the then secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs had written to the chief secretaries of states raising …
Forest Rights Act: From rights on paper to rights in practice
Local civil society organisations play a vital role in helping forest-dwelling communities assert and exercise their collective rights
‘Give us our forest back’
An unprecedented people’s movement might have forced the Odisha government to cancel a beer factory project, but there are many unresolved …
Wildlife Week: Improved fielding can help overcome sour relations at Pilibhit Tiger Reserve
Human-wildlife conflict has led to strained relationships between villagers and forest staff