Empower communities to restore forests: Study
Crucial forest-restoration areas in low-income countries — home to 12 per cent of their total population — can have an impact on …
Summer bushfires: How are the plant and animal survivors 6 months on? We mapped their recovery
Australia roared into 2020 as a land on fire. The human and property loss was staggering, but the damage to nature was equally hard to fathom
Missing timber for wood
As the demand-supply gap for timber widens in India, it is time to exploit the potential of private plantations and government-managed forests in …
Bamboo liberation day
According to former environment minister Jairam Ramesh, minor forest produce is a ownership right vested by Parliament under Forest Rights Act
Nearly 3 bln animals perished in Australian bushfires: WWF study
An estimated 143 million mammals, 180 million birds, 51 million frogs and 2.5 billion reptiles affected
Two incidents that made me ask: Whither forestry extension?
Extension programmes in forest institutions are meant to benefit stakeholders, mainly farmers, villagers and rural communities
Chhattisgarh revokes: Forest dept no longer nodal agency for community rights
Chhattisgarh government reinstates the role of the forest department to coordinate claims that are to be filed by communities, …
Tree-planting campaigns can reduce, not improve biodiversity, shows study
Tree plantations can contradict the real purpose of planting trees, according to the study
Forest paradox
To give forest dwellers their due rights, forest governance must go beyond the environment and include the communities at stake
Forest to farms
India's paper industry now sources more wood from farmers. Why does it still demand forestland?
Nearly 213 ha in protected areas diverted between April and July
Standing committee of the National Board for Wildlife approved 21 projects for diversion, deferred 7 for later
Nearly 500 ha forest land in protected areas diverted in 2019
Standing committee of the National Board for Wildlife gave nod to carry out 68 projects in protected areas
State inaction
The traditional forest dweller has had very few entitlements down centuries. Guardian of the forest, he has been regarded as encroacher by the …
India continues to lose forest land to non-forestry projects
Central environment ministry reports diversion of 11,467 hectares forest land in 2019 (up to first week of November)
Meaning of 'forest' set to change in India
How should a 'forest' be defined in India? The Union ministry of environment and forests is currently preoccupied with this question. Placing …
A new roadblock
Tribal affairs ministry objects to Maharashtra's Village Forest Rules that violate FRA. Other ministeries pressure it to backtrack
Halfway through
Tribal affairs ministy attempts to give forest dwellers their due welfare benefits, through a compromise
Bhutan’s experiments with happiness
The idyllic Buddhist kingdom believes that peace and happiness should take preference over material growth. In a world beset by inequities and …
‘Forests can’t survive without communities’
Nepal’s Forest Act of 1993, which allows communities to manage their forests, is admired and emulated by governments and movements across …
Forest conservation is too complex an issue to be resolved by executive fiat
The condition of India's forest and her forest dwellers is extremely grave. A fresh round of police attacks on tribal people -- four dead in Dewas,…
Private affairs
The invitation was innocuous. The Confederation of Indian Industry (cii) -- the grouping of the large and most powerful industries -- was …
Wealth of forests withheld
Forest departments across the country owe millions of rupees to communities. For 20 years communities toiled under the Joint Forest Management …
Rights without benefits
Over 1.3 million tribals and forest dwellers have got rights over the land they had been using for years under the Forest Rights Act. This can, …
Bamboo rising
Five years after it was implemented, the Forest Rights Act finally takes root. Communities across the country rush to claim rights over forests …
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 …