Category: Environment, Forest and Climate change

Protect ocean ecosystem, tap blue economy, says Venkaiah

The Hindu || Prakash Kamat || March 24, 2019

‘Initiate programmes to harness ocean reserves sustainably’

Vice President of India M.Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday cautioned against the further degradation of oceans and their ecosystem. He was visiting Goa.

“India should fully tap the enormous potential of the blue economy to achieve higher growth and initiate appropriate programmes for sustainable harnessing of ocean reserves,” Mr. Naidu told students and officials at the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) here. Read more

In an ancient land, a forest’s impending destruction threatens India’s future

Scroll.in || Samar Halarnkar || 24 March 2019

Opening Chhattisgarh’s Hasdeo Arand to mining will hasten the devastation of the Adivasi people and the country’s natural resources.

In the heart of India, there is a land called Gondwana. Geologists borrowed the name to provide an identity to Gondwana or Gondwanaland, a prehistoric supercontinent that gave birth to India before humans evolved. It is also a name derived from some of India’s most ancient people, a tribe called the Gonds. Read more

Centre’s nod for mining in 170,000 hectares of forest in Chhattisgarh

Hindustan Times || Jayashree Nandi, New Delhi || March 21, 2019

Hasdeo Arand is one of the largest contiguous stretches of very dense forest in central India, spanning about 170,000 hectares.

The Union environment ministry has given environmental clearance for open cast coal mining in Parsa in Chhattisgarh’s dense Hasdeo Arand forests, in a decision that could have far-reaching consequences for forest cover conservation in India.

Hasdeo Arand is one of the largest contiguous stretches of very dense forest in central India, spanning about 170,000 hectares. Parsa is one of the 30 coal blocks in Hasdeo Arand and is owned by the Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Ltd (RVUNL). Read more

Centre drafts stricter alternative to Colonial-era Indian Forest Act, 1927

Nitin Sethi & Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava | New Delhi | March 21, 2019

Forest bureaucracy to get more policing powers, including higher immunity to use firearms and override Forest Rights Act

The Union government has proposed an overhaul of the Indian Forest Act, 1927 which the British rulers imposed to take over Indian forests, use them to produce timber, while curtailing and extinguishing rights of millions. But, in the draft law to replace the colonial-era act, the Union government has proposed to not only retain but enhance policing and quasi-judicial powers that the forest officials enjoyed under the original act and provide them yet more. This includes powers to use firearms with exceptional levels of immunity from prosecution. Read more

Disempowering gram sabhas

The Hindu || Chitrangada Choudhury || MARCH 20, 2019

Since 1980, through the Forest Conservation Act (FCA), the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF) has “diverted for non-forest use” (bureaucratese for destroyed) over 1.5 million hectares of forest. How many Adivasis and forest-dwellers have been evicted by this ‘lawful’ forest destruction? Stripping these forests has yielded thousands of crores of rupees for corporations to which a bulk of these forestlands were diverted, and for forest departments via compensatory funds. But how have the original inhabitants of these forests, already among the most marginalised, coped with the loss of homes and livelihoods?

A deafening silence meets these questions. We cannot find answers, yet, in Supreme Court hearings on a petition by a set of conservationists and former forest officers motivated, self-admittedly, by forest protection concerns. On February 13, the court ordered the eviction of 1.8 million Adivasi and forest-dwelling claimants under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, to stem supposed forest destruction. On February 28, it stayed the order until a July hearing. Shouldn’t the destruction of over 1.5 million hectares of forest, and the misuse of the FCA, seize the court and petitioners? And how would the FRA perform on forest stewardship, where the FCA is failing? Read more

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