Category: Environment, Forest and Climate change

Adivasi rights groups petition Parliament against Compensatory Afforestation Fund law

Adivasi rights groups from across the country have petitioned Parliament demanding that the government should either repeal the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016, or amend it to ensure that Adivasi rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2009, are not violated by the compensatory plantations that the law facilitates.

The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is in the process of finalising the rules to implement this law, which seeks to manage the distribution of funds – now amounting to more than Rs 50,000 crore – collected as a levy from industries, miners and others who need to fell forests for their projects. The Act allocates this fund to the forest departments of states to set up plantations to replace the lost forests.

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Courtesy: Scroll.in

NGT Chief, Justice Swatanter Kumar: A Golden era in the green Justice

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has been supportive and has cooperated with the National Green Tribunal (NGT), outgoing Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar said on Tuesday. Justice Kumar was the chairperson of the Tribunal from December 2012, and passed landmark orders on cleaning of Ganga, Yamuna, Delhi’s air pollution, and coal mining in Meghalaya. He was appointed as a Supreme Court judge in December 2009, and he served as the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court before that.

His last day in the Tribunal witnessed a full-bench reference that was followed by a small function, attended by lawyers of the NGT Bar Association, as well as the Tribunal’s staff and law students. Justice Kumar said that NGT, as an institution, has been able to leave international impact and that it became a star on the international map.

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Courtesy: dnaindia

Telangana’s Kaleswaram project gets final environmental clearance

The Kaleswaram project, being built across Godavari River in Telangana, has received environmental clearance from the Union Environment, Forest and Climate Change Ministry, it was announced on Monday.

The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) on irrigation projects gave the clearance for the project at its meeting held on December 5, according to the minutes of the meeting released in Hyderabad by the Telangana government.

Being built at a cost of about Rs 80,499 crore, the project will divert 180 TMC of water to irrigate 7.38 lakh hectares.

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Courtesy: News Minute

B.H.P. Billiton, Acknowledging Climate Change, to Quit Coal Group

MELBOURNE, Australia — One of the world’s largest coal companies, acknowledging the growing momentum toward addressing climate change, said it planned to pull out of a major industry group over its environmental stances.

B.H.P. Billiton, the British-Australian mining company, said in a report Tuesday that it planned to withdraw from the World Coal Association, an international lobbying group, because of differences in climate and energy policies. The report also noted that B.H.P. would review its relationship with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in light of the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord.

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Courtesy: The New York Times

Rights for the rightful owners

On this day 10 years ago the historic Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act was passed in the Lok Sabha. Its conception and passage was the result of the decades of struggles and sacrifices of millions of tribals across India, of their organisations, of numerous activists and intellectuals working on tribal issues, and because of the commitment and efforts of the Left parties. Read more

Courtesy: The Hindu

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