IN NEWS: July 23,2010

Restructure Forest Policy to Save Wildlife: Padel

MUMBAI | JUL 23, 2010

Ruth Padel, an award winning British poet and descendant of the evolutionary scientist Charles Darwin, has said that it was important for India to restructure the forest policy to save wildlife.

"Special wildlife facilities should be available and should be independent of typical forest so that the already endangered wildlife species as well those who will become endangered in the coming years due to such illegal activities inside the forests could be saved," Padel, nature lover and a keen conservationist told reporters yesterday.

India has excellent conservationists and forest specialists and they should be given opportunities to save both forest and wildlife, she added.

Condemning the killing of RTI activist Amit Jethwa, Pedal said, "The killing of an activist clearly showed that there is a need for restructuring forest policy in relation to wildlife in India."……………………………………………

For full story please visit:

http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?688301

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TATA tries to silence critics, takes Greenpeace to court

2010-07-23 16:10:00

Claiming defamation and trademark infringement, TATA Sons has filed a lawsuit against Greenpeace in the Delhi High Court, asking for Rs. 10 crore in damages. The case is listed for hearing on July 27. In a press release, Greenpeace said it has been an outspoken critic of the Dhamra Port Project, being co-developed by TATA Steel, on account of the threat it poses to nearby protected areas and endangered species, including the olive ridley turtle. The lawsuit filed by TATA is an act to silence its critics. "TATA's threat of legal action is a desperate attempt to stifle the growing criticism over their port project, and divert attention from the real issue of the impact it will have on a biodiversity rich area. Public opinion is on the side of the turtles - over 150,000 Indians, leading scientists and turtle biologists(1), politicians and national NGOs(2) have come out against the port. By first ignoring and now trying to silence these voices, TATA is showing that it cares only about its bottom line, and not the environment," said Ashish Fernandes, Oceans Campaigner, Greenpeace India. The Dhamra port has been opposed by researchers and wildlife groups since it was first proposed in the 1990s, on account of its proximity to the Bhitarkanika and Gahirmatha protected areas. Bhitarkanika is India's second largest mangrove forest and the last stronghold of the saltwater crocodile, while Gahirmatha is one of the world's largest nesting grounds for the endangered olive ridley sea turtle…………………………….. For full story please visit: http://sify.com/news/tata-tries-to-silence-critics-takes-greenpeace-to-court-news-national-khxqkhgbgjb.html

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Mayawati’s park project at cost of trees: Apex court told

July 23rd, 2010

New Delhi, July 23 (IANS) The Supreme Court was told Friday that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s ambitious NOIDA park project dedicated to BSP and Dalit icons was being set up on land that was a “deemed forest” and large number of trees were being felled for the purpose.

“This was not a natural forest but a deemed forest that had a dense collection of variety of trees planted about 35 years ago,” senior counsel Jayant Bhushan told the green bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, Justice Aftab Alam and Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan.

The senior counsel said this following a query by Chief Justice Kapadia asking, “What is the basis of your submission that it is a forest land? What is the status of the said land in the revenue records?”

The counsel told the court that in revenue records the NOIDA park land was shown as agricultural land. He said the park was being set up by cutting large number of trees and denuding the entire area.

At this Justice Radhakrishnan wanted to know if all the trees were cut and what was their age. Jayant Bhushan told the court that the trees were planted when NOIDA was being set up in the mid 70s. He said the trees were more than 30 years old.

Jayant Bhushan said there were three issues that needed to be addressed by the court. One is whether NOIDA park was being set up on forest land. Secondly, whether the state government had taken the Ministry of Environment and Forests approval under the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification (EIAN) of 2006, and finally, its impact on the Okhala Bird Sanctuary that is in not far from the park.

In the meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh government in its affidavit before the Supreme Court has accused the MoEF of deliberately creating bottlenecks to delay the project.

The state government has taken exception to the centre’s affidavit seeking more time to undertake an “integrated and holistic” environmental impact assessment of the project.

http://www.dailytimesindia.com/2010/07/145108.htm

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Marginal worker force and forest cover change in India: An analysis

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Document Information:
Title:	Marginal worker force and forest cover change in India: An analysis
Author(s):	K.S. Murali, (Department of Ecology, French Institute, Pondicherry, India)
Citation:	K.S. Murali, (2004) "Marginal worker force and forest cover change in India: An analysis", Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, Vol. 15 Iss: 4, pp.443 - 449
Keywords:	Economic planning, Economic resources, Forestry, India, Land, Regeneration
Article type:	Case study
DOI:	10.1108/14777830410540171 (Permanent URL)
Publisher:	Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Abstract:	Data were gathered on demographic, forest-related and geographic parameters to understand the pattern of forest cover change in the Indian subcontinent and discern any underlying factors contributing to forest cover change. Observations indicated that the marginal worker force in many states influences the forest cover change. The states with a lower percentage of forest cover to their geographical area undertook large-scale plantation activity to enhance the forest cover in the state. Incidentally, these states also had a higher proportion of marginal worker population to their total population. However, the states with high proportion of forest area had a lower proportion of marginal worker population, indicating there is a relation between the proportion of marginal workers in the population to the proportion of forest cover in the state. Thus, a proportion of population that is mostly dependent on the forest for its livelihood in some part of the year becomes unemployed if forests are denuded. Concludes that the forest in a given locality enhances employment opportunity for the local people for their livelihood sustenance. Therefore the policy initiatives should look into employment generation opportunity, apart from enhancing forest cover and regeneration of these forests.

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