Releasing a major report on the country’s biodiversity, Indian environmentalists accuse the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), which commissioned the report, of delaying its release for nearly two years.

The document, released on October 4 by the Pune-based Kalpavriksh, one of the country’s foremost environmental organisations, warns that India’s biodiversity faces many threats such as habitat loss and over-exploitation of natural resources. These threats, it says, are largely due to India’s “unsustainable” model of development based on large-scale industry and commercial agriculture.

As well as pointing out gaps in Indian policies, the report recommends hundreds of actions to conserve and sustainably use Indian biodiversity.

The report is part of a national biodiversity strategy and action plan that India, like all signatories to the UN Convention on Biodiversity, is required to complete.

Key features of the report

• The report says India lacks a comprehensive national plan for land and water use. Also needed, it says, are inventories of India’s wild species, and data on their distribution and genetic diversity.
• It also points to a limited understanding of relationships between diversity of crops and wild species, and of traditional knowledge about Indian biological resources.
• The report makes over 300 recommendations for action in four key strategic areas: improved planning and governance, wild biodiversity; domesticated biodiversity; and links between wild and domesticated biodiversity.
• It gives high priority to incorporating water and land use in planning, strengthening conservation outside protected areas, using natural resources sustainably, and improving education, awareness and training.

Ashish Kothari, Kalpavriksh’s director says the MoEF should have published the report nearly two years ago. But, in March 2005, the ministry told Kalpavriksh that the report should not be made public. An official claimed that the ministry needed to finalise its national environment policy first -- which could take another month to complete. “The two documents have to be harmonised,” said the official.

In 2000, the ministry chose Kalpavriksh as the report’s technical coordinator. The decision to involve a non-governmental organisation (NGO) was hailed by analysts as an example of how government and NGOs could work together to address issues of national concern.

To prepare the report, Kalpavriksh spent nearly four years consulting over 50,000 people including local communities, activists, officials and scientists. The report was submitted to the ministry in December 2003.

According to Kothari, the ministry’s decision “ignores the energy and inputs that thousands of people have put into the process, and violates the contractual agreement between the ministry and the United Nations Development Programme, which funded the process”. The ministry claims, however, that it is Kalpavriksh that violated the agreement. “They are not its owners and cannot unilaterally release it,” said the official.

Kothari says that in January 2004 the ministry said the draft report would be released for cabinet approval. By May 2004, the ministry had changed its position, prohibiting anyone from publishing the report in any form or revealing its content.

In February 2005, the ministry told Kalpavriksh that it was uncomfortable with certain sections of the action plan, but did not specify which. The government has not shared the revised draft with its collaborating partners, nor indicated when it would be finalised.

Kothari believes one reason for the concern is that senior officials in the ministry oppose the decentralised approach to biodiversity conservation recommended by the report. This approach involves action at various political levels -- national, state and district -- as well as conserving biodiversity in ecologically similar zones across states.

The MoEF, Kothari says, is also unhappy with suggestions such as engaging with armed rebel groups in areas like northeast India, a biodiversity hotspot that is rife with militancy.

Source: www.scidev.net, October 4, 2005

A panel appointed by the Indian Supreme Court (SC) has recommended that the bauxite-mining licence to Vedanta Alumina Ltd’s controversial 1 million tonne aluminium refinery in the Niyamgiri forests in Lanjigarh, Orissa, be revoked for violating environmental guidelines. The SC body has also questioned the actions of the Orissa government and the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) in granting the licence.

The SC’s Centrally Empowered Committee (CEC) found that Vedanta had falsified information to obtain clearances -- received on September 22, 2004 -- from the MoEF.

In its report, submitted on September 21, 2005, the CEC also found that the company had destroyed over 10 hectares of forestland and begun construction on the site without obtaining separate and necessary clearances under the Forest Conservation Act. Vedanta is a UK-based mining company owned by billionaire NRI (Non-Resident Indian) Anil Agarwal.

The refinery project is integrally dependent on the availability of 3 million tonnes of bauxite ore from the densely forested Niyamgiri hills. Referring to the Niyamgiri forests as “an ecologically sensitive area,” the CEC recommended that the court consider revoking the environmental clearance granted to M/s Vedanta, and directing them to stop further work on the project.

The region, in Orissa’s impoverished tribal-dominated Kalahandi district, is an important wildlife habitat that forms part of the elephant corridor. It is also a proposed wildlife sanctuary, and its dense virgin forests are home to the endangered Dongaria Kandha tribe.

Alleging the complicity of the MoEF and the Orissa state government, the CEC said: “The casual approach, the lackadaisical manner and the haste with which the entire issue of forests and environmental clearance for the alumina refinery project has been dealt with smacks of undue favour/leniency and does not inspire confidence with regard to the willingness and resolve of both the state government and the MoEF to deal with such matters, keeping in view the ultimate goal of national and public interest.”

Environmentalists, tribal activists and human rights champions have welcomed the CEC report and expressed the hope that the Rs 4,000 crore project will be abandoned.

Meanwhile, rights groups in Tamil Nadu have said they will petition the Supreme Court and other appropriate authorities to order investigations into collusion by the State Pollution Control Boards and the MoEF favouring Vedanta group companies, including Sterlite and MALCO, despite violations of environmental regulations.

Vedanta also operates a copper smelter in Tuticorin through its subsidiary Sterlite Industries India Ltd, which, to date, has not received the requisite clearances and consent. As against a permitted annual production of 40,000 tonnes of blister copper, the company was openly manufacturing over 170,000 tonnes of copper anodes. It has also built a new smelter, refinery, cathode rod plant and captive power plant -- all without clearance from the MoEF or consent from the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB).

The Supreme Court Monitoring Committee (SCMC) on hazardous wastes visited Tuticorin on September 21, 2004, and took note of the violations, later recommending that the TNPCB stop construction work and close the Tuticorin plant. The TNPCB has yet to act on these directions.

MALCO operates an aluminium smelter and refinery in the Mettur dam area. In July 2003, a report by Justice (Retd) Akbar Kadri, chairman of the Indian People’s Tribunal investigating human rights violations by the company, found MALCO guilty of endangering the environment and public health. The company dumps ‘red mud’ -- a toxic by-product of bauxite processing -- on the banks of the Mettur reservoir that supplies drinking and irrigation water to seven districts in Tamil Nadu.

The Chennai-based Human Rights Tamil Nadu Initiative and the Tuticorin-based Veeranganai Women’s Movement have said that the CEC report clearly demonstrates the modus operandi of Vedanta/Sterlite and the tremendous clout the company enjoys with state and central governments.

They say the Tuticorin smelter is an even more blatant violation, revealing the extent to which corruption exists amongst India’s environmental regulators. “We demand that the illegal Tuticorin smelter be shut down immediately and a CBI enquiry initiated to investigate the complicity of the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board and the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests in condoning the illegal expansion, and endangering environment and public health.”

Source: www.indiatogether.org, October 6, 2005
              www.insightorissa.com, October 3, 2005
              The Indian Express, September 24, 2005

The Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) in Mumbai’s Borivali suburb helped mitigate some of the effects of the July 26 deluge by soaking up much of the surging waters from the Mithi river, say experts. This is why it is vital that spaces like the national park be preserved in the face of conflicting claims on them.

As the metropolis’ largest piece of green cover, the SGNP should be top of the list. “If it weren’t for the park, the death rate from the Mithi river flooding would have been higher,” says environmentalist Bittu Sahgal. Open spaces in the park helped soak up a considerable volume of the surging waters. Even in normal times, says Sahgal, “the water supplied by its Tulsi and Vihar lakes is crucial to Mumbai’s water security. If the SGNP goes, so do we”.

But the battle to preserve the park has been a long and vicious one involving complex issues like urban development, slum-dwellers’ rights and the man-animal conflict.

In 1995, the Bombay Environment Action Group (BEAG), led by Debi Goenka, filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Bombay High Court claiming there were 80,000 hutments and over 200 commercial establishments operating inside the SGNP. In 1997, the court ruled that the encroachers would have to go; those who had lived there pre-1995 would be relocated.

The court’s verdict was followed by a slew of counter-litigations -- non-government organisations (NGOs) working with slum-dwellers accused the forest department of being “anti-poor”. The government’s rehabilitation sites in Kalyan and Ambernath, they maintained, were too far away, and that not everyone eligible for rehabilitation was willing to pay the Rs 7,000 relocation fee.

In September 2003, the court ruled that once an area is declared a national park all other rights to the land cease to exist. This meant evictions, but the court had to order a stay on them in 2004 to follow an Election Commission of India directive requiring that voter lists not be disturbed ahead of the national polls.

P N Munde, conservator of forests, estimates that over 150 acres of park land are still encroached upon by around 24,000 hutments.

Soma Singh, counsel for the Appapara Rahivasi Sevasangh, which fought for the stay on behalf of people living in three areas surrounding the SGNP, claims many of them are “not on park land”. Expectedly, the forest department is not buying that argument. The issue can only be settled with a new survey demarcating park land, and proper fencing. Both projects are languishing. Singh also says the people were “eligible encroachers,” as pre-1995 residents, but were not offered the choice of rehabilitation before the demolitions began.

Another front in the battlefield opened up when 24 leopards were captured in 2004 after a series of leopard attacks on local residents -- the largest ‘catch’ ever. Most of them will never live free again. “This is how animals get punished for human intransigence,” says Gautam Patel, lawyer for the BEAG. Ideally, the leopards should never have been captured, or they should have been released soon after, but the public outcry left the forest department no other choice. “Capture becomes a public issue, with tremendous pressure on the department to trap the leopard,” says wildlife biologist Vidya Athreya.

Even though the amended Wildlife Protection Act advocates the capture and relocation of a dangerous animal, Athreya calls it “the worst thing you can do to a leopard”. Also, a leopard that has suffered extended captivity is more likely to become a man-eater when released.

According to Sahgal, the leopards can’t be called man-eaters. “People are crawling all over the park. These were accidental killings by stressed animals attacking what they perceived to be a threat.” Nor will the capture mean less leopard attacks. “Within the next few years, the population will be large again,” he predicts.

Man-leopard conflicts are inevitable in a national park hemmed in by urban settlements. Capturing leopards has become the easy solution for a city without the political will to protect its last pristine forest. “It’s very simple,” says Goenka. “Leopards don’t vote.”

Source: Outlook, September 13, 2005

Recent investigations by wildlife organisations reveal that a new breed of wealthy Tibetans who prize tiger skins as trimmings for their traditional costumes pose the latest and biggest threat to the tiger, which is fast heading towards extinction. Until recently, tiger bones used by practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine were thought to be driving the poaching trade.

The disappearance of the tiger from one of India’s premier sanctuaries Sariska has been attributed mainly to poaching. Hearing rumours that the new Tibetan trend for skins was behind a rapid increase in the activity, a team from the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency and the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) visited Tibet and China’s Sichuan and Gansu provinces in August.

There they found a staggering market for the animal skins -- much of which are being used for costumes and ceremonial events.

Belinda Wright, executive director of the WPSI said the time for scaremongering was over. “This is it. The end is now in sight for the Indian tiger. The sheer quantities of skins for sale are beyond belief. As the Sariska scandal so clearly showed, the Indian tiger is now being systematically wiped out.”

At horse festivals in Tibet and Sichuan, dancers, riders and spectators wandered about openly wearing the traditional chuba, generously trimmed with tiger and leopard skin, while organisers and local officials joined in.

The skins are smuggled along well-established Nepali trading routes into Tibet where they are sold openly in shops in the capital Lhasa. Using hidden cameras, Wright, who spent 35 years involved in tiger conservation efforts in India, toured the centre of old Lhasa posing as a buyer. “In 10 shops we found 24 tiger skin chubas, most of them decorated with great swathes of skin, and all openly displayed for sale.

“In 20 other shops, we recorded 54 leopard skin chubas. The dealers categorically told us that they had come from India. When we asked, we were shown three fresh tiger skins and seven fresh leopard skins in four different locations -- again, all from India.”

In one street in Linxia in China, around 60 snow leopard skins and 160 fresh leopard skins were openly displayed -- with many more rolled up in the back of shops. “We found over 1,800 otter skins, which are also used to decorate the costumes,” said Wright. “The quantity and blatant display of tiger and leopard skins in Tibet and China demonstrates a lack of awareness among customers about the plight of the tiger and the urgent need for targeted enforcement to stop traders from smuggling and illegally selling the animal skins,” she added.

What was perhaps most distressing was the apparent lack of concern among Tibetans wearing these chubas. In Sichuan’s Litang, Wright talked to a 21-year-old as he sat in his tent swathed in a fresh tiger skin that had cost his father about UK£ 6,700. “He said that he would wear it just twice a year -- during the Tibetan New Year and at the annual horse festival -- even though he said he didn’t particularly like it. “I asked him how wearing a dead animal’s skin could be compatible with his Buddhist religion, but he had no explanation except to say ‘I didn’t kill the tiger’,” Wright said.

Huge seizures of tiger, leopard and otter skins in India and Nepal show the existence of highly organised criminal networks behind the skin trade. They operate across borders, smuggling skins from India through Nepal into China, and continue to evade the law. Wildlife experts accuse the Indian and Chinese governments of seriously underestimating the scale of the problem and, through a mixture of corruption and bureaucratic inertia, failing to address it.

The EIA and WPSI have called on the Indian government to immediately establish a professional enforcement unit to target wildlife criminals who were controlling the trade, and urged China to take enforcement action to stop the smugglers.

Tigers and leopards are listed in Schedule 1 of the United Nations Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), thereby prohibiting international trade. Indian and Chinese laws both ban the killing, smuggling, buying or selling of these animals.

Source: The Daily Telegraph, September 23, 2005
The Hindu, September 23, 2005

The mountains of Asia, including the Himalayas, are facing accelerating threats from a rapid increase in the number of roads, settlements, overgrazing and deforestation, warn experts in a new report. The report voices concern that the region’s water supply, fed by glaciers and the monsoons and vital for around half the world’s population, may be harmed alongside the area’s abundant and rich wildlife.

‘The Fall of Water’, a joint report by the IUCN (the World Conservation Union) and the United Nations Environment Programme points to a critical gap in water supplies to billions of people in Asia and the crucial role of sound environmental management for sustainable development.

According to the report, satellite images reveal that deforestation and unsustainable land use could explain why the region’s rivers now have the largest sediment loads in the world and why dissolved nutrients in the water are increasing more than in any other region. This is one of the primary reasons for increasing human drought and flood-related disasters in the region, including the latest floods in China and India.

By combining a range of local studies with satellite images from 1960 up to today, scientists have been able to reveal for the first time the scale of land-use changes in the region. Surendra Shrestha, director of the UNEP’s regional office for Asia and the Pacific, said: “Most serious is the situation in parts of Pakistan, northern India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and South-East Asia.” Here, human population pressures and piecemeal development for logging and other purposes can have a great impact on biodiversity and watersheds, he added.

Key findings of the report:

• Many of the rivers in the region have already been affected by deforestation and increased use of water for irrigation. Only the Tarim river has somewhat high levels of protection, with around 21% of its river basin in protected areas. Unfortunately, it also has the greatest relative water consumption for irrigation and large areas of wildlife habitats have been laid bare for irrigation to support growing settlements.
• The rest, including the Huang He or Yellow river, the Indus, the Amu Darya, the Ganga and the Salween have, on average, just 2.5% of their basins protected.
• Climate change as a result of the burning of oil, coal and other fossil fuels is likely to aggravate water problems.
• Studies carried out by the UNEP and other environmental agencies have pinpointed some 50 lakes that have formed in Nepal and Bhutan in recent years as a result of melting glaciers. These lakes, held back by soil and stones, could burst their banks sending torrential floods down valleys threatening villages and homes.
• New calculations indicate that China’s highland glaciers are shrinking by an amount equivalent to all the water in the Yellow river each year. The Chinese Academy of Science says 7% of the country’s glaciers are vanishing annually and that, by 2050, as many as 64% of China’s glaciers will have disappeared.
• An estimated 300 million Chinese live in the country’s arid west and depend on water from glaciers for their survival.
• Up to half of Asia’s mountain region is affected by infrastructure development; by 2030 this could rise to over 70% if trends continue unchecked. The biggest impacts will be on river catchments and wildlife along the Karakoram highway, Pakistan, the Indian and southern side of the Himalayas and in southeastern Tibet and the Yunnan and Sichuan provinces of southwestern China.
• Overgrazing along road corridors in dry regions of Pakistan and China, resulting in erosion, landslides and dust storms, is also a huge problem.
• All countries in the region are likely to see a decline in the abundance of wildlife over the next three decades, on current trends. Lowland areas may see a decline of up to 80% in their historic abundance of wildlife, the decline depending on measures taken to steer development into more environment-friendly ways.
• Mountain and upland areas could witness a 20%-40% decline. There is particular concern for the remaining fragile populations of species like the snow leopard, the blacknecked crane and Przewalski’s gazelle.

The report was released prior to the UN World Summit in New York, called to assess progress in reaching the Millennium Development Goals that include the target of reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water. Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the UNEP, said: “Mountain areas are especially important and particularly vulnerable. These are the water towers of the world and home to unique wildlife species upon which local people depend for food, medicines and other important materials. They have often been saved from uncontrolled development by their remoteness. But modern engineering methods mean this is no longer the case.”

IUCN director general Achim Steiner said: “The fragile mountain ecosystems across the world are facing unprecedented threats. Some of these threats such as climate change are irreversible. But it is in our power to put development of these regions on a sustainable path through integrated management which blends economic, social and environmental interests.”

Researchers claim some countries including China and Nepal are now acting to develop parks and protected areas aimed at conserving the Asian region’s water supplies and wildlife. However, they warn that far more effort is needed to extend protection right across the region in both lowland and mountain areas if the impacts are to be minimised.

Christian Nellemann of the UNEP said: “The water from this region impacts over half of the world’s population, but less than 3% of the watersheds are protected. Many have become deforested and overgrazed…Impoverished people often have to settle in the most exposed flood-risk areas, and when the forest is gone further upstream the floods will hit them severely. This pattern will be repeated annually and will worsen with more extreme climate events unless care is taken to protect larger shares of the watersheds. In fact we can support development by doing so, as the floods have great economic and health consequences…We have to speed up conservation efforts in these watersheds to ensure safe water resources.”

To read the entire report, go to: http://www.unep.org/PDF/himalreport.pdf

Source: www.peopleandplanet.net, September 8, 2005

New findings by British researchers suggest that ecologists need to re-assess their methods for determining whether or not a region is a ‘biodiversity hotspot’. So far, global conservation efforts have assumed that it didn’t matter whether experts assessed a region for the number of threatened species it housed or how biodiversity-rich the area was. The belief was that both these methods would come to the same conclusion about whether or not the region was a ‘hotspot’, and what type of conservation attention it required.

This is not so, say Ian Owens and his team from the UK Centre for Population Biology in a recent issue of the magazine Nature. They say ecologists will have to reconsider conservation strategies for areas rich in biodiversity, which mostly lie in the tropics.

Owens’ team mapped the distribution of bird species across the planet. They then looked at three aspects of bird diversity, each of which defines a different type of hotspot. These were: how ‘rich’ an area is in terms of the number of species that are found in it at any given time; how many species live only in the area (these are known as ‘endemic’ species); and how many species are threatened with extinction.

Conservationists previously believed these characteristics overlapped. For instance, they believed an area that was home to many threatened species was likely to have more species to begin with. As a result, efforts to preserve species have so far given equal importance to all types of hotspots.

Owens and his colleagues found that hotspots overlap far less than expected. “Aspects of biodiversity such as rarity and extinction risk show very different geographical distributions, so they are probably produced by different mechanisms and will probably need different sorts of conservation efforts,” says Owens. For instance, areas with high numbers of threatened bird species are linked to large numbers of people living close together.

Although these findings in birds are not easy to translate into conclusions for mammals and amphibians, says lead author of the study David Orme, at Imperial College, London, there is evidence to suggest that the situation will be the same in these groups.

In an accompanying Nature article, Hugh Possingham and Kerrie Wilson of the University of Queensland, Australia, say that the outlook for hotspots is not “all doom and gloom”.

Focusing conservation efforts on hotspots of endemic species tends also to protect the other two types of hotspots, they say, giving the biggest return for a single conservation effort.

Orme is slightly more cautious. The apparent advantage of focusing on endemic species hotspots could be that they encompass a broader geographical area and are thus more likely to include areas of species richness, he explains.

While this ‘blanket’ approach may indeed protect a great number of species, Orme believes it is important to think of the mechanisms that threaten species. This could lead to more appropriate conservation efforts.

He adds that biodiversity experts should also consider the conservation of regions outside hotspots that may contain irreplaceable species.

To read the entire paper, go to http://www.scidev.net/pdffiles/nature/nature03850.pdf

Source: www.scidev.net, August 17, 2005

India’s much-touted plans to promote the use of biofuel to reduce its dependence on costly petrol imports and other conventional fuel sources have been thwarted by red-tape and supply problems, said experts at a recent international workshop on renewable energy sources.

In January 2003, India made the use of ‘gasohol’ (petrol mixed with 5% ethanol derived mainly from sugarcane) compulsory in nine of its states. Later that year, the Planning Commission drafted plans to encourage the widespread planting of Jatropha curcas trees, whose seeds produce oil that can be blended with diesel and used as fuel. The commission also proposed increasing the proportion of biofuel used in India from 5% to 20% by 2012.

However both plans are stuck in a rut, according to Rathin Mandal, senior advisor in the Planning Commission, who spoke at the one-day seminar in Delhi on September 1, attended by over 150 people, including Union and state ministers, corporate leaders, lawyers, energy experts and “green” judges Kuldip Singh and Ashok Desai.

Mandal said that in April 2005, the Indian government withdrew the order making ethanol-petrol blends compulsory in nine states, mainly because of the rising cost of ethanol. The move was made quietly, unlike the hype that accompanied the initial announcement and thus went largely unreported.

Meanwhile, the commission’s proposed ‘biodiesel mission’, due to be launched in April, was delayed. The commission is waiting for clarification on several details from the Indian ministry of rural development, which is charged with implementing the mission.

India imports 70% of its petrol -- some 111 million tonnes in 2004-2005. This is projected to more than double by 2020. According to Mandal, India could not afford to delay the widespread use of biodiesel as it was the country’s only viable alternative to fossil fuels. India’s efforts to harness wind and solar power have failed to take off, and the use of hydrogen as a fuel source is still at the conceptual stage.

Biofuel has been successfully used in Brazil and the United States, and is increasingly being used in Europe and parts of Asia.

Suani Coelho, deputy secretary at the secretariat of state for the environment in Sao Paulo, Brazil, says ethanol-based fuel is cheaper than petrol. It can be used in existing vehicles and its production does not compete for land with food crops. However, many Asian countries face frequent droughts and are finding it difficult to replicate Brazil’s success with sugarcane, which requires a lot of water.

Thailand and Indonesia are tapping the potential of palm oil as a fuel, while Indian scientists have high hopes for Jatropha, which tolerates drought well.

Meeting the Planning Commission’s biodiesel mission targets would require planting 11 million hectares with Jatropha to produce 13 million tonnes of biodiesel a year. India has an estimated 40 million hectares of ‘wasteland’ on which the trees can be grown.

See: India follows Brazil’s ‘gasohol’ lead
Bio-fuel `B-Urja’ may be available soon near you

Source: www.scidev.net, September 6, 2005

Going without a glass of juice at breakfast or milk in your cereal may be a smarter choice than cutting short your morning shower by 10 minutes, if you’re trying to conserve water, according to a new Australian report on sustainability. The report will help environment conscious consumers make a more informed choice about the kinds of products and services they use, based on a new sustainability index.

‘Balancing Act: A triple bottom line analysis of the Australian economy’, developed for the country’s economy by scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the University of Sydney, says that there are more effective ways by which our everyday choices can have a positive impact on the environment.

The report looks at 135 industry sectors of the Australian economy and quantifies the impacts and contributions across 10 indicators spread over the three bottom lines of sustainable development in terms of enterprise performance -- social (employment, income and government revenue), environmental (water use, land disturbance, greenhouse gas emission and energy use), and economic (profits, exports and imports).

“We still need to eat and shower -- and it is still worth taking shorter showers to save our stressed urban water supplies -- but now consumers have a new tool to help us make more informed choices about different types of products based on a new sustainability rating,” says CSIRO scientist Barney Foran.

The report highlights sustainability challenges for different industries and pinpoints areas in the production chain where a focused effort would make a significant difference. What makes the report different from other studies is that it is able to show the full effects -- both direct and indirect -- of the production of a commodity or service, from cappuccinos to haircuts.

All effects are referenced back to a consumption dollar -- roughly the dollar spent by a consumer in everyday life. It also shows that each consumption dollar is quite different --some dollars are positive and create employment or generate government revenue, while other consumption dollars are less positive through their high use of water or production of ozone-depleting greenhouse gas emissions.

The relatively simple presentation of highly complex issues makes the CSIRO report a powerful tool for people in the industry, government and communities working on sustainability issues and helps them make decisions based on contributions to society, environment and the economy.

Source: Terragreen, August 15, 2005

Dwindling tiger populations in many north Indian tiger reserves have resulted in poaching networks eyeing forest reserves in the south, especially Karnataka where tiger density is still high. Experts fear that any slackness on the part of forest officials in the south could lead to a ‘Sariska-like situation’ in the south.

Although the Bandipur and Nagarhole national parks in Karnataka -- with 104 and 96 tigers respectively -- boast healthy and viable tiger populations, in the last two years there have been a number of reports of the arrest of poachers, and tigers being injured by traps.

According to Karnataka’s principal chief conservator of forests, A K Varma, the pressure on tiger populations in Karnataka is growing following the wipe-out of tiger populations in Sariska. “The better populations (of tigers) here might attract the well-networked poachers. Nothing is an isolated case. Their network is expanding to places where we believed them to be non-existent,” says Varma.

A case in point is an instance where two elephants were poached in the forests of north Kanara, a region that was not previously on the poaching map. Poachers constantly change their tactics and seek out areas that are not so well protected.

“We believe poachers don’t operate in the monsoon. It is this belief that works in their favour. The monsoon is dangerous,” says D Venkatesh, divisional forest officer at Bandipur National Park. It was at the height of the monsoon that Venkatesh and his officers arrested four poachers after a gun battle, on June 23, 2005. Incidents like these have prompted the Karnataka forest department to seek an additional ‘monsoon budget’ of Rs 2.5 crore this year.

Earlier, in 2003, trackers in Bandipur came across groups of people freely roaming the forests. Within a month a tourist in neighbouring Nagarhole photographed a tiger with a jaw-trap dangling from its severed forelimb. The then deputy forest officer of Nagarhole acted promptly and arrested an entire gang, which turned out to be the same group that was seen in Bandipur. Officials say both gangs arrested in Karnataka were from Madhya Pradesh.

Scientists like K Ullas Karanth also believe that poaching of prey animals poses a greater danger to tiger populations than poaching tigers themselves. Elephant poachers in the south kill animals like chital (spotted deer), sambhar and wild boar -- animals that make up the tiger’s prey.

Source: The Week, August 14, 2005

Taking serious note of the role of plastic waste in the recent Mumbai floods that brought the city to a standstill, the Maharashtra government has decided to ban the sale and use of plastic bags right across the state. But, while environmental groups have welcomed the ban, plastic manufacturers have decided to move the courts claiming the decision will put around 100,000 people out of a job.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, following a cabinet meeting on August 24, said a notification calling for objections and suggestions on the government’s decision to ban the use of plastic bags would soon be issued and a final stamp of approval given 30 days after the notification.

In 1998, the government unsuccessfully tried to impose a ban on the use of plastic bags that were less than 20 microns thick. This time, the ban includes all types of plastic bags and pouches, although, for the moment, water bottles have been excluded.

Once the ban comes into effect, traders and hawkers found selling and using plastic bags will be fined Rs 5,000 or asked to pay an amount proportionate to their plastic bag stocks. Third-time offenders will face a three-month jail term. People found using plastic bags will be fined Rs 1,000.

Similarly, enforcement authorities will be penalised by stopping increments for failure to implement the ban. Third-time offenders among the enforcing authorities will face a departmental inquiry, leading to a suspension.

The ban, however, will be applicable only to traders selling products, not manufacturers. “The ban is only in the state. Hence we cannot take action on manufacturers. They can produce and sell products outside Maharashtra,” says Deshmukh.

Reactions to the ban have so far been mixed. While most citizens believe it’s a good idea to ban plastic bags, shopkeepers are not very pleased. They say it will become difficult for them to sell their products as most people specifically ask for plastic bags in which to carry their purchases.

Meanwhile Arvind Mehta, managing committee member of the All India Plastic Manufacturers Association, says: “More than 1,000 manufacturing plants will be forced to shut down in the state, putting 100,000 people out of work,” once the ban comes into effect.

Mumbai alone suffered losses of around Rs 4,000 crore, including damage to property, in the recent flooding, which also had its effect on public health. Urban planners and environment activists identified plastic bags as one of the main factors leading to waterlogging in the city. Hundreds of plastic bags choked storm-water drains and other outlets meant to carry rainwater out to sea.

Source: The Guardian, August 25, 2005
AP, August 24, 2005
www.ndtv.com, August 24, 2005

Thanks to the ex-vayana eco-development committee (EDC) formed in 1998, at least 500 sandalwood smugglers have been caught in Kerala’s Periyar Tiger Reserve. Smuggling of cinnamon tree bark (vayana) has also been checked, and the last poaching incident on record was in 1997.

The ex-vayana EDC is made up of ex-poachers who are now actively involved in protecting the forests and promoting eco-tourism.

Well versed in the modus operandi of the poachers, and knowing the reserve like the back of their hands, the ex-poachers have become invaluable to forest officials in the reserve. Every evening, one EDC member goes to the local bus stop in Kumily, the town closest to the reserve, and surveys the crowd for people they knew when they were poachers.

The ex-vayana EDC was formed in 1998 when forest department personnel caught a group of people illegally collecting vayana bark from inside the reserve. The officials offered to drop cases against the poachers if they agreed to lend their services in protecting the reserve.

“We were running away from here and some of us had escaped to Tamil Nadu. We could not come back as there were at least 15 cases pending against each of us. It was then that we decided to give up our activities,” says M M Naushad, chairperson of the EDC.

The ex-vayana EDC was set up with an initial project fund of Rs 3.5 lakh, under the India Eco Development Project (IEDP) started by the World Bank between 1998 and 2002. The success of this EDC led to the formation of other eco-development corporations (EDCs) by tribal groups and local communities. The project was later extended for two more years, until the Kerala government set up the Periyar Foundation to be run as a trust to carry forward work begun under the IEDP.

There are three types of EDCs working for the Periyar Tiger Reserve. There are the neighbourhood-based EDCs constituted in hamlets with 50-80 households. The investment made goes towards building community assets such as schools and provision stores, and livelihood-generation. User group EDCs are for people who depend on a particular resource within the tiger reserve, such as graziers and fuelwood-gatherers. These EDCs are meant to reduce adverse impacts on the reserve by providing groups with alternative livelihood sources.

The third group is the professional EDC. These are groups that have acquired specific tourism skills and have been able to generate a regular monthly income from the forest itself. Protection of the forest is one of the main objectives.

An ex-vayana EDC has 21 members who patrol the forests and are also involved in eco-tourism projects. Earnings from these activities are pooled into a community development fund (CDF) from which each EDC member receives a monthly salary of Rs 4,000.

According to Pramod Krishnan, deputy director, Project Tiger, there have been only three incidents of tiger poaching in the Periyar Tiger Reserve in the past two decades. Records of forest offences at the office also show a downward trend since the formation of the EDCs.

Not to be left behind, the local women too have formed a voluntary body called the Vasanta Sena to look after the reserve. The Vasanta Sena comprises 100 women from eight different EDCs who form groups of seven and patrol the forests on a rotation basis from 10 am to 4 pm every day. They report incidents of tree-felling and other suspicious activities.

Source: Down to Earth, August 15, 2005

The disappearance of glaciers from entire mountain ranges, as a result of global warming, is a very real possibility, according to the latest update of a United Nations-supported report on the state of the world’s glaciers.

Issued every five years by the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) in Zurich, Switzerland, the report warns that the greenhouse effect brought on by human activity is leading to processes “without precedent in the history of the earth”.

“The last five-year period of the 20th century has been characterised by an overall tendency of continuous if not accelerated glacier melting,” says the WGMS’s 1995-2000 edition of the report ‘Fluctuations of Glaciers’, complied with the support of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

“The two decades [from] 1980-2000 show a trend of increasingly negative balances with average annual ice thickness losses of a few decimetres,” says the report. “The observed trend of increasingly negative mass balances is consistent with accelerated global warming.”

Analysis of repeated inventories shows that glaciers in the European Alps have lost over 50% of their volume since the middle of the 19th century, and that a further loss of roughly one-fourth the remaining volume is estimated to have occurred since the 1970s. “With a realistic scenario of future atmospheric warming, almost complete de-glaciation of many mountain ranges could occur within decades, leaving only some ice on the very highest peaks,” the report says.

The ‘Fluctuations of Glaciers’ series publishes internationally collected, standardised data on changes in glaciers throughout the world once every five years. Since the initiation in 1894 of a worldwide programme for collecting standardised information on glacier changes, various aspects involved have changed “in a most remarkable way,” the report adds. There is increasing concern that the ongoing worldwide trend of fast, if not accelerating, glacier shrinkage is non-cyclic. While earlier reports anticipated a periodic variation in glaciers, “there is definitely no more question of the originally envisaged ‘variations périodiques des glaciers’ as a natural cyclical phenomenon,” the latest report states.

“Due to human impacts on the climate system (enhanced greenhouse effect), dramatic scenarios of future developments -- including complete de-glaciation of entire mountain ranges -- must be taken into consideration,” the report emphasises. “Such scenarios may lead far beyond the range of historical/holocene variability and most likely introduce processes without precedence in the history of the earth.”

The scientific opinion on climate change, as expressed by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and endorsed by the national science academies of the G8 nations, is that average global temperatures have risen 0.6 ± 0.2°C since the late 19th century, and that “most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities”.

Source: www.unep.org, August 4, 2005
             Environment News Service, August 5, 2005

‘Daurala: Hell on Earth’, a study conducted by the Janhit Foundation (a civil society organisation addressing pollution and other environmental problems in Meerut and its suburbs) with technical assistance from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, reveals levels of chemicals in drinking water, soil and sludge in Daurala, near Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, high enough to put the region among the top 50 most polluted habitations in the country.

The study shows that highly toxic untreated effluents, released by industry in the area and used as irrigation water by local villagers, are spelling a slow death for the 18,000-odd residents of the village-cum-industrial estate of Daurala. Local residents battle chronic bronchial asthma, gastrointestinal diseases and throat cancer.

The foundation conducted a door-to-door survey and found that of the 192 people who have died in the region over the past five years, 54 died from thyroid cancer, 33 of heart disease and 42 due to various gastrointestinal disorders. “The reason for these ailments is supposed to be the presence of alarming levels of heavy metals like arsenic, lead, aluminium and lethal compounds like cyanide in the drinking water, wastewater, agricultural soil and sludge samples tested at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee,” says Anil Rana, director of the Janhit Foundation.

Tests conducted in nearby villages in Meerut district also show that the groundwater is heavily contaminated with chromium, nickel, zinc and aluminium. Local and municipal water pumps in the district reveal levels of magnesium and chlorine that are above the permissible limit.

The residents of Daurala village, home to many sugar-producing and organic chemicals industries, blame the chemical plants for the high level of toxins in the groundwater. According to Munni Devi, gram pradhan of Daurala, the problem started after some industries gave their wastewater for irrigation. “Everything was fine and we got a better yield for a few years. But then our crops began to fail, the cattle fell ill and now, for the past few years, the people have become chronic patients with no money to seek expensive treatment in Meerut or Delhi,” says Munni Devi.

Ironically, the same industries that have polluted the region are now refusing to employ people from the village claiming that they are not fit enough to do strenuous jobs.

Alarmed by the findings of the study, Rana has approached the Supreme Court-appointed High Powered Committee on Hazardous Wastes to try and help the local people.

For more information read:http://www.pollutedplaces.org/region/south_asia/india/meerut.shtml

Source: www.oneworld.net, August 6, 2005
             The Hindu, July 23, 2005

One of the most cherished tenets of conservation, that planting trees increases the water available in a particular area, has been challenged in a new report that found the opposite to true -- that trees reduce the amount of available water.

While the report on water management programmes in developing countries does not advocate an end to tree-planting -- which helps limit soil erosion and preserve biodiversity -- it does challenge the popular view that forested land always conserves and supplies more water than grasslands or other treeless areas. New measurements suggest that forests soak up water from the ground and discharge it into the atmosphere as vapour at least twice as fast as grasses, low-lying scrub or most food crops.

‘From the Mountain to the Tap’ summarises four years of research led by the Centre for Land Use and Water Resources Research at the University of Newcastle, United Kingdom, and the Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, into water management programmes. The report was funded by the UK Department for International Development’s forestry research programme.

“Contrary to popular opinion, we found that trees usually reduce the amount of available water,” says Ian Calder, director of the centre.

For decades conservationists have argued that forests serve as a kind of sponge, collecting water during the rainy season and releasing it throughout the year. But in many cases trees may make things worse. Forests tend to deplete water supplies because they lose more water through evaporation than other vegetation, say the researchers. Evaporation from forests could be twice that from grasslands, says Calder.

In wet climates this is because of the ‘clothesline’ effect -- just as wet clothes hanging on a line will dry faster than those laid on the ground, tall trees lose more water than small shrubs. In dry conditions, trees lose more water than other plants because their deeper roots take up more water for evaporation.

Dr Calder and his team worked with scientists at the Free University of Amsterdam as well as colleagues in Colombia, Costa Rica, Germany, Canada, India, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania and the US. Their report shows evidence of falling water tables and reduced stream flows where forests have been planted.

For instance, in the states of Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in India, where forests have been planted on what was agricultural land, there have been falls of up to 25% in water yields.

The experience of South Africa, where it was found that timber plantations in the country reduced local water levels, backs up the findings of the British study.

South Africa now requires all farmers whose crops use more water than the area’s natural vegetation to pay a tax. In future, some of this money could go to farmers whose crops use less water than native plants, says Calder.

Frank Rijsberman, director-general of the International Water Management Institute based in Sri Lanka, believes the report’s findings are of most value to areas like South Africa, where water is scarce. “The report makes a very important point -- that forests are users, not producers, of water,” he explains. “But in the upper Yangtze region of China, for example, they are planting trees to reduce flooding, not to conserve water.”

Without trees, soils can become degraded and less able to absorb water. This could lead to sudden floods during the rainy season and inadequate replenishment of groundwater supplies to sustain livelihoods during the dry season.

Sampurno Bruijnzeel of the Free University of Amsterdam and one of the world’s leading experts on how forests affect water supply, says the report’s findings must be implemented with care because they do not take into account the role trees play in ensuring soil quality.

Bruijnzeel, who contributed to the study, adds that forests also play a role in climate change because they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They are often havens of biodiversity, and can be important contributors to rural livelihoods, for example by providing timber.

There are fears that the report could cause forestry programmes to be discarded. “I am very, very concerned it could lead to a ban on tree planting,” says Bruijnzeel. However, Calder says the report’s conclusions do not advocate this. “We are not saying forests never produce water benefits or that they don’t have an important role in the ecosystem. But if we are trying to manage our water resources more effectively, the over-enthusiastic adoption of the simple view that ‘more trees are always better’ is a prime example of how a failure to root decisions in scientific evidence leads to bad water policy.”

“There is no doubt that trees provide a multitude of benefits,” Calder adds, “but we should promote them on the basis of real benefits, not on the basis of myths.”

Forestry decisions need to take into account the effects of alternatives like crops, settlements and grasslands on soil quality and water availability. Further research also needs to be done on whether forests can increase rainfall and, if so, to what extent this is compensated for by extra evaporation, says Bruijnzeel.

The World Commission on Water forecasts that demand for water will increase by about 50% in the next 30 years, and that around 4 billion people -- half the world’s population -- will live in conditions of “severe water stress” by 2025.

Source: www.scidev.com, July 29, 2005
             The Guardian, July 29, 2005

The United States, Australia and four Asian nations have signed a new six-nation pact to develop and use clean energy technologies to combat global warming, amid criticism from environmentalists that the US-brokered deal is merely a token effort on climate change, and denials from members that the hitherto secret pact was designed to undermine or replace the Kyoto Protocol.

The new agreement, called the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, announced by US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on July 28, will provide practical solutions to excess carbon emissions. Signatories to the new pact -- China, Australia, Japan, India, the United States and South Korea -- will cooperate on the development, transfer and sale of clean technologies to promote the efficient use of fuels.

Top of the agenda will be developing technology that enables coal to be burned more efficiently, and capture and store carbon dioxide emitted by industry before it reaches the atmosphere.

The US, Australia and China are all big coal users and exporters. The former two are the only industrialised countries that have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol China and India are fast becoming major emitters of greenhouse gases.

Areas for collaboration include energy efficiency, clean coal, integrated gasification combined cycle, liquefied natural gas, combined heat and power, methane capture and use, civilian nuclear power, geothermal rural/village energy systems, advanced transportation, building and home construction and operation, bio-energy, agriculture and forestry, hydropower, wind energy, solar power and other renewables.

There is hope that other nations will join the new pact, which represents 45% of the world’s population and nearly half of its energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The US alone accounts for 25% of the world’s emissions.

However, there are no timetables for the delivery of any of the pledges, and no carbon dioxide reduction targets. The statement says the parties “will develop a non-binding compact in which the elements of this shared vision, as well as ways and means to implement it, will be further defined”.

“We have serious concerns that the apparent lack of targets in this deal means that there is no sense of what it is ultimately trying to achieve or the urgency of taking action to combat climate change,” says Robert May, president of the Royal Society, the United Kingdom’s national science academy.

Another concern of the environmental lobby is that alongside wind, solar, hydropower and geothermal power sources, new nuclear power facilities get equal billing.

Reactions to the new pact from world governments, UN bodies and environmental groups include the need to preserve and strengthen legally binding emission reduction targets in the Kyoto Protocol.

While many welcomed the pact for bringing the US into a form of international action to combat climate change, others were suspicious of White House motives. Their fears were fuelled by the fact that the European Union and British Prime Minster Tony Blair were kept in the dark about the new agreement even though climate change was one of the primary issues on the agenda at the recent G8 summit (See G8 fails to reach concrete agreement on greenhouse gas emissions)

The feelings of many in the environmental movement were summed up by Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust in Washington “There may be a more sinister side to this effort. It is possible that the Bush administration is organising a group of nations to try to block a new set of emissions reduction targets which will begin to be negotiated in Montreal in November. Its principal partner in this initiative, Australia, is a major coal exporter and [it] also backed out of the Kyoto Protocol…The EU, with Britain’s Tony Blair as its current president, is committed to achieving new targets, and this may be an effort to outflank them.”

One of the topics up for discussion in Montreal is the participation of developing countries in climate change mitigation after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires. Under the protocol, developing countries, including China and India, are not required to limit their greenhouse gas emissions.

Japan, which has a binding 6% greenhouse gas reduction target under the Kyoto Protocol, China and India all emphasised their continued commitment to the treaty.

The United States and developing countries have long been at odds over the Kyoto Protocol. The United States insists it will not ratify the protocol because it does not bind developing nations to any emissions targets. Developing countries say they cannot be expected to limit their emissions when the world’s greatest emitter refuses to do so.

Therefore, when the US agreed at the recent G8 summit to meet with several large developing countries to discuss climate change at the Montreal meet many saw it as progress from the previous stand-off. Now, however, it has emerged that the United States had been planning this latest move with developing countries several months before that.

Advocates of the pact say it is hoped the development and promotion of cleaner technologies will help countries maintain economic growth while limiting greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, thus addressing one of the developing countries’ chief concerns. But critics see the agreement as a way for the United States to secure a new export market while appearing to do something about greenhouse gas emissions. “The pact, rather than saving the climate, is nothing more than a trade agreement in energy technologies between the countries in question,” says Greenpeace climate campaigner Stephanie Tunmore. “Unfortunately, it seems likely that (US president) Bush and (Australian prime minister) Howard are seeking to protect the interests of their domestic fossil fuel industries and to deflect criticism for their total failure to address climate change.”

Source: The Guardian, July 29, 2005
             www.scidev, July 28, 2005
             www.ens-ensnewswire.com, July 29, 2005

Taking a leaf from the success of community-managed micro-hydel projects in remote hilly regions of Uttaranchal, Jammu and Kashmir has set up a community-managed micro-hydel project in Tikat village, 11,000 feet above sea level in Kargil. The project was initiated following the success of a similar one in Uttaranchal’s Tehri Garhwal district.

The project’s uniqueness is that all 70 households in Tikat participated in building the 30 kilowatt (KW) project, while the state government’s science and technology (S&T) department chipped in with a Rs 10 lakh grant. The Tikat panchayat set up a village energy committee (VEC), and facilitators were chosen to oversee construction and maintenance. The project took just two months to build. It was ready by September 2004.

According to Yogeshwar Kumar -- committee member and civil engineer for the undertaking -- providing electricity by grid requires long transmission lines and is usually uneconomical because the villages are small and their demand for electricity minimal. Micro-hydel projects are therefore a good option, as they require low investment -- between Rs 60,000 and Rs 80,000/KW -- and cash-strapped villagers are able to contribute by way of labour. Around 40% of the project’s total cost is taken care of by way of the villagers’ skilled and unskilled labour.

“We use easy-to-fabricate machinery. Everything -- installation of equipment, penstock, transmission and distribution lines, construction of spillways and overflow channels -- is done by the villagers under the supervision of local engineers,” Kumar explains.

Members of Tikat’s VEC were involved in every detail of the project, from choosing the site and selecting maintenance engineers to installing household connections and evolving a tariff collection method. Local engineers were trained by engineers from Genwali village in Uttaranchal’s Tehri Garhwal district -- known for its successful small hydel projects.

The community-run Genwali project, set up in November 2001, was facilitated by the Gram Vikas Panchayat Samiti (GVPS), a local civil society organisation (CSO), and funded by the Foundation for Rural Recovery and Development, a Delhi-based CSO. Genwali, a 60-household village 6,500 feet above sea level, is now known for its electricity generation.

The Genwali project was, in turn, inspired by the success of an earlier micro-hydel project in Buddhakedarnath village, also in Tehri Garhwal, set up by a local CSO, the Lok Jiwan Vikas Bharti (LJVB).

The advantage of most micro-hydel projects is that even after being commissioned they can be maintained by local people who receive some initial training.

Community hydel projects do have their disadvantages too. All households getting electricity from the project pay a fixed amount as tariff, irrespective of their monthly consumption, as they don’t have meters. “Everyone in our village pays Rs 30 a month even though some houses have televisions and compact disc players, while others use just bulbs,” complains Veer Singh from Genwali village.

Also, as most such projects are built on low budgets there are no finances to fall back on in case of a major breakdown. But, project engineers say, problems like these can be ironed out right at the planning stage.

Tikat village has not really been able to use the electricity it generates for any productive purpose other than lighting up the village. “Other possible applications like silk reeling, flour milling, steel fabrication or fruit preservation are not always possible because the elaborate machinery required for them is unaffordable for these tiny village economies,” says Kumar. But Bihari Lal, president of the LJVB, has a slightly different take on the issue. “It really depends on what the village needs and whether it’s able to organise the money for such facilities,” he says. The hydel project at Buddhakedarnath, for instance, manages to use its electricity not just to provide basic lighting but also for several income-generating activities like mustard crushing, flour milling, fruit preservation, and even welding.

Despite the shortcomings, micro-hydel projects have managed to gain a foothold in remote hilly regions of the country. The GVPS is now replicating the model in three other villages in Tehri Garhwal -- Newalgaon, Pinswar and Medh.

Source: Down to Earth, July 31, 2005

In a bid to conserve its rapidly dwindling tiger population the Rajasthan government has drawn up a plan involving the relocation of villages within the Ranthambore and Sariska tiger reserves. The news came quick on the heels of the Ranthambore tiger census which indicates that Rajasthan’s famous reserve now has a tiger population of only 26, from 47 in 2004.

Wildlife authorities believe that, at least in the case of Sariska, illegal poaching has been responsible for eliminating the big cat from the area, and that villagers have played no small part in this. The plan, therefore, is to move the villages outside the boundaries of the two sanctuaries.

Ranthambore and Sariska, along with Rajasthan’s other wildlife reserves, are among the state’s prime tourist attractions.

According to official sources, eight villages in the core area will be shifted during the first phase of the plan. The entire population of the two villages of Bagani and Kankawadi in Sariska will be rehabilitated outside the forest. Around 129 tribal families will be offered compensation, totalling Rs 1.25 crore, to leave their village and agricultural land.

Sources say that in the second phase of the relocation process, villages in the Ranthambore tiger reserve will be moved.

While the Indian government has given the plan the go-ahead, the special tiger taskforce constituted by Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to probe the country’s worst ever wildlife crisis, had suggested during a visit to Sariska that instead of shifting villagers from the forest they should be motivated to protect the tigers and their habitat.

The Rajasthan government does not agree with this view, as it firmly believes that some villagers, working with poachers, have been directly responsible for killing tigers. During its investigation into the decline in tiger numbers, the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested four villagers who confessed they used to lay traps to kill tigers.

According to state government sources, tigers will be brought into Sariska either from the neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh or Madhya Pradesh, in an effort to rehabilitate the reserve that recorded between 16-18 tigers just over a year ago.

Faced with the results of the latest census in Ranthambore, that showed that almost half the reserve’s tigers had gone missing since 2004, the government has ordered a probe into previous tiger censuses conducted by state wildlife officials since 1998.

Exasperated conservationists say, however, that instead of looking for answers in numbers the Rajasthan government should immediately act to save the remaining tigers and their habitat. “What the circumstances were at that time will be very difficult to get into, and it will be a fruitless exercise. Our most important aim now should be that both taskforces give their reports and point out strong measures that should be taken so that the number of tigers increases,” says conservationist Shantanu Kumar.

Source: The Pioneer, July 19, 2005
             NDTV, July 20, 2005

There are only 26 tigers left in Rajasthan’s famous Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, according to the latest official census that claims to have employed the latest international techniques. The reserve lost an astonishing 21 tigers in the past year. The results also pose questions about the methods employed in previous censuses.

Ranthambore’s tigers are the only ones left in the state of Rajasthan, said the Empowered Committee on Forests and Wildlife Management that supervised the survey. There are no big cats left in the Sariska Tiger Reserve, chiefly a result of poaching (See No tigers left in Sariska, says CBI probe). In 2004, the tiger count for the state was 65, including 47 in Ranthambore, 17 in Sariska and one tiger in the Bharatpur reserve.

Committee chairman V P Singh says the latest report, based on three months of data analysis, is a composite one as it is based on three methods of taking a tiger count -- the digital pugmark technique, camera trap technique and traditional analysis of pugmarks, which is dependent on the individual skills of census officers.

Conducted by the Dehra Dun-based Wildlife Protection Society of India, the latest census also involved tiger experts. A team of scientists and researchers provided technical assistance.

Between May and June this year, the census used the camera trap technique in Ranthambore. Tigers were counted not just by the traditional pugmark method but were also photographed using 10 digital cameras hidden within the sanctuary. The most significant was the analysis done through special computer software that studied tiger stripes and pugmarks to ensure there was no duplication.

Opinion is divided over whether the near 50% loss of Ranthambore’s tiger population is indicative of a decline in numbers due to poaching, or whether the numbers had been overestimated earlier due to faulty methods employed in previous censuses.

An earlier count by the Wildlife Institute of India used the digital pugmark technique and special software to estimate tiger populations. The Rajasthan forest department used the traditional method of analysing pugmarks.

While the digital method threw up a figure of 26 tigers, the latest camera trap technique puts it at 21 with a range of 15 to 27. Traditional analysis showed a figure of 31 tigers. “I am very pleased with the transparency of this exercise. It is a model for the rest of India to follow,” says Singh.

This February, when the controversy over Rajasthan’s missing tigers first broke , wildlife expert Fateh Singh Rathore had alleged that 18 tigers were missing from Ranthambore since 2004. “We have photographed 25 tigers here. Dr Ullas Karanth photo-trapped 16 tigers in 1999 and 10 of those have gone missing. Another eight have vanished last year,” he alleged.

A significant finding of the latest census is that tigers have flourished where human habitation is minimal, and have dropped where their habitat has been disturbed. Tigers have disappeared from adjoining Bharatpur where cattle pressure is immense. The census shows that there are over 65,000 cattle in the adjacent Sawai Man Singh and Bharatpur sanctuaries.

Source: The Pioneer, July 19, 2005
             The Telegraph, July 19, 2005
              NDTV, July 18, 2005

India lost 26,245 sq km of dense forest cover between 2001 and 2003, with mining projects and industrial development considered to be the chief culprits, according to the latest countrywide forest report conducted by the Forest Survey of India. However, its overall forest cover increased marginally by 2,795 sq km, or 0.41%, mainly due to afforestation.

According to ‘State of Forests Report 2003’, prepared by the Dehra Dun-based agency, India’s forest cover currently stands at 678,333 sq km, or 20.64% of the country’s geographical area, as against 675,538 sq km, or 20.55%, in 2001.

According to the report, forests cover 23.68%, or 778,229 sq km of India’s land area -- up a marginal 0.65% from 2001. This includes trees in non-forested areas.

A total of 390,564 sq km of land in India is covered by dense forest cover, or forest cover with a canopy density of 40%. Open forests cover 287,769 sq km -- an increase of 29,040 sq km from the 2001 figure, says the report.

Of the country’s total forest cover, dense forests constitute 51,285 sq km (1.56%), moderately dense forests 339,279 sq km (10.32%) and open forests 287,769 sq km (8.76%) of total land area. Of 593 districts, 199 have less than 5% forest cover; this includes 59 districts with less than 1% forest cover, says the report.

“One of the main objectives of assessing the country’s forest resources is to compare the state of forests with the goals set in the National Forest Policy,” said India’s minister of environment and forests, Andimuthu Raja. “The goal is to have 25% of the country’s geographic area under forest and tree cover by 2007 and 33% by 2012.”

Commenting on the report’s findings, Raja said the results of India’s afforestation drive -- twice as many trees felled must be planted -- would only show up in the coming years. “The loss of forests is shown immediately in satellite pictures taken during the survey, but compensatory afforestation takes five to 10 years to show up in the survey…If these can be accounted for, the total forest and tree cover would be significantly larger. In the next forest survey we will endeavour to fill this gap,” the minister said.

India’s forest cover is monitored with the help of latest satellite data from the National Remote Sensing Agency in Hyderabad. The report admits, however, that there are limitations to remote sensing technology as it fails to capture linear strips of forests along roads and canals. It is also difficult to differentiate bushy vegetation and certain crops like sugarcane and cotton from tree canopy.

Illegal tree felling is a huge concern, as India’s billion-plus population increases and more people cut down trees. Raja defended India’s policy of allowing limited mining in forested areas, but added that mining companies would have to compensate by planting twice the number of trees they cut. He added that it was not possible to ignore the development needs of the country -- Asia’s third-largest economy -- while protecting forests, concentrated mainly in the Himalayan regions of the north and northeastern states. “If we do not give some (forest) land to industrial and mining sectors, we will jeopardise economic growth,” he said.

“To reach the 2012 target is a Herculean task. We may face hurdles,” Raja admitted. But, he added, with the on-going afforestation efforts, India would reach its 2007 target. The minister added that the Indian government would need to allocate Rs 8,000 crore annually towards its afforestation programme to achieve this goal. The only way to do this was to enter into public or private partnerships, he said.

Environmental groups, however, say afforestation alone isn’t going far enough. “This marginal increase in forest cover needs be scaled up. A key priority should be restoring degraded forest areas involving local communities,” says Sudipto Chatterjee, coordinator of the forest programme for the World Wide Fund For Nature-India.

Source: Indo-Asian News Service, July 19, 2005
             PTI, July 19, 2005
             The Indian Express, July 20, 2005
              Reuters, July 19, 2005

To the relief of Bhopal gas tragedy victims and activists the state-run Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has called off its proposed technology tie-up with Dow Chemical Company, following nationwide protests.

Victims of the tragedy and activists voiced their strong disapproval of the government entering into the deal, offering Union Carbide back-door entry into the country (see Nationwide protest against IOC’s tie-up with Union Carbide). An eight-month-long campaign by Bhopal organisations and their supporters demanded that IOC cancel its decision to buy technology from Dow for a proposed monoethylene glycol plant in Panipat, Haryana.

“IOC recently communicated to Dow that the technology purchase deal had been cancelled after IOC found that critical submissions made by Dow as part of the contract negotiations were false,” says Rachna Dhingra of International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal. Contrary to Dow’s assertions in the original bid, campaigners presented evidence to the government that confirmed that the Meteor technology Dow aimed to sell to IOC was patented and owned by the American multinational Union Carbide.

“We have been successful in our agitation which was on for the past eight months. We have come to know that Indian Oil has decided to call off its deal of buying technology from Dow Chemical. We are celebrating this, as Dow cannot return to India,” says Sali Nath Pandey, an activist with the Bhopal Group for Information and Action (BGIA).

Source: ANI, July 19, 2005
             The Pioneer, July 19, 2005

The Supreme Court of India has cracked the whip on noise pollution in the country by issuing a series of guidelines, including restrictions on the use of loudspeakers in public places and norms for the use of high-volume sound systems, generators and vehicles. The court reiterated its earlier directive that banned the use of noisy firecrackers late at night during festivals like Diwali, as they constitute a public nuisance.

On July 19, a two-judge bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) R C Lahoti and Justice Ashok Bhan pronounced its judgement banning the use of loudspeakers between 10 pm and 6 am in public places (except in emergencies), in response to a long-pending petition pertaining to noise pollution caused by loudspeakers, generators and vehicles. The petition sought the implementation of laws restricting the use of loudspeakers and high-volume sound systems.

The court also banned the use of horns and bursting of firecrackers in residential areas during the stipulated time. It issued guidelines to the police on how and when to implement the laws that aim to restrict urban noise pollution. It also directed the police to penalise vehicles using pressure horns near hospitals, schools and other educational institutions.

The CJI, writing for the bench, said the decibel level of megaphones or public address systems should “not exceed 10 dB (A) above the ambient noise standards for the area, or 75 dB (A), whichever is lower”.

Coming down heavily on those who play loud music at home, the apex court said: “The noise polluters have no regard for the inconvenience and discomfort of people in the vicinity,” and chastised them saying, “no one can claim a right to create noise even in his own premises which would travel beyond his precincts and cause nuisance to neighbours and others”.

The court said all the prohibitions imposed by it had been done under exercise of its powers under Articles 141 and 142 of the Indian Constitution, which rendered them the authority of law of the land till such time as parliament legislated on the problem.

Source: The Hindu, July 19, 2005
             PTI, July 18, 2005

Ecologists in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands -- a region badly affected by the tsunami six months ago -- are up in arms against the government’s decision to construct mud sea walls all around the islands. They fear the walls will affect the islands’ ecology and destroy fragile coral reefs.

One-tenth of the Rs 200 million earmarked by the government for construction of the mud walls has already been spent; walls have gone up in some areas where seawater gushes in during high tide, destroying crops and submerging roads.

Environmentalists claim that these walls are a “colossal waste of funds”. According to Samir Acharya, convenor of the Port Blair-based Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology (Sane), the mud sea walls will prove counter-productive as they will prevent water from flowing back into the sea, thus stopping rainwater from washing away excessive salt in the soil. “The Andamans gets over 3,000 mm of rain every year, so croplands affected by salinity due to the tsunami could have been restored because the rains would have washed away the excessive salt. But with these sea walls that will not happen,” says Acharya.

The mud walls will also cause silt to be washed away into the sea, choking coral and molluscs and ultimately destroying endangered coral reefs. Zoologist Sudeshna Mukherjee says the mud that will wash off the walls and flow into the sea, denying coral much-needed sunlight and causing them to choke and die. The walls will also affect forests in the Andaman highlands where huge amounts of soil are being dug up to construct them.

Officials, however, insist that the walls are being built according to the demands of local villagers living close to the sea. “Most seaside communities demanded sea walls. Since we have federal funds, we decided to provide the communities with the sea walls…We have only responded to a community demand,” says Dev Singh Negi, chief secretary of the Andamans.

This view is supported by Jogen Mondal who lives in Choldhari, near the capital Port Blair. He says: “We need the sea walls to protect our lands from flooding with seawater during high tide.”

But there are others, like civil engineer Gautam Shome who believes that the sea walls will offer no real protection to seaside communities if the sea swells up like it did on December 26. “The mud walls will collapse if there is a surge of waves half as powerful as there was during the tsunami,” says Shome.

Source: www.bbcnews.com, June 22, 2005

G8 leaders promised to act with “resolve and urgency” to reduce gas emissions thought to be responsible for global warming -- a “serious, long-term challenge” for the entire planet. But they specified no targets or timetable. As expected, the Group of Eight nations -- the United States, Great Britain, Japan, Italy, Germany, France and Russia -- remain divided on how to tackle the problem of climate change. They did, however, announce a programme for action on the problem, including the need for greater energy efficiency and technology transfer, at the end of their summit in Gleneagles, Scotland.

An admission by the United States that human activity has a role to play in global warming, and the paving of a way for a possible post-Kyoto framework that would involve leading developing countries, were seen as minor victories.

The limited agreement, signed on July 8 after much wrangling by Britain, France, Germany and Canada that sought to toughen up the communiqué, was strong on agreements of principle but fell far short of specific commitments.

“Those of us who have ratified the Kyoto Protocol welcome its entry into force and will work to make it a success,” Group of Eight leaders said in a communiqué. Expectedly, the United States was the odd one out. The US is opposed to the Kyoto Protocol and is the lone dissenter to the global climate change pact. Until a fortnight ago it refused to even admit to the link between human activity and global warming.

But agreement among the rest was also uncertain beyond the end of the first implementation period of the Kyoto Protocol, 2008-2012. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has backed US President George Bush on the need to look beyond Kyoto post-2012.

G8 leaders said there was enough scientific evidence to justify moves to “stop and then reverse the growth of greenhouse gases”. These gases, carbon dioxide and methane mostly, are produced by the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, and lead to global warming which consequently disrupts climate patterns.

The leaders resolved to work with developing countries to halt global warming. “It is in our interest to work together and in partnership with major emerging economies to find ways to achieve substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and our other key objectives, including the promotion of low-emitting energy systems. Developed countries have the responsibility to act.”

The leaders acknowledged also their responsibility to take action in particular situations. “Adaptation to the impact of climate change resulting from both natural and human causes is an absolute priority for all countries, in particular in those regions that experience the greatest changes, such as the Arctic, sub-Saharan Africa and other semi-arid regions, low-lying coastal zones and small island states affected by sea level rise,” said the G8 statement.

The leaders said: “We will work with developing countries in order to put in place the means to help them build their capacity to overcome these problems, and to include their adaptation objectives in their sustainable development strategies.”

According to the Gleneagles communiqué, 2 billion people lack access to modern energy sources, and increasing access is needed in order to support the Millennium Development Goals. Therefore it commits to helping developing countries build low-carbon economies, recognising that their need to achieve economic growth would require access to sustainable, clean energy.

The communiqué said a dialogue on climate change, clean energy and sustainable development would be launched with developing countries. Blair announced later that the first meeting would be held in Britain on November 1, 2005.

Lord May of Oxford, president of the UK’s Academy of Science, the Royal Society, believes opening a dialogue on climate change is not nearly enough. “At the heart of the communiqué is a disappointing failure by the leaders of the G8 unequivocally to recognise the urgency with which we must be addressing the global threat of climate change,” he says.

“Make no mistake, science already justifies reversing -- not merely slowing -- the global growth of greenhouse gas emissions. Further delays will make the G8’s avowed commitment in this communiqué to avoid dangerous impacts of climate change extremely difficult.”

President George W Bush has been reluctant to accept the “scientific consensus” on global warming and commentators were eager to see what form of words on the issue he would agree to in the communiqué. It states: “While uncertainty remains in our understanding of climate science, we know enough to act now.”

However, the final communiqué is a considerably watered down version of what the British government had proposed prior to the summit. The draft proposal had provided for committing specified amounts of money for agreed targets. The final communiqué makes no mention of precisely what level of funding the G8 can produce to back its declared aims.

The communiqué is short on real substance, say climate campaigners. “The international community is treading water on climate change,” Stephen Tindale of Greenpeace International told the media. “George Bush has not shifted. The other seven have not shifted.” Tindale said that work on tackling climate change would have to proceed without Bush on board. “To bring Bush in would be to reach such a low level of generality that it would not be worth doing,” he said. It would be necessary to “re-engage with the United States under a different president”.

Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, said US President George W Bush was increasingly isolated on the issue of climate change. “He’s not only isolated within the G8 but also in his own country, where a coalition of individual states such as California, Republican senators, parts of the religious right, 150 city mayors and -- increasingly -- public opinion is rejecting his flat earth approach.”

Although the G8 summit has failed to deliver on climate change, the campaign to push it strongly on the G8 agenda had brought about “a great increase in public awareness in the last six months,” said Juniper. “If George Bush has not got the message, hundreds of millions of people around the world have.”

Source: The Guardian, July 9, 2005
             www.ipsnews.net, July 9, 2005
             www.bbcnews.com, July 9, 2005

The G5, a grouping of five leading developing nations comprising China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, has delivered an open challenge to the G8 nations over proposals to abandon the Kyoto Protocol as a means to curb global climate change.

Following talks between the two groups, on July 7 at the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh reiterated that while the G5 remained committed to cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, developed nations ought to share cleaner technologies with them in order to bolster this effort.

The first indication of change on the Kyoto deal came on the morning of July 7, when, far from softening the United States’ stance on signing up to the Kyoto Protocol, British Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged that the US would never accept the Kyoto Protocol and that there was “no point going back over the Kyoto debate”.

US President George W Bush said fast-developing nations like China and India must be involved in a future deal, and therefore welcomed the attendance of leaders from India and China at the summit of the group of eight most powerful industrialised countries. G5 heads of state had an ‘outreach session’ with G8 leaders to enable the latter to hear the developing world’s point of view on key global concerns.

“Now is the time to get beyond the Kyoto period and develop a strategy forward that is inclusive of developing nations,” Bush said. “It’s not for the G8 to get a climate change treaty,” Blair said in a TV interview. What the summit could do was “to get a consensus that there’s a problem and that we need to tackle it, and tackle it now”.

This statement could have far-reaching consequences. Under the Kyoto Protocol, only industrialised countries are required to cut so-called greenhouse gas emissions, over the first implementation period, by at least 5.2% over 1990 levels. That holds only for those countries that sign up to the protocol. Significantly, the United States is not a signatory.

Developing countries were not held to the Kyoto Protocol on the basis that industrialised countries produce most of the emissions and, more urgently, need to take corrective action. The United States alone is responsible for around 25% of all global emissions. Developing countries were asked to do their bit, but were not bound to take action under the principle of “shared but differentiated responsibility”.

Talk from Bush and Blair now on including developing countries in a successor deal to the Kyoto Protocol could have a devastating impact on the economies of developing countries, which may have to invest in expensive new technology, driving up production costs and undermining the ability of their exports to compete in the global market.

Leaders of the G5 had come clearly prepared to resist attempts to rope them into the kind of commitments the Kyoto Protocol sets out for industrialised countries.

In a joint statement issued within an hour of Blair and Bush’s comments, the five leaders from the developing world said the Kyoto Protocol establishes a regime that “adequately addresses the economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainable development”. They said industrialised countries should take the lead in “international action to combat climate change by fully implementing their obligations of reducing emissions and of providing additional financing and the transfer of cleaner, low-emission and cost-effective technologies to developing countries”.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which led to the Kyoto deal, “establishes economic and social development and poverty eradication as the first and overriding priorities of developing countries,” they said. “As such, there is an urgent need for the development and financing of policies, measures and mechanisms to adapt to the inevitable adverse effects of climate change that are being borne mainly by the poor.”

Changes in the “unsustainable production and consumption patterns in industrialised countries must be implemented,” the statement said. At the same time, industrialised countries “must ensure that technologies with a positive impact on climate change are both accessible and affordable to developing countries”.

The G5 said the transfer of technology would need “a concerted effort to address questions related to intellectual property rights” -- a reference to demands by rich nations that developing countries must protect the rights of such technology. The demand for the transfer of cheap, green technology from developed to developing countries -- though agreed on in principle by rich countries -- has previously been resisted by the US and others.

Environmental groups welcomed the stand taken by the leaders of the G5 developing countries. “The big developing countries have shown that there is only one world leader in Gleneagles this week who thinks that the Kyoto Protocol is the wrong way forward, and that is President Bush,” said Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth.

Jennifer Murray of WWF International said the summit provides an opportunity for wealthy nations, particularly the US, to make green technology available to India and other emerging economies. “This (the Indian demand) calls US President George W Bush’s bluff. If he wants China and India to take on commitments to cut greenhouse gases, then the US would also need to commit to cuts and to put financial and technology transfer measures in place,” Murray said.

“At the moment it is not happening,” she noted. But the presence of developing countries at the summit “gives hope that there can be a real conversation about that at the G8”.

Source: www.ipsnews.net, July 7, 2005
IANS, July 7, 2005

Three pioneering Indian endeavours -- Noble Energy Solar Technologies (NEST) Ltd, Secunderabad, the Chandigarh-based Nishant Bio-energy Consultancy, and Selco Solar Light Private Ltd, Bangalore, have won the 2005 Ashden Awards, popularly known as the Green Oscars. The awards were handed out at a ceremony at the Royal Geographical Society in London on June 29.

The Ashden Awards recognise outstanding and innovative projects that tackle climate change and poverty, and improve quality of life by providing desperately needed renewable energy at the local level.

This year, three awards were given in recognition of the way in which renewable energy has been used to improve access to ‘Light’, to promote ‘Enterprise’ and to improve ‘Health and Welfare’. Two Climate Care Awards were given to projects with the potential to play a significant role in offsetting carbon emissions, which drive climate change, and a Special Africa Award was given to mark the G8 summit currently taking place.

The total prize money on offer this year was £ 340,000: the top prize-winning projects received £ 30,000; the second prizes won £ 10,000.

Dharmappa Barki, chairman and managing director of Noble Energy Solar Technologies Ltd, won the Ashden light award (£ 30,000) for developing a small solar lantern, called Aishwarya, which makes safe, smoke-free light affordable for the poorest people. Priced at Rs 1,400, the lantern can be bought by most rural folk; for those who cannot afford it NEST offers generous micro-credit, whereby they pay Rs 100 per month over 16 months.

Harish Hande of Selco Solar Light Private Ltd, Bangalore, won the award for enterprise (£ 30,000) for building a thriving business and financial network to bring quality electricity to people without it. Selco installed 38,000 solar home systems in Bangalore within 10 years. Its most recent initiative has been the 3,000 Solar Home Lighting Project, successfully selling solar home systems (SHS) to 3,000 poor households in Belthangadi district in the state of Karnataka.

The winner of the climate care award was Chandigarh-based Ramesh Kumar Nibhoria of Nishant Bio-energy Consultancy, inventor of the sanjha chulha (a combined cooking stove) that runs on crop waste. The award was shared with Stuart Conway of Honduras, developer of a fuel-efficient stove.

Among others, Sundar Bajgain’s Biogas Support Programme in Nepal won the award for health and welfare (£ 30,000), for demonstrating how domestic biogas for cooking can be implemented on a massive scale. Asma Huque from Bangladesh received second prize (£ 10,000) in the enterprise category for enabling rural women to become both producers and users of solar electricity systems.

Indians have regularly taken away top honours at the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, now in their fifth year. Two Indian organisations involved in renewable energy projects -- AuroRE, Pondicherry, and the Prakratik Society in Rajasthan -- were among the top four prize-winners of the 2004 Ashden Awards (AuroRE, Prakratik Society win top honours at Ashdens).

For more information read:
Pioneering projects from India, Nepal, Honduras and Rwanda win £ 150,000 of prize money in Global Environment Awards

Source: www.ashdenawards.org, June 30, 2005
PTI, June 30, 2005

Camel numbers in Asia have fallen rapidly, from 4.5 million in 1994 to 3.5 million in 2004, with India registering the worst decline -- 38% -- in camel populations, according to statistics released recently by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). The new findings, that show a one-fifth drop in the numbers of these ‘ships of the desert’ are disturbing as camels are crucial to making productive use of the resources of a desert environment, say experts.

The figures include both the one-humped dromedary and the double-humped Bactrian camel. Dromedaries live in hot deserts, from the Mediterranean to the Thar in western India, while Bactrians are adapted to the cold deserts of China, Mongolia and Central Asia. There are less than 600,000 Bactrian camels left in the world.

Loss of pastureland is believed to be one the chief reasons for this drastic drop in dromedary populations across the continent; with more and more land being fenced, irrigated and ploughed, camel herders have nowhere to graze their animals.

In India, the camel population -- once the third largest in the world -- has halved in under a decade to just 500,000 animals. And it is continuing to fall, according to figures released by the Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan (Pastoralist Welfare Institute) and its Germany-based partner organisation the League for Pastoral Peoples to mark the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought on June 17.

To many the demise of the camel in Rajasthan spells disaster. Not just for the 200,000 people who use working camels to make a living, or the estimated 10,000 Raika pastoralists who breed them, or the many thousands more who work with camel products such as milk, hide or hair. It also comes as a severe blow to sustainable use of natural resources.

“The camel is the best option you have in a drought-affected region,” says Dr Ilse Koehler-Rollefson of the League for Pastoral Peoples, who has been working closely with the Raika for nearly 10 years. “Camels have distinct grazing behaviour. They scatter, taking many steps in between bites, so they do not overgraze like other stock. They can survive on plants no other livestock will eat.”

India has spent massive amounts of money on devolving responsibility for the protection of the camel to local communities. It has also supported irrigated agriculture by subsidising power, fertilisers and high-yielding crops, says the Sansthan.

Interestingly Rajasthan’s Thar desert, home to the country’s largest camel population, has witnessed an increase in the tribe of ‘tubewell nomads’. Farmers pump up groundwater to grow crops such as mustard and wheat. They continue doing this for a few years until groundwater levels sink too far low. They then move on to the next spot, leaving behind barren, saline ground in place of drought-resistant vegetation, claims the Sansthan. These ‘tubewell nomads’ fence their fields to keep animals out, or even kill them. At the same time, in the name of afforestation or conservation, the local forest department prohibits access to traditional rangelands.

According to Hanwant Singh Rathore, director of the Sansthan, an option to use the desert without depleting groundwater resources is being squandered, and the traditional wealth of indigenous knowledge and practical experience that forms the basis of camel breeding is disappearing.

Camels are the key to using deserts productively, says Rathore. They browse sparingly on the leaves of trees and bushes and so do not do much damage to plants. Their soft, padded feet minimise erosion. They can go without water for days, and so can wander far from water sources and use remote pastures.

While irrigation is often seen as a way to cause deserts to bloom, it may have catastrophic effects because using salty groundwater and neglecting drainage could turn fertile soil into wasteland. Camels offer a way to use this land, as they like to eat salty plants and can use areas that are not suitable for farming.

Dr Koehler-Rollefson believes there is a lot to learn about camels in India. “Studies in the Sahara by a German ecologist show that vegetation actually grows back quicker when grazed by camels because it stimulates plant to grow more leaves,” she says.

Source: Indo-Asian News Service, June 17, 2005
             The Hindu, June 18, 2005

Environment Clearance Watch (EC Watch), a nationwide agency to monitor project clearances by the Indian ministry of environment and forests (MoEF), was launched on June 5, World Environment Day, by around 45 public interest groups in Mumbai. The timing of the formation of this independent monitoring agency is crucial as the ministry is examining the entire procedure of environment impact assessment (EIA).

The idea of EC Watch is to set up centres to monitor environmental clearances all over the country and to share information and resources, says Leo Saldanha of the Environment Support Group (ESG). One of the first campaigns of the newly formed environmental watchdog will be a ‘Dilli Chalo’ agitation in July to challenge the MoEF’s proposed reforms on environmental clearance.

Environmentalists say the Indian government has steadily diluted its concerns about pollution and the environment, and EIA reports often help project authorities instead of making impartial assessments of the pros and cons of projects. The draft EIA notification has relied on World Bank and foreign consultants, say EC Watch members. “The whole aim is to open the environment to the corporate sector,” says Latha from the Kerala-based River Research Centre.

According to Kanchi Kohli of the Kalpavriksh Environmental Action Group, the draft National Environmental Policy (NEP) 2004 has serious dilutions in the EIA and Coastal Regulation Zone rules and the MoEF is currently in the process of re-engineering the EIA rules.

Eco-activists from across the country met in Mumbai to discuss ‘Environmental Impact Assessment -- Flaws and Dilution and the Need for Change’. Kanchi Kohli and Manju Menon’s ‘Eleven Years of the Environment Impact Assessment Notification, 1994. How Effective Has It Been?’ was also launched at the Mumbai meet.

Citizens’ experiences of the EIA notification and the decision-making process of developmental projects are filled with disappointment, anger and frustration, the report says. “There seems little political will to uphold the principles behind the notification or even the clauses of the notification.”

The MoEF, which has the power to reject a project if it violates the notification, has not done so even in cases brought to its notice by civil society organisations and community groups.

Although the EIA notification offers public hearings as a forum for people’s concerns, this space is often manipulated by project authorities and government agencies to suit their interests, the report says.

In fact, the network went to court against the Athirapally Hydroelectric Project on the Chalakudy river in Kerala. The Kerala State Electricity Board had to provide data that showed that water availability in the river was the same from 1946-1996. The Kerala High Court, in 2001, directed the MoEF to reconsider environmental clearance for the project and conduct a public hearing. The hearing took place in 2002, and the project was rejected by the people.

In 2005, however, it was cleared by the MoEF after a report by another EIA agency. This time there was no public hearing.

Source: The Hindu, June 7, 2005

According to a new study, the blood of villagers in some parts of Punjab contains extremely high levels of a cocktail of between 6-13 pesticides, including both old and persistent pesticides like DDT and lindane and less persistent (according to industry claims) but highly toxic pesticides like monocrotophos and chloropyrifos.

The New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), which conducted the study, asserts that while there are no standards for ‘safe levels’ of pesticides in human blood, the Punjab tests, where pesticide levels were 15-605 times higher than US levels, bear no comparison. The Centre has urged stricter regulation and review of the use of newer, supposedly ‘safer’ pesticides through a bio-monitoring programme.

Tests revealed alarmingly high levels of pesticide residue that’s thought to affect early neurological development causing permanent damage, in 20 randomly collected blood samples from four villages -- Mahi Nangal, Jajjal and Balloh in Bhatinda district and Dher in Ropar district -- in October, during spraying time.

Each sample was tested at the CSE’s pollution monitoring laboratory using internationally accepted methodology. The results were published in the June 15, 2005, issue of the CSE’s fortnightly newsmagazine Down To Earth.

Levels of persistent organochlorine pesticides (OCs) in the samples tested by the CSE were 15-605 times higher than those found in blood samples taken from the US population and tested by the United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in 2003. Levels of lindane (whose use is restricted in India) were 605 times higher than those found in the US population; levels of DDT (banned from use in India), which was found in 95% of the samples, were 188 times higher. The CSE study detected hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) in all the blood samples.

The study, one of the first in India to test for the highly toxic organophosphorous pesticides (OPs) in human blood, found equally high levels of these in the samples. The supposedly low persistent OP monocrotophos was detected in 75% of the blood samples, while chlorpyrifos was present in 85% of the samples. Seventy per cent of the samples contained two other OPs -- phosphamidon and malathion.

Levels of monocrotophos in the Punjab samples -- 0.095 ppm (parts per million of food) -- were found to be four times higher than the short-term exposure limit for humans set by the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation. The average amount of monocrotophos in the blood of the test population was 158 times higher than the long-term exposure limit set for humans.

The presence of OPs in blood is of special concern say CSE experts. OPs, touted by the chemical industry as non-persistent and degradable, are much more toxic than the previously used OC pesticides like DDT. The CSE analysis points out that while blood samples seem to be already contaminated with high levels of older OC pesticides, newer OP pesticides were adding to the body’s toxic burden.

The CSE study emphasises an urgent need to review the use of this supposedly safer pesticide. Even if the pesticide degrades in the body, as claimed by industry, the fact is that exposure is high and there is bound to be an impact during the time the pesticide remains in the body.

Studies done on animals show that even single low-level exposure to certain organophosphates, particularly during early brain development, can cause permanent changes in brain chemistry. Chlorpyrifos exposure, for example, decreases the synthesis of DNA in the developing brain, leading to a drop in the number of brain cells. If these findings are extrapolated to human beings it could mean that early childhood exposure to chlorpyrifos could have long-term effects on learning abilities and cause attention and behavioural disorders similar to those associated with lead exposure.

A study conducted in New York in 1993 found that chlorpyrifos and its toxic metabolite chlorpyrifos oxon could cross the placenta barrier. This means that if pregnant women are exposed to the pesticide, even at very low levels, it could affect foetal development.

Punjab has the highest pesticide use among all Indian states -- Jhajjal village in Bhatinda comprises a mere 5% of agricultural land in India but employs around 60% of pesticides used in the country. Only last month the Punjab State Pollution Control Board issued a warning asking health and research institutes in the state and the farm varsity to carry out research into the phenomenon of increasing cancer cases, and also to educate farmers about how to use pesticides.

The warning came after a study conducted by the Post Graduate Institute of Medical and Education Research, Chandigarh, established a strong correlation between cancer and environment pollution in the two districts.

The board warned that Punjab’s farming community lacked information on how best to use pesticides, and how much to use. Excessive use had resulted in pesticides entering the foodchain.

Although the samples in the CSE study were taken from areas where the population exhibited high rates of cancer, CSE director Sunita Narain clarified that the CSE study was not competent to establish any direct link between high exposure to pesticides and the spread of the disease. Narain did, however, say that the Punjab findings should act as a countrywide alert to the excessive use of pesticides. She called for the enactment of a chemical trespass law for strict monitoring and regulation of pesticides across the country. And, holding pesticide manufacturers responsible for disseminating correct information about their products.

Source: www.cseindia.org, June 7, 2005
The Asian Age, June 8, 2005
Deccan Herald, June 8, 2005

With more that half the world’s population expected to be concentrated in urban areas by 2007, agencies like the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) have expressed concern at the unregulated growth of cities. Speaking on the occasion of World Environment Day, June 5, they called for public action to meet the challenges of rapid urbanisation.

‘Green Cities: Plan for the Planet!’ -- the theme of this year’s World Environment Day -- highlighted the challenges posed by the rapidly increasing number of people living in urban areas.

As part of the UNEP’s commemoration of the day, mayors and urban planning experts from all over the world met in San Francisco and, on June 6, signed a host of UN-backed accords on environmental action for cities. Called the Green Cities Declaration and the Urban Environmental Accords the plans call for increased environmental protection.

Both treaties focus on policies to expand affordable public transportation coverage for city residents within a decade, and increased access to safe drinking water. The Urban Environment Accords list 21 specific moves to make cities greener.

“Cities are prolific users of natural resources and generators of waste. They produce most of the greenhouse gases that are causing changes in global climate…let us tap the great knowledge and natural dynamism of urban areas and create ‘green cities’ where people can raise their children and pursue their dreams in a well-planned, clean and healthy environment,” said United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Mayors participating in the ceremony came from Zurich, Istanbul, Melbourne, Seattle and dozens of other cities. Each set specific goals including up to 25% cuts in their cities’ emissions of heat-trapping gases from cars, factories and power plants, by 2030. This is more ambitious than even the UN’s Kyoto Protocol which seeks to cut emissions in developed nations by 5.2% from pre-1990 levels, by 2008-12.

Other targets for cities include ensuring that residents do not have to walk more than 500 metres in 2015 to reach public transport or an open space.

Klaus Toepfer, the UNEP’s executive director offered a vision of cities “where buildings use solar power to help generate their own energy, and waste less because they use power-saving lighting and are well insulated, where public transport is affordable and efficient, where vehicles pollute less because they are powered by electricity or hydrogen”.

According to UN estimates, the world’s urban population reached 3 billion in 2003 and is expected to increase to 5 billion by 2030. It is projected to exceed 50% of the global population by 2007. This means that for the first time in history the world will have more urban residents than rural residents.

For more information read: ‘Half the world will live in cities by 2007: UN report’

Source: www.un.org, June 5, 2005
             www.oneworld.net, June 5, 2005
             PTI, June 5, 2005
             IANS, June 5, 2005

The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (ICJB) -- a forum seeking justice for victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy -- and millions of sympathisers have launched a nationwide boycott of the state-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) to protest a deal with Dow Chemical, owners of the controversial Union Carbide Corporation responsible for the 1984 Bhopal gas leak.

Indian Oil Corporation recently approved a technology purchase agreement with Dow Chemical to source Union Carbide’s technology for a mono ethylene glycol unit at its upcoming naptha refinery in Panipat, Haryana. The deal comes only a few months after the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal tragedy, where civil servants solemnly intoned that they would spare no effort in holding Union Carbide accountable for the disaster.

Victims of the tragedy, and activists, have launched a nationwide protest against the government entering into such a deal, offering Union Carbide back-door entry into the country. Around 20 victims of the 1984 gas tragedy wrote a letter in blood to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and to IOC asking that the deal be cancelled.

The anti-IOC campaign began on May 29 in Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar’s constituency of Myladuthurai, where activists blamed Aiyar for not stopping the deal and blacklisted Dow Chemical. In the second phase of the campaign, ICJB volunteers in New Delhi, Bhopal, Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram will announce a boycott of IOC’s products in their cities.

“We want Indian Oil to drop any plans to do business with Dow Chemicals. (We also want) the Union government to pressurise Dow Chemical into bringing the parent company, Union Carbide, to court. If it fails Dow Chemical should be blacklisted,” says Nityanand Jayaraman, member, ICJB.

Union Carbide has been charged with culpable homicide in the Bhopal Magistrate’s Court for its role in the Bhopal gas tragedy. In February 1992, the magistrate proclaimed the company an absconder after it repeatedly failed to honour a court summons.

In January 2005, the magistrate ordered that summons be issued to Dow Chemicals, asking the parent company to produce Union Carbide in court. Dow maintains that it does not recognise the Indian court’s criminal jurisdiction over Carbide.

For more information read:
‘Experts call for strict disaster laws in India at Bhopal anniversary’
‘The return of Union Carbide’

Source: www.newstodaynet.com, May 30, 2005
             Asian Tribune, May 29, 2005
             www.sify.com, May 27, 2005

The Supreme Court of India has issued a notice to the Indian government and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) asking why the latter should not investigate other tiger sanctuaries and national parks in India besides the Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan, where reports of the disappearance of tigers first surfaced in February this year.

The apex court has become the latest high-level official authority in India to intervene in the current controversy surrounding India’s missing tigers -- perhaps the biggest wildlife crisis the country has faced post-Independence.

On May 3, a bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice Y K Sabharwal, Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice S H Kapadia issued a notice to the Indian ministry of environment and forests asking why the government’s highest investigative agency, the CBI, should not investigate other project tiger reserves besides Sariska. The CBI, which was asked by the Indian government to investigate the disappearance of tigers from Sariska, has recently published a report stating that there were no tigers left in Sariska.

The bench was acting on a petition filed through the post by wildlife expert Ashok Kumar, who was a member of the Project Tiger steering committee for two terms. “The primary cause of decline in tiger populations in quite a few tiger reserves is organised poaching, masterminded by wildlife traders in collaboration with local networks,” states the petition.

Kumar has specifically sought a probe into other tiger reserves too, including Ranthambhore in Rajasthan, Panna and Bandhavgarh in Madhya Pradesh. Also national parks and sanctuaries -- Dudhwa and Kanha (in Madhya Pradesh), Palamau (in Jharkhand) and Nagarjun Sagar-Srisalam (in Andhra Pradesh).

The petitioner has sought the court’s direction to empower the probe team to register criminal cases for investigations pertaining to poaching and other irregularities inside tiger reserves. He has also submitted that members of the probe team should not be changed without the court’s permission.

In response to the second petition filed by the civil society organisation Bandhua Mukti Morcha, the Supreme Court, on May 5, asked for an investigation into allegations of large-scale mining activities taking place inside the Sariska Tiger Reserve.

Mentioning the application, amicus curiae Harish Salve said the application gave a list of 145 mines allegedly operating within the tiger reserve. The application recalled that the apex court had, in 1993, ordered that no mining could be undertaken within a tiger reserve. This was reiterated in a 2000 Supreme Court order.

The Aravalli hills range which runs through Rajasthan (part of which encompasses the Sariska reserve) is notorious for illegal sand mining and granite quarrying activities that thrive despite a ban and repeated court orders.

The bench of the Supreme Court has asked the central empowered committee (constituted by the court) to visit the Sariska Tiger Reserve and submit a report to the court within three months.

Source: The Asian Age, May 6, 2005
             PTI, May 5, 2005
             The Indian Express, May 4, 2005

The Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Land Rights) Bill 2005, which seeks to recognise the rights of forest-dwelling scheduled tribes (FDSTs) over forest produce, has been pulled off the agenda for discussion by the Indian cabinet, following a heated debate between tribal rights and social groups on the one hand and environmentalists on the other, over provisions in the draft bill.

The controversial bill, which has been dogged by criticism from the start, was scheduled to be introduced in the current session of Parliament. It proposes 12 specific rights, “heritable but not alienable or transferable,”-- ranging from minor forest produce to intellectual property rights on traditional knowledge -- to tribals living in forest villages.

Social groups are concerned that the bill in its present form could lead to societal divisions between those groups that benefit from the provisions and those whose concerns are not addressed by it. “The draft act drops forest-dwellers, including tribes not scheduled in some areas, dalits and other backward communities that are linked to the forest for livelihood needs. This can create conflict among the forest people,” says Souparno Lahiri of the non-government organisation the Delhi Forum.

“How can you give rights to one community in a forest village and ask the other to leave, if it fails to verify its claim of being a forest-dweller,” asks Sanjay Bosu Mullick of the Jharkhand-based Jungle Bachao Andolan. The move will create social divisions in villages where different communities have been living in peace for decades. “The government will take away the right to food and work from people who will be asked to leave their habitat,” he adds.

According to Soumitra Ghosh, an activist from north Bengal, by transferring all authority to initiate action on determining the extent of forest rights that may be given to FDSTs, the draft bill will be almost impossible to implement in all non-scheduled areas and even in scheduled areas where a gram sabha has not been properly constituted or formed.

The draft is also unclear about how common property resources like pastures and forests suitable for ‘jhum’ cultivation (shifting cultivation) will be recorded and protected within the framework of 2.5 hectares per family, says Ghosh.

“In fact, the biggest drawback of the draft is that it confuses scheduled tribes with adivasis and forest-dwelling populations of traditional communities that include large numbers of non-scheduled populations as well. The end result will be that the bill, in its present form, will be thoroughly unacceptable to a large section of India’s forest communities, and unimplementable in other areas.”

On the other hand environmentalists fear that access to forests will harm India’s wildlife, a sensitive issue in light of dwindling tiger populations in the country’s national parks. They contend that access deep into forests will not help the wildlife conservation cause that is already suffering due to rapid urbanisation.

The country’s ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) has also objected to the bill, saying it will hinder efforts to preserve India’s dwindling forest cover -- the most contentious clause of the draft bill proposes giving 2.5 hectares to each tribal family occupying forest land since before October 25, 1980. The land, the bill states clearly, is for livelihood purposes only, not for commercial cultivation. The right to allot this land -- to be registered jointly in the name of a male member of the family and his spouse -- rests with the gram sabha of the village concerned, which is also empowered to punish wildlife crimes and any action that leads to the destruction of the forest.

However, quick calculations indicate the amount of land that would be given away if the bill became a law. Around 20% of India’s land or 68 million hectares is forest land and 8 % of its population is tribal. If each family ends up claiming 2.5 hectares, it adds up to 50 million hectares.

Sources at the MoEF say failures on the development front should not be compensated by gifting away India’s forest heritage. The ministry also believes there is no need for a separate bill as provisions already exist under the Forest (Conservation) Act 1980 to cater to the concerns of tribals.

A strongly worded letter from the MoEF to the tribal affairs ministry (responsible for drafting the bill) says: “The approach adopted in the proposed bill requiring denotification of vast tracts of forestland and elimination of legal protection for forest cover will lead to irreparable ecological damage of immense proportion.”

Portions of the draft bill that the ministry finds objectionable include giving the power of settlement of claims to gram sabhas/sub-divisional committees/district committees. This, the ministry points out, will result in local vested interests taking over, fresh encroachments and the situation getting out of hand.

The ministry points out that forests are a national resource and that it would not be “appropriate” to allocate large areas to 8.2 % of the population. It adds that the draft bill puts a question mark on the existence of national parks and sanctuaries where the current policy is to shift habitations outside protected areas.

Worried forest officials say the bill could lead to the “massive destruction of forests by inducing large-scale fresh encroachments on forestland in the garb of tribals and forest-dwellers”. In fact, officials claim they are already getting reports of fresh encroachments from Maharashtra.

Source: The Hindu, May 2, 2005
             PTI, April 28, 2005
             The Indian Express, April 15, 2005

The three-year study, commissioned by the UK government and published recently in the Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences found that the number of butterflies decreased by up to two-thirds and bee populations by half in fields of transgenic winter oilseed rape (canola).

The herbicide management of genetically modified herbicide-tolerant (GMHT) winter-sown oilseed rape is responsible for differences in the types of weeds present, compared to those growing in fields of conventional varieties, according to the findings published in the March 21, 2005, edition of the publication.

In the study, which began in 2002, 65 fields in the UK were sown with winter oilseed rape. Each field was split -- one half sown with a conventional variety managed according to the farmer’s normal commercial practice for weed control, the other half sown with a GMHT variety, with weeds controlled by a broad-spectrum herbicide called glufosinate-ammonium.

Comparisons in bio-diversity were made by looking at levels of weeds and invertebrates such as beetles, butterflies and bees.

At harvest time, in the GMHT crop, both the amounts of broad-leafed flowering weeds and the number of their seeds, which provide food for wildlife, were one-third of those in the conventional field. But in the GMHT crop there were three times as many grass weeds and five times as many of their seeds as in the conventional crop.

These effects were observed in the year of cropping and persisted during the following two years that data were collected. As regards the total amount of weeds found, there was little difference between GMHT and conventional cropping.

For the majority of invertebrate species there was no significant difference between the GMHT and conventional herbicide regimes. However, by the July sampling, there was half the number of bees and two-thirds the number of butterflies found foraging in the GMHT crop areas compared to the conventional. Also, consistent with previous farm scale evaluation (FSE) results reported for spring-sown crops, the yearly totals for springtails -- a type of detritivore that feeds on dead and decaying weeds -- were higher in the GMHT crop areas.

“If this crop were commercialised, we’d be concerned about the implications for birds such as sparrows and bullfinches,” says David Gibbons, a conservationist with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and a member of the committee that oversaw the experiment.

Over 150 people worked on the experiment conducted at sites across the United Kingdom.

Germany-based Bayer CropScience already markets winter oilseed rape (used in the trial) in the US and Canada. The company says it has no intention of applying for a licence to sell it in Europe. But, officials point out that the biggest drop in butterfly and bee numbers is seen in July when the crop is just about to be harvested and there is little green material. “There’s nothing in the field at that point for bees and butterflies and it is not justified to blame transgenic crops,” says Bayer spokesperson Julian Little.

In 2003, two of the three other transgenic varieties covered by the study -- spring oilseed rape and beet -- were shown to harm bio-diversity by reducing overall weed levels. “Now we have a rational and scientific basis for managing change,” says Chris Pollock of the Institute for Grassland and Environmental Research, Aberystwyth, UK, who was chairperson of the study committee. “We’ve demonstrated in enormous detail just how tight the link is between agriculture and the environment.”

For the entire study see http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/app/home/
contribution.asp?wasp=6e821f599f4a43bf965508bd5b27f31a&referrer=
parent&backto=issue,1,13;journal,4,194;linkingpublicationresults,1:102024,1

Source: Down To Earth, April 27, 2005
             www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk, March 21, 2005

The Supreme Court of India (SC) was informed on April 30 that the Government of India and the governments of the Indian states had reached a consensus on a time-bound action plan to save the tiger from extinction.

A bench of the SC comprising Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice P P Naolekar, which is currently hearing a public interest petition on the issue, was told by advocates appearing for the central and state governments that out of 19 points on which the court had sought a response, 2 had been addressed in a series of meetings between the secretary, Indian ministry of environment and forests and the chief secretaries of the various states.

Some of the key points on which agreement was reached are:

• Release of funds directly to the implementing agency, and the filling up of vacancies for wildlife staff at all levels in tiger reserves, national parks and sanctuaries.
• Capacity building of forest staff by training them in forest protection, fire-fighting, the use of firearms, communications equipment, legal training, preparation of charge-sheets against wildlife law violators and follow-up action for their prosecution.
• Deployment of sniffer dogs at all transit points.
• Establishment of forest stations along the lines of police stations and the creation of a strike force similar to the rapid action force, by providing members with suitable training and motivation in conjunction with existing forest staff.

Source: PTI, May 2, 2005
             The Indian Express, May 2, 2005

The need for institutional reforms and involving local communities in tiger conservation efforts were the main issues raised at the first meeting (on April 29) of the special task force investigating the functioning of India’s tiger reserves. The five-member exert body also decided that all existing conservation efforts in the country would be brought under a single authority.

Constituted by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh (see PM forms task force to review India’s tiger reserves) to probe reports of a decline in India’s tiger population following the disappearance of the big cat from one of the country’s premier sanctuaries, Sariska the task force also recommended an external professional audit of the functioning of all India’s wildlife parks.

The tiger task force constituted this April and chaired by noted environmentalist Sunita Narain also has to suggest ways to improve and strengthen conservation efforts in India. Narain said the group would consult experts and survey forest reserves in an attempt to understand why tiger numbers were plummeting. A report with the task force’s final recommendations is expected within three months.

“We believe that there is a deep-rooted institutional crisis in tiger protection and conservation in India. This is related to many factors but we are linking it to the undermining of research institutions and lack of involvement of local communities,” said Narain. “We need to look at where the problem is. Sariska is a wake-up call. Sariska is symptomatic of what is wrong with the system.”

“There is a serious problem with the way tiger conservation is handled. Institutions are not doing their jobs,” said Samar Singh, another task force member. “At some stage there had been a failure on their part and in the implementation.”

“You can’t protect the tiger unless you have people to take care of them. A guard’s average age is 50 years. Serious institutional reforms are needed,” added Narain. Some of the task force’s suggestions include providing incentives and better training to forest guards, a better forecasting system, and an early-warning system for tiger reserves and sanctuaries.

“It’s not going to be easy,” says Narain. The failure to detect the crisis in Sariska despite the fact that tigers had been disappearing from there for years points to the fact that there are weaknesses in the system.

India has the largest tiger population in the world. However, the tiger population has fallen to 3,500 (according to the 2002 tiger census) from around 4,300 just 11 years ago. Many wildlife experts say, however, that previous censuses have overestimated the number of tigers in the country.

Poaching is believed to the main reason behind the decline in tiger numbers in Sariska and other Indian tiger reserves. The tacit or active participation of wildlife authorities and park staff is also suspected. “The menace of poaching is very virulent across Asia,” Narain told journalists. “You are seeing a decline in tiger populations in most countries, whether it is Laos, Myanmar (Burma) or Cambodia. Tigers are becoming virtually extinct in many of these countries.”

To make matters worse for the big cat, said Narain, the tiger skin business was back and demand huge in West Asia. In October 2004, the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) reported the existence of well-organised syndicates trafficking tiger and leopard skins between India, Nepal, Tibet and China. In October 2003, customs officials in Tibet intercepted a record haul of 31 tiger skins and 581 leopard skins being trucked to the capital Lhasa.

Project Tiger director Rajesh Gopal claims there is no demand for tiger skin in the domestic market.

“Though we have an agreement with China for joint patrolling, there is no implementation,” said Narain. India currently has a similar agreement with Nepal to check wildlife trade through the largely porous border; discussions are on with Bangladesh and Myanmar for similar agreements.

Source: The Indian Express, April 30, 2005
             Deccan Herald, April 30, 2005
             www.bbcnews.com, April 29, 2005
             IANS, April 30, 2005

As wildlife officials in Orissa began a three-day exercise aimed at counting wild elephants in the state, a prominent wildlife organisation warned that the very survival of the wild pachyderms was under threat owing to large-scale deforestation, diversion of forestland to mining and other so-called ‘developmental’ activities.

A 2002 census put the number of elephants in Orissa at 1,841. Wildlife experts insist that over the past five years increasing industrial activity, human encroachment and poaching have led to a number of elephant deaths. “It’s sad that the government is not using the census data before taking policy decisions on land use and allowing destructive activities like mining inside elephant habitats and corridors,” says Biswajit Mohanty, secretary, Wildlife Society of Orissa.

According to Kulamani Deo of Wild Orissa, a Bhubaneswar-based organisation, Vedanta Alumina’s proposed alumina refinery in Kalahandi district, the Brutanga irrigation project in Nayagarh district and a large number of iron and steel projects coming up in the districts of Jajpur, Keonjhar and Sundergarh will seriously affect wild elephant populations in the state.

Official records put the number of wild elephants in 1979, in Orissa, at 2,044. But this number dropped to 1,841 when the last elephant census was done in 2002. Official figures also reveal that a total of 200 elephants were killed by poachers between 1990-91 and 2004-05, 105 died from natural causes, 128 due to disease and 36 died of unknown causes.

Habitat destruction and food scarcity are also forcing elephants into confrontations with humans. Over 259 people were killed by wild elephants in the state between 1995-96 and 2003-04. Experts warn that unless steps are taken to protect the elephants their population will dwindle sharply.

This year’s elephant census is employing the dung decay method, in addition to traditional methods like direct sightings and sample surveys. The Orissa exercise is part of a census being held right across eastern India. “The dung decay method is for a period of 100 to 105 days, and an elephant defecates around 15 times a day. With this data we can compute an index that will tell us the density of elephants in an area,” says Suresh Chandra Mishra, DFO, Chadka Sanctuary.

Source: www.ndtv.com, April 25, 2005
The Hindu, April 24, 2005

An Indian scientist who helped save the Himalayan snow leopard from extinction by involving local people in conservation efforts has won Britain’s top conservation prize, the Whitley Gold Award 2005. Dr Charudutt Mishra was presented the prestigious prize, which carries a cash award of UK£ 60,000, at the Whitley Awards ceremony at the Royal Geographical Society in London on April 20.

Thirty-four-year-old Mishra has been working in a village situated high in the Himalayas, just south of Ladakh, on a project entitled ‘People and Snow Leopards: Wildlife Conservation in the Himalayan High Altitudes’, to successfully address the twin problems of declining wild prey and the human-snow leopard conflict, both of which threaten the existence of the snow leopard.

Edward Whitley, chairman and founder of the Whitley Fund for Nature, which awards the conservation prize every year, said: “He (Mishra) has had marked success with his project work in the Himalayan high altitudes, reducing the numbers of snow leopards killed as a result of growing tensions between predators and local communities.”

Whitley said that what had impressed the judges about Mishra’s work was “the vital need to involve local people in efforts to conserve wildlife. But more than this, he has also set up his own NGO with other very capable young Indian conservationists who are spearheading efforts to protect wildlife and habitats across India.”

Mishra was chosen from a shortlist of 10 finalists from India, Africa, Nepal, Belize, Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica and Africa for the top Whitley Award established by Whitley, a disciple of Gerald Durrell, in 1994 to support passionate conservationists working in difficult conditions around the world.

Praising Mishra’s innovativeness and drive, Whitley said the scientist’s efforts have already made a big difference to prospects for the snow leopard’s survival and “we are excited to see Charu’s work develop further over the years to come”.

Hunted for decades for its fur, and now threatened by a demand for tiger bone substitutes in the Chinese medicine trade, the snow leopard is an endangered species now restricted to a global population of approximately 5,000 in 12 countries, with only 1,000 left in India. The leopard shares its home with many other unusual species including the Tibetan argali, wild blue sheep, the ibex and wolf, all of which are also threatened.

According to Mishra, as the snow leopard’s usual prey became more scarce it sometimes preyed on domestic animals. Although traditional communities display great tolerance for these losses, more and more people were moving to the high altitudes of Himachal Pradesh from outside, and they were less tolerant.

To counter this Mishra has started a simple insurance scheme among communities whose livestock was being preyed upon by snow leopards, leading to retaliation kills. Since the introduction of the scheme, starting in the village of Kibber in the remote area where Mishra is based, no snow leopards have been killed by hunters.

Mishra has also negotiated conservation agreements to keep domestic livestock out of certain areas. This has led to a recovery in the wild prey of the snow leopard. According to the scientist, £ 250 from conservation bodies would be enough to safeguard a five sq km area for a year.

Mishra, who has set up his own conservation body together with other young conservation scientists from India, said he would use the cash award to extend and develop his existing conservation work.

Source: www.wfn.org, April 21, 2005
             www.telegraph.co.uk, April 26, 2005

In blatant contravention of a 2001 Allahabad High Court directive preventing the draining of wetlands in Uttar Pradesh, the Rs 1,300 crore UP Sodic Land Reclamation (UPSLR) project is continuing its activities to wipe out the wetlands, putting the rare sarus crane population under threat and destroying the livelihoods of people in the region.

In 2001 the court found that the UPSLR project, aimed at reclaiming wasteland for agriculture, was draining water from wetlands in the Etawah and Mainpuri districts -- prime habitat of 30% of India’s sarus crane population.

On the surface the project appears to benefit the state, with 68,000 hectares of sodic land -- land patches with highly alkaline, barren soil -- having been made cultivable since 1994. The project involves treating sodic land with gypsum and then flushing it with water to make it cultivable. A closer look at the project, however, reveals that not only are the sarus cranes losing their habitat but large groups of landless people, many of them belonging to the backward caste, are seeing their livelihoods vanish with the draining of the wetlands. Villagers fishing in a typical five-acre lake in Mainpuri district reveal that the lake supports 10 families and that apart from fishing these families earn Rs 25,000 every year from water chestnuts.

“We use the wetlands to graze our animals too,” says a villager. The wetlands are also used to harvest lotus, whose stems are sold at Rs 30 a kilo. According to Parikshat Gautam, a senior official with the conservation group World Wide Fund for Nature, the wetlands are also crucial to recharge groundwater.

“The project’s new plan to widen and deepen rivers that connect the wetlands will drain many of them out. No studies have been undertaken to catalogue the socio-economic uses of wetlands in the area,” says K S Gopisundar, India associate of the International Crane Foundation.

Decreasing wetlands are also bound to affect the delicate relationship between farmers in the region and the sarus crane. Earlier the farmers ignored the birds, which sometimes fed on their crops. But as more cranes lose their preferred habitat and occupy fields this could lead to a confrontation.

Ironically, the environment impact assessment (EIA) report for the current phase of the project is silent on the issue of sarus cranes and other rare bird species inhabiting the wetlands, including the painted stork, the black-headed ibis and the black-necked stork. On the contrary, the report states: “No bird or wildlife sanctuary or community utilities are falling in the direct impact or influence zone/catchment of the project.”

Source: Down to Earth, April 27, 2005

Reduced snowfall in the Himalayan mountains caused by global warming is posing a threat to marine life as far away as the Arabian Sea, according to a new study, The study adds that less snowfall could also aggravate global climate change.

A research team led by Joaquim Goes of the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, USA, explains that during the northern hemisphere’s summer months, the difference in temperature between land and sea surfaces in Eurasia creates strong monsoon winds that blow from the Arabian Sea eastwards towards India. These winds pull surface water with them. In the western Arabian Sea, near the coasts of Oman, Somalia and Yemen, the displaced surface water is replaced by water rising from the bottom of the Arabian Sea. The deeper, cooler water is rich in nutrients. Their upward movement leads to a surge in the number of microscopic plants, called phytoplankton, that float near the surface.

In a paper published in the April 22 issue of the US magazine Science, Goes’ team shows that the amount of phytoplankton at the surface of the Arabian Sea has been increasing every year since the late 1990s. The researchers found that this was linked to changes in the strength of winds and temperatures of the sea surface in the western Arabian Sea, which they monitored over the same period. They concluded that the recent increase in phytoplankton was caused by stronger monsoon winds dragging up more of the nutrient-rich water from the bottom of the Arabian Sea.

The researchers believe this is because the amount of winter snowfall in the Himalayas has been decreasing since the late 1990s. As a result, the land heats up faster during the summer months generating stronger winds.

More phytoplankton might seem like a good thing. These tiny plants are at the bottom of the foodchain, so more of them should support more marine animals, resulting in more food in the foodchain. The trouble, explains Goes, is that while the deep water is rich in nutrients, it has little oxygen. Dragging more of it up to the surface is suffocating marine life.

In fact, fishermen off the coasts of Somalia, Oman and Yemen say the number of dead fish they catch has been increasing steadily for the past five to seven years. If the trend continues more fish will die, explains Goes.

Less snowfall in the Himalayas also results in another kind of problem. Bringing deep water to the surface in this part of the globe could also dramatically increase global warming, says the study. Some bacteria have found a way of dealing with the low oxygen levels at the bottom of the Arabian Sea. They do this by extracting oxygen from nitrate, which is found in the water. The process, known as ‘de-nitrification’, produces nitrous oxide -- a powerful greenhouse gas.

When de-nitrification happens at the bottom of the sea, the nitrous oxide is trapped. But when the water rises to the surface, the gas is released into the atmosphere. There, it acts as a greenhouse gas that is about 300 times more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide.

If the Himalayas continue to receive less winter snow, says Goes, “the Arabian Sea will become a chimney for nitrous oxide”. And that could mean that climate change would be much worse than is currently anticipated.

Source: www.scidev.net, April 22, 2005

Five projects from across the world have been honoured with the first SEED (Supporting Entrepreneurs for Environment and Development) Awards, announced on April 20, 2005, in New York, for their potential in advancing sustainable development in their communities and contributing to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The awards, announced during the 13th session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, endorse initiatives ranging from environment-friendly ways of growing rice in Asia and East Africa and a project to cultivate a highly versatile berry in the Himalayas to a community-based marine conservation project in the Indian Ocean, an innovative water supply scheme in Latin America and a power plant in West Africa that turns cattle waste into energy.

The five winners were chosen from a pool of over 260 entries from 66 countries, representing 1,200 organisations. The awards aim to inspire, support and build the capacity of locally driven entrepreneurial partnerships to contribute to the delivery of the MDGs such as environmental sustainability and global partnership for development.

Each of the winning projects was chosen for its potential to be replicated in similar areas around the globe, helping to address a multitude of issues in the developing world. They also celebrate partnerships between communities, non-government organisations, businesses and public authorities towards innovative and novel solutions for delivering not only sustainable development but also sustainable livelihoods.

Environment-friendly rice farmers in Asia and East Africa won the SEED Award for their initiatives in boosting rural incomes through the marketing of indigenous and environment-friendly rice varieties. Low market prices for rice, the financial and environmental cost of using chemicals and fertilisers, and the need for excessive water to grow rice has resulted in farmers in Cambodia, Madagascar and Sri Lanka turning to the System of Rice Intensification (SRI). This system chalks out details of when to plant seedlings, specifies weeding regimes and the spacing of plants -- all of which can be adapted to local conditions and indigenous rice varieties.

The international HimalAsia Foundation, together with local Tibetan cooperatives and a family of traditional medical practitioners, won the award for developing a sustainable programme to cultivate and market Seabuckthorn -- a deciduous shrub that is common in the Himalayas -- and other medicinal plants for the local and international market. Seabuckthorn berries are highly nutritious and yield juice and oil used in cosmetics and traditional medicine. The leaves are also used in traditional medicine, as well as for livestock fodder, and the branches for firewood.

A community-led project in Madagascar won the SEED Award for an initiative in marine conservation and sustainable livelihoods that focuses around the 1,200-strong community of Andavadoaka -- a remote fishing village situated on the south west coast of Madagascar -- by balancing the needs of local fishermen and protecting the area’s important coral reefs. Eco-tourism has been promoted as a way to generate income for conservation work, diversifying the local economy and reducing the pressure on fish stocks.

A consortium of local communities, an NGO and a pipe manufacturer in Bolivia won the award for building water distribution systems, in coordination with the municipal water company in Cochabamba, each connecting between 100 and 500 poor households. The cost of the project is being met by the communities concerned through a micro-credit scheme, repayable within a year.

The SEED Awards also facilitated a project being piloted in Ibadan, Nigeria, to turn waste from a slaughterhouse into energy, generating income for poor urban communities and reducing the emission of gases linked with climate change. The project treats the waste and turns it into biogas suitable for cooking and other uses. Agricultural-grade fertiliser is generated as a by-product.

The SEED Awards were started by the SEED Initiative which comprises the IUCN, UNDP and UNEP as core partners working closely with the German federal ministry for environment, the governments of the United States and United Kingdom and Norwegian environment ministries.

Source: www.seedawards.org, April 20, 2005

Seven environment leaders belonging to different walks of life, including two monarchs, government and religious leaders and indigenous and youth group representatives, were honoured with the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP’s) ‘Champions of the Earth’ Award on April 19, for their outstanding work in protecting and conserving the environment.

King Jigme Singye Wangchuk and the people of Bhutan, Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al-Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates (posthumously), President Thabo Mbeki and the people of South Africa, His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew from Europe, Julia Carabias Lillo (former environment minister of Mexico), Sheila Watt-Cloutier of Canada (president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference), Zhou Qiang and the All-China Youth Federation are the seven laureates who were rewarded for their creativity, vision and leadership, and for the potential of their work and ideas to be replicated across the globe.

The award was created by the UNEP in 2004 to honour individuals or groups who have made a significant and recognised contribution, regionally or beyond, to the protection and sustainable management of the earth’s environment and natural resources. The candidates were judged by a panel of senior UNEP staff members, with inputs from the UNEP’s regional offices.

“The UNEP is honoured to recognise the achievements of those who have, to a large extent, set the environmental agenda and laid the foundation for the many areas of progress we are able to see and celebrate today,” said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme.

Bhutan’s excellent environmental track record, with more than 72% of its land under forest cover and 26% of this cover designated as protected, won King Jigme Singye Wangchuk and the people of Bhutan the ‘Champion of the Earth’ Award for Asia and the Pacific region. The judges appreciated the kingdom’s decision that development should be pursued in a sustainable way; this is in line with the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.

Legislation and policies in Bhutan ensure the sustainable use of resources, promote community involvement in environmental activities, improve land use planning and integrate traditional with modern natural resource use practices.

Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al-Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates won the award for greening the region’s deserts. Under his leadership, 100 million trees were planted and hunting was outlawed.

Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, known in Europe as the ‘Green Patriarch’ won the award for his initiatives in organising seminars and dialogue to discuss the need to mobilise moral and spiritual forces to achieve harmony between humankind and nature.

President Thabo Mbeki and the people of South Africa won the award from the Africa region for the country’s commitment to cultural and environmental diversity and its efforts towards achieving the goals encapsulated in the 2000 Millennium Declaration and the World Summit on Sustainable Development Plan of Implementation.

For the Latin America and Caribbean region, the award was given to Julia Carabias Lillo for her efforts in coordinating research and rural development programmes in impoverished peasant communities in the four regions of Mexico.

“Sheila Watt-Cloutier receives the North American award for her contributions in addressing global warming and in articulating her people’s concerns in the face of the devastating effects of climate change and its relentless assault on the traditional life of the Inuit,” said a judge.

Zhou Qiang and the All-China Youth Federation received a special ‘Champion of the Earth’ Award in recognition of Zhou’s outstanding achievements as honorary chairman of the federation and leader of the ‘China Mother River Protection Operation’ which mobilised 300 million Chinese youth to protect the environment.

Source: www.unep.org, April 19, 2005
www.earthnewswire.com, April 13, 2005

Environment groups across India have demanded the immediate dissolution of the environmental assessment expert committees set up by the Indian government, on grounds that they have few environmental experts on board and are not represented by various groups and communities. Instead, the seven committees are dominated by serving and retired bureaucrats, politicians and engineers, say groups like the Pune-based Kalpavriksh, Delhi-based Toxics Link and the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information.

As a result there is little environmental expertise in these committees, despite Environment Impact Assessment Notification 1994 (under which they were constituted) clearly stating that they must consist of experts.

In an open letter to the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have demanded the reconstitution of the panels -- set up to advise the MoEF on issues of granting clearance to major projects -- through a proper and transparent process with the mandatory inclusion of experts and experienced persons from various stakeholder groups.

Analysing the committees, the NGOs pointed out that of the 64 members only two were wildlife experts and about half were from the government or government-affiliated agencies. Two-thirds of the members were based in Delhi, Noida and Tamil Nadu (mostly Chennai). Furthermore, there were no representatives from indigenous and local communities. There were only three or four women members, and one of them was a MoEF official.

The NGOs want the government to ensure that information about site visits by committee members is put up for public scrutiny as soon as the programme was final, and at least two weeks in advance of such visits. It should also be made public through notices in local newspapers so that all concerned could meet and inform the committees about their concerns. Reports of site visits should be made available to the public.

The committees have recommended for environmental clearance the Lower Subansiri Hydroelectric Project (Assam-Arunachal Pradesh), the Siang Middle (Siyom) Hydroelectric Project in Arunachal Pradesh, the Chamera III Project in Himachal Pradesh, the Lohari Nag Pala and Tapovan Vishnugad Hydroelectric Projects in Uttaranchal and the Athirappilly Hydroelectric Project in Kerala. A decision about projects such as the expansion of the Jindal sponge iron plant in Raigarh, Chhattisgarh, is awaited. It is feared that all these projects will have severe social and environmental impacts. Also, local communities oppose them as their livelihood and natural resources will be affected, says the letter.

Source: The Hindu, April 19, 2005

Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has constituted a five-member special task force that will review the management of tiger reserves in the country. The move comes amid warnings from both local wildlife experts as well as international agencies that India’s tiger sanctuaries are ill-equipped to cope with the threat of organised poaching and are poorly staffed and badly managed.

Finalised on April 13, the task force will suggest measures to strengthen tiger conservation in the country and improve census methodology, which, experts say, is faulty and presents an exaggerated picture of tiger numbers in the country. The review body is expected to submit its report to the prime minister within three months, says an official spokesperson.

The task force will also suggest incentives to the local community in tiger conservation, methods to institute a transparent professional audit of wildlife parks, and outline a new wildlife management paradigm that shares the concerns of conservation with the general public.

The task force, which is headed by Sunita Narain, director of the Delhi-based non-governmental organisation the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), also includes H S Pawar, former chief of Project Tiger and the Wildlife Institute of India, Professor Madhav Gadgil, member of the National Board of Wildlife, Valmik Thapar, noted wildlife expert and tiger specialist, and Samar Singh, former secretary in the government.

According to the last tiger census, conducted in 2001-2002, India has slightly over 3,500 tigers, though in recent months there have been reports of tigers missing from many north and central Indian tiger reserves. In Sariska, Rajasthan, the entire tiger population is feared dead.

Source: Deccan Herald, April 14, 2005
             The Indian Express, April 14, 2005

The Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) has made an urgent appeal to Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to save the endangered Asian tiger from the threat of poachers. The move is an indication of how seriously the global wildlife community views the current crisis of dwindling tiger populations in India.

The international monitoring agency says the slowness with which India seems to be implementing anti-poaching measures could be seen as a lessening of its commitment to CITES, to which India is a signatory. It requested an urgent meeting with the Indian prime minister, saying it was concerned about India’s lack of effort to protect its tigers.

In a rare move, Willem Wijnstekers, CITES’ secretary-general wrote to the prime minister on April 12 saying: “Even if some of the alarming reports emerging from India are not wholly accurate, there can be no doubt that India’s wildlife continues to be plundered by poachers and unscrupulous traders.”

CITES -- which fears that India’s population of wild tigers, the world’s largest, is increasingly falling prey to poachers -- says it does not want to embarrass India, but making the letter public is a last-ditch attempt to save the tigers.

The letter said bureaucratic complications and lack of coordination had muddled enforcement efforts and that many officials were “living in denial” about the problem even existing. “It would be possible to interpret some of the above points as indicative of a lessening of India’s commitment to CITES,” the head of CITES wrote.

Wijnstekers complained about the lack of an organised official response to counter poaching networks by Indian law-enforcement agencies to ever more effective poaching networks, despite repeated promises. “It seems, for reasons unknown to us... that internal developments have either not taken place or that such work is moving slowly…One of our problems is that we do not see things really happening,” he told journalists.

There are between 3,500 and 3,700 Indian tigers left, according to official estimates. CITES believes current numbers may be an overestimation of the tiger population.

Dr Manmohan Singh, however, has taken a personal interest in the problem relating to the alarming disappearance of tigers from many of the country’s premier tiger sanctuaries. He has ordered a police investigation into the falling tiger numbers, created a taskforce to save the endangered species and has vowed to establish a wildlife crime prevention bureau. CITES says it saw no evidence that the specialised bureau had actually been established.

John Sellar, chief enforcement officer of CITES, says poaching has become a highly professional operation. Networks of organised criminals gather skins and carcasses and smuggle them out of India using sophisticated techniques, he says. “If it is accurate that tigers have disappeared entirely from one of India’s premier tiger reserves then how (much) more serious can it get?”

Compared with anti-poaching efforts in southern Africa, which have proven largely effective, India’s efforts are lacking, said Sellar at a news briefing at the United Nations. While African game wardens are mostly equipped with four-wheel-drive vehicles, radios and automatic rifles, Indian wardens often travel on foot and carry sticks, he said. “We don’t know if these people can protect themselves, let alone the tigers…This is our last-ditch attempt to get this message across.”

CITES’ call for action comes as international attention intensifies on India’s efforts to protect its tigers, whose skins, bones, teeth, claws and organs are prized as charms or folk remedies. Tiger-hunting is illegal worldwide and the international trade in tigers and tiger products is banned under CITES, although it continues to thrive. Tiger skins are turning up in the apartments of Russian mafia bosses, while tiger bones are highly prized by Asia’s gamblers.

Source: Reuters, April 12, 2005
             AFP, April 12, 2005
             www.bbcnews.com, April 12, 2005
             The Hindu, April 12, 2005

The Supreme Court of India has come down heavily on both the Union government and the government of Delhi for five years of unkept promises to clean up the polluted waters of the river Yamuna. The apex court said the central government had “failed in its public duty to the people of Delhi,” by not implementing a plan submitted to the court for the clean-up of 22 km of the river that runs through the nation’s capital city. And it took the Delhi government to task for lacking the will to remove unauthorised colonies that have sprung up on the banks of the river.

In its April 12 judgement, a bench comprising Justices Y K Sabharwal and Tarun Chatterjee noted that no significant progress had been made in the clean-up since the court began monitoring the Yamuna Action Plan four years ago. “Though about Rs 9 billion (since 1994) has been spent under the Yamuna Action Plan I and II, the net result is zero.”

“It seems the government and its functionaries have failed in their public duty towards the citizens of Delhi all these years as they have not been able to provide even C-category water in the Yamuna,” the bench said.

Thousands of industries spew untreated sewage into the Yamuna every day, and, according to the Indian government in one of its affidavits to the court, nearly 35% of Delhi’s more than 1.5 crore population live in slums and illegal colonies which do not have sewer facilities. Those living along the riverbanks discharge wastewater directly into the river. Pollution studies have found aquatic life in the river’s Delhi stretch to be almost negligible.

The court said encroachments and illegal constructions, with no proper civic amenities, on the banks of the Yamuna, would not have come up without the “connivance of officials”. The Supreme Court criticised the government saying it lacked “the will” and “determination” to address the problem, which was “mostly self-made”. It observed that in none of the affidavits filed, despite admitting that the situation was alarming, had the government given any indication that anyone had bothered to take any action so that such illegalities were not repeated. The problem has become “formidable both in magnitude and complexity” due to lack of any action on the part of the government to address it, the bench added.

On the latest affidavit filed by the urban development ministry, the bench said: “This is the most unsatisfactory way of tackling the problem, which, as admitted by the government, is alarming and emergent.”

In a report prepared by the Central Pollution Control Board on the presence of large quantities of faecal coliform (excreta) in the river’s waters, that carry various waterborne disease-causing viruses, the bench was shocked to find that the government’s affidavit admitted it had no programme to “arrest the pollution on account of faecal coliform” even though it conceded that unless this was tackled the quality of river water would not improve.

Four years ago, the Delhi government proposed a three-pronged strategy to tackle the issue of river pollution. It included strengthening a 130-km-long trunk sewer line, setting up enough sewer treatment plants and shifting slums and illegal colonies from the banks of the river.

Disagreeing with the time schedules, extending up to 2008, 2009 and 2012, for the implementation of the three-pronged strategy, the bench directed the Union urban development secretary to file an affidavit within four weeks giving the shortest possible time for the action plan to be implemented. Holding the secretary personally accountable, the court also directed him to detail ways to clean up the river and explain the reasons for the inaction thus far.

Source: Indo-Asian News Service, April 12, 2005
             www.rediff.com, April 12, 2005
              The Indian Express, April 13, 2005
             www.zeenews.com, April 12, 2005

Dating back to the Jurassic Age, the 460-metre-high majestic Black Hills of Kutch, part of which forms the Kutch Desert Wildlife Sanctuary, are in danger of being degraded by illegal sand mining and quarrying activities. More alarming is the fact that the sand and gravel is being used by civil contractors to build roads in the state.

In early April, the police stumbled upon a full-fledged illegal mining operation when they seized 121 trucks loaded with granite blasted from the hills, as well as 51 trucks loaded with gravel and 37 trucks with sand which were dumped at various points in the nearby Dharamshala post Vighakot area, roughly 90 km from Bhuj.

However, investigators found that these discoveries told only half the story. Civil contractors working on Gujarat’s highways had been blasting away undetected, deep inside the hills, for granite and sand for over two months. All this was happening in blatant violation of the law, without any permit or licence.

Worse, sand and stone from the Black Hills were being used to construct government roads, fencing pillars and outposts being built by the border fencing division of the Central Public Works Department (CPWD). That, say CPWD officials, was after it received a grant of Rs 65 crore to lay a 310 km stretch of road in the area, and other work. Bills submitted by the contractors show that Rs 10.36 crore worth of sand and stone had been gouged out of the hills.

The illegal quarrying and mining has already eaten into the 7,000 sq km wildlife sanctuary that houses the world famous Flamingo City -- one of the largest breeding grounds for flamingos -- and Chhari Dhundh lake that supports at least 70 species of migratory birds, apart from the unique ecosystem of the Banni grasslands.

Deputy Forest Officer D Khurawadia, in charge of the Black Hills area, says: “The prime habitat of jackals, antelope, foxes and hare, besides desert flora and fauna, has been destroyed by these people.”

A case has been registered against the contractors under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, Mines and Minerals Regulations and Development Act of 1957, Gujarat Mines and Minerals Rules 1966, IPC 379 and 120 B. The First Information Report (FIR) states: “Not only have they illegally entered and mined in the Black Hills but also plundered the flora and fauna there and caused untold destruction to the habitat.”

CPWD officials in Bhuj say they have launched an internal inquiry, though A L Garg, chief engineer (Gujarat border fencing), says it is not the department’s concern where the raw material came from. “The raw material should meet quality standards. Where it comes from is not our headache. Still, when the forest department and police brought this to our notice we told our contractors to pay royalty to the government and stop supplying from the Black Hills.”

Source: The Indian Express, April 3, 2005

Forests in the North Bank Landscape (NBL) spanning the Indian states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh contain the world’s second richest plant biodiversity, according to a new assessment by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). In addition to the unprecedented number of plant species recorded here, the region also contains some of the last prime habitats for the Asian elephant, tiger and other endangered species.

A ‘rapid appraisal’ conducted by WWF-India’s Asian Rhinos and Elephant Action Strategy (AREAS) programme, over 3,000 sq km of forests in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, recorded an unprecedented 107 plant species in a single 200 sq km stretch of forest.

Preliminary results indicate that the North Bank Landscape is surpassed in plant diversity only by the forests of Sumatra in Indonesia, making it the second richest centre of plant diversity on the planet. “The NBL is a jewel in the crown of Indian forests,” said Andrew Gillison, author of the report and head of the Australian Centre for Biodiversity Management that conducted the survey for the WWF.

The North Bank Landscape encompasses a geographical area of around 84,000 sq km in the two northeastern states, comprising parts of the Himalayan mountain range and the Brahmaputra river. The area is one of the most important sites for the Asian elephant, containing as many as 3,000 animals -- the largest single elephant population in northeast India.

Although the report raises the level of forest plant biodiversity known to science, it also focuses on a new urgency to save the North Bank Landscape’s forest areas, which are under tremendous pressure and may well be gone in a few years. “This is a distinct possibility unless timely and appropriate policy interventions are initiated in earnest and quickly,” said WWF-India’s CEO Ravi Singh.

“While the discovery makes this global biodiversity hotspot really significant, it poses a greater challenge and offers an opportunity to conserve this wonderful natural heritage for posterity.”

Uncontrolled exploitation of forests and destruction of animal habitats are increasingly restricting large mammals to smaller areas of forests within the landscape area. “This is clearly impacting both plant and animal habitats and will have significant implications for forest biodiversity in the short term,” Singh added.

Source: www.panda.org, March 11, 2005

Indian chicken egg samples contain five-and-a-half times the amount of dioxin -- the most poisonous chemical known to mankind -- permitted by the European Union, says a new study conducted by Toxics Link in India as part of the worldwide campaign ‘Keep The Promise, Eliminate POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants)’ initiated by the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN). Incineration of waste is being considered the likely source of contamination.

The study, which aimed to explore whether free-range chicken eggs contained unintentional POPs (U-POPs) if collected near potential sources, showed that samples in India exceeded the proposed limits for PCBs -- Polychlorinated Biphenyl, a highly toxic, carcinogenic, synthetic organic chemical -- 4.7 times.

“It is shocking how easily a super-poison finds its way into our food supply. The governments need to urgently ratify the Stockholm Conventionand to stop promoting incineration of waste. A policy for phasing out waste incineration must be the first step towards dioxin elimination, followed by product substitution and clean production,” says Ravi Agarwal, director Toxics Link.

The egg samples were collected from near the Queen Mary’s Hospital medical waste incinerator at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, known to produce dioxins and furans as well as hexachlorobenzene and PCBs. Chicken eggs were chosen for the study as free-range hens can easily access and eat soil animals, making their eggs a good tool for bio-monitoring environmental contamination by U-POPs. Also, eggs are a common food item; their fat content makes them appropriate for monitoring chemicals such as POPs that dissolve in fat.

The samples tested at Czech laboratories for levels of contamination by hazardous toxic chemicals were found to have almost five times the amount of dioxin than that found in egg samples from Belarus (Bolshoy Trostenec dumpsite) and the Czech Republic (near a chemical plant), and almost two times higher than that observed in samples from Slovakia (near a municipal waste incinerator). The dioxin levels were, however, slightly lower than those found in eggs collected at the Dandora dumpsite in Kenya.

Although the Toxics Link study represents the first data on POPs in chicken eggs from India, evidence of dioxins finding their way into the foodchain is not new to the country. A study by Senthil Kumar et al (Yokohoma, Japan) in 2001, in which levels of dioxins were analysed in tissue from humans, fish, chickens, lamb, goats, predatory birds and the Ganges river dolphin, collected from various locations around the country, revealed dioxin levels in human tissue ranging between 170 and 1,300 pg/g -- capable of causing adverse health effects.

According to experts, consuming as little as 0.006 pictograms of dioxin (one trillionth part of a gram) per kg of body weight per day can be extremely harmful. Dioxin acts as a powerful hormone-disrupting chemical and literally modifies the functioning and genetic mechanism of a cell, causing a wide range of effects from cancer to reduced immunity, nervous system disorders to miscarriages and birth deformities. The effects are not limited to one generation but can be seen over several generations.

Dioxins are released into the environment as by-products from the incineration of toxic and urban waste, manufacture of chlorinated solvents and pesticides, paper and pulp manufacture, cement kilns that burn chemical waste as well as the production and disposal of plastic PVC.

The global community has so far acknowledged 12 POPs commonly referred to as “the dirty dozen”. These chemical substances cause injury to human health and to species and ecosystems both adjacent to and far away from their sources.

The toxic substances measured in the study are slated for reduction and elimination in the Stockholm Convention -- the convention mandates parties to take specific actions aimed at eliminating POPs from the global environment -- which holds its first Conference of the Parties beginning May 2, 2005. India signed the convention in 2002 but has not yet ratified it.

Source: www.oneworldsouthasia.net, April 4, 2005