Ecology and Environment

In the backdrop of the essential need for maintaining a healthy forest resource, the valid concern for its continued depletion and degradation, and, being aware of the close association between people and forests, the Forest Department (Government of Jammu and Kashmir), has recently adopted a Forest Policy.

The Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification of 1991 has been replaced recently in January 2011 by the latest CRZ notification of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF).

Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM), Pune is looking for two Research Associates/Assistants for its work on water conflicts and right to water and sanitation as part of the Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India.

Qualifications:

• M. Phil./Post Graduate degree in a relevant discipline
• Two to three years of research or work experience preferred

This document by the Maharashtra Remote Sensing Applications Centre (MRSAC) presents the “Atlas on Watershed Prioritisation” using resources database on 1:2,50,000 scale adopting a

Organizer: Centre for Science and Environment(CSE)

Venue: Anil Agarwal Green College, Tughlakabad Institutional Area, New Delhi

Topics:    

• State of India’s environment: An overview
• The environmental movement in India   
• Poverty and the biomass economy
• Ecological rights & natural resource management 
• Land and its use: Agriculture, food security  
• Conservation & conflict: wildlife management debate 

Theme: Adverse impacts of uncontrolled sand mining in the rivers

Organizer: Center for Water Resources Development and Management (CWRDM)

Venue: Kozhikode, Kerala

On the occasion of the World Wetlands Day 2011, while we welcome the notification of Wetland (Conservation and Management) rules 2010 by the Union Ministry of Env

The second international symposium on the management of large rivers for fisheries was held by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and Mekong River Commission on 11 - 14 February 2003 in Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia. It had three primary objectives: (a) To provide a forum to review and synthesise the latest information on large rivers; (b) To raise the political, public and scientific awareness of the importance of river systems, the living aquatic resources they support and the people that depend on them; and (c) To contribute to better management, conservation and restoration of the living aquatic resources of large rivers.

The symposium was organised in six sessions:

Session 1: Status of rivers
Session 2: Value of river fisheries
Session 3: Fisheries ecology and conservation
Session 4: Management of river fisheries
Session 5: Statistics and information
Session 6: Synthesis

 It came up with the following recommendations for action -

• Improve the valuation of living river resources in order to contribute to equitable and sustainable management of fishery resources and properly place the fishery in the context of the other uses of rivers.
• Direct greater effort to better understanding the social and economic aspects of fisheries to support policy and management priorities; livelihood approaches will be a valuable tool.
• Communicate and engage with environment and water resources managers within the context of multi-use of water in order to accurately assess impacts and to sustain the benefits of river fisheries in an equitable manner.
• Develop processes that facilitate the users and beneficiaries of the fishery resource to assume greater control of its management.
• Establish appropriate mechanisms at national and basin level to enable negotiation for the needs of communities dependent upon the living aquatic resources. In particular further regulations need to be elaborated to protect general ecosystem function and provide for environmental flows.
• Use instruments such as the freshwater eco-regions approach, the Ramsar Convention and the guidelines for water allocation suggested by the World Commission on Dams, to enhance planning for conservation and sustainable use of river habitats.
• Incorporate ecological flow requirements of river-floodplain systems into development plans and impact assessments that affect river flows, taking into account the seasonality of the system and the environmental cues needed by the fish for migration and reproduction.
• Rehabilitate degraded ecosystems wherever possible. Prioritize schemes that ensure connectivity and protection of critical habitats.

The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India (GOI) had been asked to identify ESAs along the Western Ghats, and to suggest how to manage them. The concept of ESAs has been extensively discussed in the literature. Several ESAs have been set up in India over the last 22 years under the Environment Protection Act, 1986, and a GOI committee under the chairmanship of Pranob Sen has proposed certain criteria for identification of ESAs.