Forests

The Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM) is a sectoral management institute, which constantly endeavours to evolve knowledge useful for the managers in the area of Forest, Environment and Natural Resources Management and allied sectors.

Article courtesy: Environment Support Group

On 2nd May 2011, Indian Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh finally approved the diversion of over 3,000 acres of forest land, of the 4,000 acres demanded, for a steel-power-port complex of the POSCO India project.

Earlier, on 31 January 2011, Ramesh had approved the environmental and coastal regulation zone clearances that the project had secured in 2007, even though all these clearances were obtained by fraud, and thus illegal, as proved by two independent investigative committees that he appointed last year.

European Beech
Photo: Forestryimages.org/University of West Hungary/Norbert Frank

 Although there are other local-and regional-scale forest canopy maps, the new map is the first that spans the entire globe based on one uniform method.

The work - based on data collected by NASA's ICESat, Terra, and Aqua satellites - should help scientists build an inventory of how much carbon the world’s forests store and how fast that carbon cycles through ecosystems and back into the atmosphere. Michael Lefsky of the Colorado State University described his results in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Organizer: The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Venue: The Leela Palace, New Delhi

Topics:

• Mainstreaming the Economics of Nature– case studies from India and the world
• The Value and Sustainability of Forests Ecosystems: The role of forests in combating climate change , conserving biodiversity and catalysing transformation to Green Economy
• Climate Change Adaptation in High Mountain Areas

 Soil respiration is a major process affecting the global carbon cycle and nutrient flux in the terrestrial ecosystem. It is the major pathway for exchange of gases from soil to atmosphere, influencing atmospheric temperature and ultimately contributing to global warming.

Beginning in 2005, WWF-India has conducted dozens of personal interviews to record how climate change impacts people's lives here and now. These perceptions demanded that s

The Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF) is the nodal agency in the administrative structure of the Central Government for the planning, promotion, co-ordination and overseeing the implementation of India's environmental and forestry policies and programmes.

Nominations are invited for Indira Priyadarshini Vriksha Mitra (IPVM) Awards for the years 2011 from individuals and institutions that have done pioneering and exemplary work in the field of afforestation and wasteland development. Awards will be given to persons/institutions in seven categories that are listed below:

 Most of the people threatened to be displaced cannot be relocated until their rights over forestland are recognized under the Forest Rights Act. How did the Andhra Pradesh government meet this immense challenge? It quietly told the Union environment and forests ministry that all claims have been settled.

The ministry gave forest clearance to the project last year. Now over 50 villages have written to the ministry, saying their forest rights have not been settled. Richard Mahapatra visited the villages and found the state had indeed lied.

Following similar complaints, the ministry had scrapped Vedanta’s proposal to mine Niyamgiri hills and withheld forest clearance to the POSCO steel plant in Odisha. Will it apply the same yardstick to Polavaram?

Residents of Teladibbalu did not know they had forest rights. The village is in the dam’s submergence zone and accessible only by boat. (Photo: G Srinivas).