Bamboo is perhaps one of the most precious natural resources India possesses.

Forest department proposes plantation to check elephant menace

Rules should reflect reality says C. Achalender Reddy, Secretary, National Biodiversity Authority

COIMBATORE: State forest departments should keep pace with the changes happening in the society and their rules should reflect the reality, said C.

On the eve of the World Biodiversity Day, which will be observed on Sunday, city-based environmentalists and activists raised their concerns about Pune

New Delhi: The move to provide minimum support price for forest produce to tribals has picked up momentum with the Planning Commission now considering how to go about it.

The panchayati raj ministry had earlier set up a committee under T Haque to suggest how the Rs 50,000 crore forest produce trade should be altered to provide more income to tribals and other forest-dependent people.

MUMBAI: Union minister Jairam Ramesh's order notwithstanding, the state forest department is unwilling to transfer the rights over harvesting bamboos to forest dwellers. The department currently holds the right to harvest bamboo in the state.

- National Bamboo Mission takes a back seat, thanks to transit permit on harvest

Ranchi, May 3: Teeming bamboo groves could well swing towards state farmers, but it is the forest department that holds sway over the cash crop.

Since the launch of the National Bamboo Mission in Jharkhand in 2007, the department has managed to cover only 12 hectares outside forest area under bamboo cultivation

The Integrated Land and Ecosystem Management Project is being implemented by the Forest Department in Madhya Pradesh with the cooperation of Global Environmental Facility. The project is being implemented in nine forest divisions of Betul, Chhindwara, Umaria, Sidhi and Singrauli districts.

The five-year project will be implemented till the year 2014. Its total cost is Rs.

Mendha-Lekha, a remote village in the Maoist-affected Gadchiroli district of eastern Maharashtra, has become the first in the country where tribals have been given the right to sell bamboo harvested from the surrounding forests, an official said.

The villagers, numbering around 3,000, attended the function Wednesday when village head Devaji Tofa was handed over a transit passbook, enabling the