Supreme Court has asked the states to evict illegal occupants of village commons.  This a report by Down to Earth on the apex court judgement which said that transfer of village community land for private & commercial use is illegal and asked all state governments to prepare schemes for eviction of illegal occupants of village community land & restore them back for the purpose it was originally meant for. 

Plant functional types bridge the gap between plant physiology and ecosystem processes. In the present article, we review the plant functional traits and their response to grazing, and discuss how this affects the nutrient dynamics of the system under the pressure of herbivory. The results also strengthen the management of ecosystems being grazed by herbivores.
 

A special report on the five-day biennial conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons that ended on January 15 at Hyderabad. As the commons come under increasing assault, academics, practitioners and policymakers came together to devise ways to protect shared resources.

The 13th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons that was held in Hyderabad earlier this month discussed the idea of the

Livestock depredation by carnivores has become an important hurdle in conservation of predators at the top of the food chain. To develop feasible recommendations to minimize this conflict, it is important to learn the circumstances of the predation events and attitudes of people. We assessed the circumstances for livestock depredation by leopards in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra in India.

Although ecological restoration is widely used to combat environmental degradation, very few studies have evaluated the cost-effectiveness of this approach. We examine the potential impact of forest restoration on the value of multiple ecosystem services across four dryland areas in Latin America, by estimating the net value of ecosystem service benefits under different reforestation scenarios. The values of selected ecosystem services were mapped under each scenario, supported by the use of a spatially explicit model of forest dynamics.

Today, goats ensure income to five million households in India. But goat rearers face an opportunity and a threat as the demand for goat meat is set to shoot up, while grazing land is shrinking. If India does not secure its pastures, goats might turn from an asset to a liability, reports Down To Earth.