Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna on Tuesday raised by about 10 times the amount of relief for land lost or damaged due to natural calamities.

Describing the compensation being paid as too low, he directed the officials to enhance it from Rs.240 to Rs.2,500 per Nali in hill areas and from Rs.12,000 to Rs.1.25 lakh per hectare in plain areas.

To be labelled with FSC logo highlighting the PSU’s environmental concerns

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has granted certificates in Forest Management and Chain of Custody to Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers Limited (TNPL). This could enable TNPL products to be labelled with the FSC logo highlighting the PSU’s social and environmental concerns and contributions. FSC is an independent, non-governmental, non-profit organisation established by leading social, environmental and economic players to promote responsible management of forests. FSC issues certificates in Forest Management (FM) and Chain of Custody (CoC).

GUWAHATI: Assam has a total land area of 78,438 sq km. Of this, 30.16 lakh hectares are available for agriculture. But Assam’s agricultural land is decreasing gradually. The trend of converting agricultural land to non-agricultural land is responsible for this to a large extent.

It has been noticed that in the past couple of years, businessmen, mostly non-Assamese, have been seeking permission to convert agricultural land to non-agricultural land for setting up industries. In fact, some builders are also constructing apartments on agricultural land.

PANJIM: Even as forest department is bracing up to clear a backlog of afforesting 2300 hectares of degraded land pending since 2004 under Compensatory Afforestration Fund Management Authority (CAMPA), the non availability of degraded land has created impediment for the officials.

Forest department officials said that the state has good forest cover making it difficult to get the degraded woods, which are essential for afforestration under CAMPA. Union government’s ambitious scheme seems to have been jinxed right from its announcement in the state. The Centre had held back the amount since 2004 till 2009-10 due the petition pending in the Supreme Court.

SHILLONG: The ongoing eco-restoration programme to improve the ecology and environment of Sohra is making a good progress.

Although 1172500 seedlings, mostly indigenous, were planted in the first year to replenish the lost greenery of Sohra, the department in the second year of the project has decided to plant 1298750 seedlings. Talking to The Shillong Times here on Wednesday, Soil and Water Conservation director D Langstieh while claiming that the project is making good progress informed that 748000 seedlings will be planted in the third year and while the next two years will be for the maintenance of the plantations.

Illegal and unscientific mining of coal has threatened the very existence of the famous stone bridge over Thlumuwi river, 15 km from Jowai

This bridge on Jowai- Amlarem-Dawki road is close to the regulated area declared under the Ancient Monuments and Archeological sites and Remains (Amendment and validation) Act, 2010. The Thlu-muwi stone bridge, which was constructed 500 years ago by one of the Jaintia kings, may disappear if precautions are not taken by concerned authorities.

More than 130 world leaders, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Jiabao, will be attending the Rio+ Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro later this month.

Both the Indian and Chinese leaders know only too well this will be a crucial meeting to put the south — south point of view across to fight climate change.
The US President Barack Obama has not yet confirmed his attendance at the 20th anniversary of the world’s first Earth Summit, which gave birth to three major environmental treaties on climate change biodiversity and land degradation and desertification.

To reclaim tree cover lost to encroachment, the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) will plant 15,000 trees of various species this year, including the state flower Jarul.

The park has set a target of planting 15,000 trees of native species such as Bamboo, Sembal (Cotton tree), Karanj (Indian Beech), Jarul, Banyan and Teak by the year-end. “It is part of habitat improvement and maintaining the forest cover by plantation in the areas freed by removing encroachments. It is basically reclamation of degraded land, what we call reboisement plantation,” said Sunil Limaye, chief conservator of forests (CCF) and director, SGNP.