Studies have been conducted to assess bamboo resources at both forest and non-forest areas in the state of Jharkhand. Information on land use, bamboo overlapping areas in forests, demographic features of the villages, households owning bamboos, species diversity, their growth, productivity etc have been collected on sample survey basis covering all the agro-climatic zones of the state.

For over 16 years the Supreme Court has been hearing two major petitions concerning forests and wildlife. Writ petition 337/1995 filed by the Centre for Environmental Law (part of WWF) concerns protected areas (PAs) and writ petition 202/1995, is the omnibus forest petition widely known as the Godavarman case. The first landmark order in the second petition was delivered on December 12, 1996. In an unprecedented but hugely valuable effort, both the cases have been kept open under the writ of continuing mandamus.

Exploring the prospects of the ecosystem services approach for natural resource management and poverty alleviation in India, this paper points out that it is vital to have an understanding of the political economy of negotiations over natural resource use. An appreciation of the synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem services is equally important to develop better strategies for pro-poor ecosystem management.

A response to “A Rational Taxation System of Bidis and Cigarettes to Reduce Smoking Deaths in India” (EPW, 15 October 2011). It is important to first have better information on the production of tendu leaves and bidis, and then to correct the prices of inputs (including wages) if tax policies are to have a salutary impact on bidi smoking.

The mainstream paradigm of understanding grass-root environmentalism in India as “environmentalism of the poor” might be challenged by an alternative prototype forest movement in the Bengal Dooars prior to the Chipko movement. It was fought against the exploitative design of ecosystem governance under the taungya method of artificial regeneration as invented by colonial foresters during the British rule.

Newly democratic Bhutan pushes community forestry to tackle rural poverty.

Read More : http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/forests-people