GUWAHATI

on january 1, 2008, the government after much vacillation notified the rules of Scheduled Tribes and Other Tradi- tional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act. The day before, it had notified "critical tiger habitats' in 28 existing and eight proposed tiger reserves. It scored on both tiger conservation and protection of tribal rights.

It was a bright sunny morning when I reached the Bakhira lake. Bakhira is reputed to be the biggest natural wetland in Uttar Pradesh and is known for its purple swamphens. The birds are known to be

This monsoon, the Raikas, traditional camel breeders in the Kumbalgarh Wild Life Sanctuary in Rajasthan's Pali district, will face an existential crisis again. It will be the third successive season that the pastoral community will have been banned from grazing their camels in Kumbalgarh.

in march 2006, Himachal Pradesh gave the go-ahead to proposals denotifying four sanctuaries and redrawing boundaries of 15 areas, including protected areas. Not surprisingly, the areas are required

In Nepal's Annapurna Conservation Area (aca), the term