Rural common property resources represent the historically evolved institutional arrangements made by communities in dry regions (in the present case) to guard against the vulnerabilities and risks created by the biophysical and environmental circumstances characteristic of these areas. Despite their valuable contributions, CPRS are faced with decline in terms of both extent as well as contribution to the people, and therefore consequent neglect by the communities.

Cinnamon bug or seed bug, Ochrophora (= Udonga) montana (Distant) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) is a serious pest of bamboo, feeds on developing seeds and is able to destroy all available seeds during massive outbreaks. Nevertheless, its outbreaks are occasional and were recently (2011) witnessed in Karanataka. Interestingly, periodic outbreaks of O. montana are known from the northeastern region (NER) of India, and largely corresponded with mass flowering of bamboos in Mizoram.
.

Sacred groves are traditionally managed forest patches of palaeo-endemics, which are conserved due to religious beliefs and represent climax vegetation. Sometimes these groves have higher richness and regeneration of medicinal and other economic plants than other reserve forests. (Correspondence)

Original Source

A decade ago, Chandra Pradhani, a Paraja tribal of Nuaguda village in Kundra block of Odisha's Koraput district, would migrate to neighbouring Andhra Pradesh to earn a living as a brick kiln worker. He no longer does this. Today, he is feted by the nation. He was one of the tribal farmers honoured by prime minister Manmohan Singh at the 99th Science Congress held in Bhubaneswar in January. It is the hard labour and traditional agricultural techniques of tribal families that have helped put Koraput on the map of world agriculture.

The Passamaquoddy tribe in eastern Maine, US, are indigenous fishers who are trying to exercise sovereign rights to resources.

The following is the input of ICSF to the Compilation Document of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20).

The 'green economy' that Rio+20 hopes to focus on cannot afford to ignore a human-rights approach to sustainable fisheries.

Initiatives and innovations promoted by Keystone Foundation have helped promote bee keeping amongst farmers and tribal communities around the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. The impacts are visible in terms of better yields in coffee, mango and vegetable crops.

One of the most urgent challenges facing the world today is ensuring local water security under rapid climate variability and change. This is of particular importance in a country like India, where over half of the people are involved in farming, and agricultural losses due to climate change are estimated to be as high as 30 per cent by 2080. This ethnography in the arid village of Bhiwadi, West Rajasthan empirically links the reintroduction of local water harvesting technologies with the building of sustainable social reproduction in subsistent communities.

Restoring traditional water structures hold key to making the region water secure.
Read More - http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/kathmandu-valley-losing-its-ancien...