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ECOCIDE/EXTINCTION

Marine parks in India – a case for maritime environmentalism

22nd February 2016

Aarti Sridhar writes: It is in the ordinary everyday life of fishers and in the political strategies of their leaders that one finds the outlines of a new kind of environmentalism which’s fluid and defies water-tight categorisations. This ethic suggests that it is futile to remain wholly preservationist or utilitarian, or entirely biocentric or anthropocentric….

Bookshelf

Graphic novel: The beginning of Delhi’s water wars

20th February 2016

Everyone, deep in their hearts, is “waiting for the end of the world to come,” said Murakami. If not the end, then at least a good showdown’s definitely expected. Sarnath Banerjee‘s latest graphic novel envisions a similar war in the near future. Fittingly, the war’s going to be fought over something as elemental as water….

Dongria Kondh protest against the Vedanta mine appeal.

Bikash Khemka/Survival

ALTERNATIVES

Power in India: radical pathways to local self-rule

15th February 2016

Ashish Kothari & Pallav Das write in State of Power report: People are recognizing that the current power dispensation is frozen in an intellectual paradigm defined by free-market orthodoxy and will change only if confronted by worldviews such as swaraj or Radical Ecological Democracy. India (and the world) needs that change in order to continue to thrive….

Development/Growth

The world’s forests will collapse if we don’t learn to say ‘no’

An alarming new study has shown that the world’s forests are not only disappearing rapidly, but areas of “core forest” are vanishing even faster. A tsunami of new roads, dams, power lines, pipelines and other infrastructure is rapidly slicing into the world’s last wild places, opening them up to fragmentation, poaching and other destructive activities….

Conflict/Dispossession

Video & Report: The jungle gangs of Jharkhand

14th February 2016

Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava reports: Groups like JJMP and TSPC thrive on a levy collected from mining. Jharkhand accounts for nearly a third of India’s coal, a quarter of its iron ore and 16% of copper. In return, the armed groups provide protection to mining companies and intimidate villagers to facilitate land acquisition for the companies….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Map shows India leads the world in ecological conflict

12th February 2016

SciDev Net reports: India, Colombia and Nigeria have the most cases of conflict caused by climate change and environmental disputes, according to a map of global ecological conflict. The Environmental Justice Atlas shows that more than 200 conflicts in India are caused by ecological disputes and scarcities of basic resources such as water and forests….

Conserve/Resist

Video & Report: India’s indigenous people are holding fast to food traditions against all odds

1st February 2016

Bowing To No One, the first film in a series by Sarah Khan, is about Satyavati, an indigenous woman farmer from Central India, who comes from a rich but rapidly eroding agro-ecological knowledge system. Also in this post is a report from Meghalaya’s Terra Madre festival, which brought together around 600 members of international indigenous food-making communities….

CLIMATE CRISIS

NEWS UPDATE #81

30th January 2016

India, Colombia and Nigeria have the most cases of conflict caused by climate change and environmental disputes, according to a map of global ecological conflict. The Environmental Justice Atlas, released last month, shows that more than 200 conflicts in India are caused by ecological disputes and scarcities of basic resources such as water and forests….

A Guarani family mourns the death of a member

Survival international

Conflict/Dispossession

Why a Brazil tribe has the world’s highest suicide rate

10th January 2016

According to a new report published by Survival International, the rate of self-inflicted deaths within the Guarani tribe is 34 times the Brazilian national average, and statistically the highest among any society anywhere on earth. Suicide rates among many other indigenous peoples such as Aboriginal Australians and Native Americans in Alaska also remain exceptionally high….

Raiot.in

Bookshelf

New Book: Eat Dust – Mining and Greed in Goa, by Hartman de Souza

30th December 2015

If there is one book which speaks of all mining blighted societies, then it’s this one. The book by Hartman de Souza breaks all the boundaries of genres and gets its politics and economics right on. At once travelogue, investigative journalism and family memoir, Eat Dust maps the culture, topography and cultural diversity of Goa….

Development/Growth

A Message From The Chennai Floods: It’s Not Anti-National To Question ‘Development’

16th December 2015

Columnist Tushar Dhara writes: Environmentalists, urban geographers, social activists and other such critically engaged citizens have consistently been talking about the perils of a development which ignores ecological sustainability and social justice — only to be told that they were against progress. A more damning criticism is “anti-national”, supposedly working on behalf of foreign interests….

Development/Growth

Towards A Unitive Life: An Interview with Shyam Balakrishnan

5th November 2015

One World University Shyam Balakrishnan is the coordinator of One-World University, a collective dedicated to the study of dialectics and geopolitics. He lives at an organic farm in Wayanad, Kerala, which is also envisioned as one of the campuses of One-World University. On May 20, 2014, Balakrishnan was arrested by the state police on charges of being…

Development/Growth

Course: Understanding Rural India

2nd October 2015

Azim Premji University Azim Premji University, Bangalore, is holding a non-residential introductory course, Understanding Rural India: Life and Livelihoods at the Base of the Pyramid, aimed at those who are relatively new to the development sector. Dates: Nov 16 – 26, 2015 Venue: Bangalore Rural India is undergoing unprecedented transformations, which have profound impact on the…

Development/Growth

Special: Questioning the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

29th September 2015

Sustainable Development Goals: Can we pull them off? Catch News The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The new set has 169 targets. Critics believe these are well-intentioned, but range from grandiose (end hunger) to peripheral (promote sustainable tourism) to flat-out impossible (full and productive employment and decent work…

CLIMATE CRISIS

In the news: Modi govt and the state of the environment

9th August 2015

Outlook Magazine Mangroves in peril Navi Mumbai airport site How The NDA Is Whittling Down Green Norms Change in definition of no-go area in dense forest, leaving more area open for project Keeping powers with the Centre to even allow projects in ‘no-go areas’ of dense forests Proposal to allow firms to take over afforestation,…

Conflict/Dispossession

Narendra Modi’s war on the environment

15th April 2015

Rohini Mohan reports: In under a year, the Modi government has begun to undo policies of fair land acquisition, undermine environmental protection and reverse the fight for tribal rights. The finance, environment and rural-development ministers, and Modi himself, have called these safeguards to protect people’s property, the environment and tribal rights “roadblocks” to economic growth….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Growth and Inequality in a Carbon-Constrained World

3rd March 2015

Incrementum ad Absurdum: Growth and Inequality in a Carbon-Constrained World David Woodward The paper seeks to assess the timeframe for eradication of poverty, defined by poverty lines of $1.25 and $5 per person per day at 2005 purchasing power parity, if pre-crisis (1993-2008) patterns of income growth were maintained indefinitely, taking account of the differential…

Conflict/Dispossession

Rohini Mohan: The Modi Government’s war on environment

15th October 2014

Basudev Mahapatra writes: Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, has “delinked forest clearance from clearance by the National Wild Life Board and halved NBWL clearance requirements from 10km to 5km around forest reserves, besides emasculating the Board by replacing eminent experts and concerned NGOs with rubber stamps. He has also relaxed procedures of the Forest Conservation Act….

Development/Growth

Sagar Dhara: A.P. needs smart governance more than a smart capital

9th October 2014

Sagar Dhara (Note: An edited version of this article appeared in The Hindu, dated October 9, 2014, under the title ‘Including people in governance‘) The soul of India lives in its villages, Gandhiji said 100 years ago. London governed India’s soul then, which it perceived as unjust and so revolted. Delhi and the state capitals now govern…

Conflict/Dispossession

Modi and the Environment: The 100 day report

28th September 2014

Basic protections to safeguard the environment, that were not particularly strong to begin with, are being wiped out. While in general, faster moving transparent government processes are required, the Modi government’s predilection for protecting private corporations at the expense of public welfare, does not bode well for the environment nor the well-being of India’s peoples….