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Conserve/Resist

Ritwick Dutta: ‘We need to have a selfish interest in environment’

1st February 2017

Ritwick Dutta, noted environment lawyer and founder of the highly accomplished Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment (LIFE), received the Bhagirath Prayas Samman, an award that recognises efforts towards protection and conservation of rivers. Manu Moudgil caught up with him on his journey so far and how we can further expand the constituency of environment….

ALTERNATIVES

Daripalli Ramaiah: The man who planted (ten million!) trees

28th January 2017

Daripalli Ramaiah, recently awarded the Padmashri, India’s third highest civilian honour, has dedicated his life to increasing the country’s green cover and in the process has been credited with planting one crore saplings. The fight of Ramaiah to plant trees was not alone, as his wife Janamma has also made significant contribution to tree planting….

Jemima Rohekar

Conserve/Resist

Sounds of silence: a forest that survived ‘development’

20th January 2017

Jemima Rohekar writes: So secluded is Silent Valley that there is no written record of any human habitation in its core area. It is also the site of the first and most bitterly fought ‘environment vs development’ debate in India. Silent Valley reinforces the fact that forests and their resident biodiversity are our greatest wealth….

Conserve/Resist

Tribute: Alexei Yablokov, grandfather of Russian environmentalism

16th January 2017

Alexei Yablokov, the towering grandfather of Russian ecology who worked to unmask Cold War nuclear dumping practices in the Arctic region, died in Moscow last week. Yablokov commanded a broad environmental and political mandate in Russia, founded Russia’s branch of Greenpeace and was the leader of the Green Russia faction of the Yabloko opposition party….

Conserve/Resist

Special: Ten years of the Forest Rights Act

27th December 2016

The Forest Rights Act of 2006 was widely hailed as a landmark legislation, one that sought to empower some of India’s most disenfranchised communities– the Adivasis. Ten years later, only 3 percent of forest dwellers have their rights recognised, and the Act itself is increasingly being undermined by the present government. Here’s a closer look….

ECOCIDE/EXTINCTION

Watch: Fidel Castro: Tomorrow will be too late

26th December 2016

Fidel Castro, the legendary Cuban revolutionary and politician who passed away on November 25th was known for his pioneering policies in health and education, but was equally committed to environmental issues. In this short talk given at the 1992 Earth Summit, Fidel described the global environmental crisis and identified its causes more powerfully than any other delegate….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Study: 47 of 68 fish species in India under threat

22nd December 2016

More fish species on the east coast, especially in the waters off Odisha and West Bengal, are highly vulnerable to climate change, according to a first of its kind assessment by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI). That vulnerability stems not only from changes in climate but also from fishing pressure and lower productivity….

The Alternative

ALTERNATIVES

Tribute: Anupam Mishra, the chronicler of India’s indigenous water wisdom

20th December 2016

Noted water conservationist Anupam Mishra passed away at the age of 68 on Monday. Here’s a tribute and a video where he talks with wisdom and wit about the amazing feats of engineering from centuries ago by the people of India’s desert regions to harvest water. These ancient aqueducts and stepwells are still used today….

ALTERNATIVES

On the most radical social movement of the twenty-first century

14th December 2016

John Foran writes: Among 21st-century movements for radical social change, those that are most likely to succeed will feature some combination of 1) stronger social movements and political cultures of opposition and creation, and 2) new kinds of parties, joined in 3) some new kind of networked structure, and 4) operating locally, nationally, and globally….

Conflict/Dispossession

Voices from the global convergence of land and water struggles

4th December 2016

From GRAIN.org: Powerful actors, driven by narrow economic interests rather than long term sustainability are concentrating the political power to determine how resources are to be used, by whom, and for what purposes… The Global Convergence of Land and Water Struggles is a response to these injustices by frontline communities from all over the world….

ALTERNATIVES

Bookshelf: Lean Logic – A Dictionary For The Future

3rd December 2016

A masterpiece and a dictionary unlike any other, every entry in David Fleming’s Lean Logic presents the author’s deft, original analysis of how our present market-based economy is destroying the very foundations—ecological, economic, and cultural—on which it depends, and his core focus: a compelling, grounded vision for a cohesive society that might weather the consequences….

Conserve/Resist

Video: Beyond the Red Lines – System Change Not Climate Change

30th November 2016

From the lignite mines in Rhineland, to the streets of Paris, the struggles for climate justice are fought at more and more fronts. This film documents the story of a growing movement that says “Enough! Here and no further!” and commits civil disobedience taking the transition towards a climate just society into its own hands….

ALTERNATIVES

Ashish Kothari: The search for radical alternatives – key elements and principles

22nd November 2016

Can there be a collective search for paradigms and pathways towards a world that is sustainable, equitable and just? How can such frameworks and visions build on an existing heritage of ideas and worldviews and cultures, and on past or new grassroots practice? This note attempts to layout a few thoughts towards such a process….

ALTERNATIVES

The bright spots: Global examples of a thriving social-ecological future

16th November 2016

There is indeed no lack of stories that document climate change, biodiversity loss, inequality and other examples of unsustainable development around the world. Efforts to envision what better futures could actually look like seldom receive the same attention. But now researchers from the Stockholm Resilience Centre have gathered hundreds of examples of such positive initiatives….

Development/Growth

Charles Eisenstein: Development in the Ecological Age

5th November 2016

Development is more than an ideology; it is an ideology in service to an economic necessity which, in turn, is not a real necessity but contingent on a growth dependent debt-based financial system. Until that system changes, the pressure to develop— to convert natural resources into commodities and social relationships into services— will not abate….

ALTERNATIVES

Charles Eisenstein: Fear of a living planet

30th October 2016

Does the concept of a living planet inspire and uplift you, or is it a disturbing example of woo-woo nonsense that distracts us from practical, science-based policies? While no amount of evidence can prove it false, we must acknowledge that the science that militates against an intelligent, purposeful, living universe is ideologically freighted and culturally-bound….

ALTERNATIVES

Rajni Bakshi: Degrowth – a “bomb-word” comes of age

27th October 2016

Rajni Bakshi writes: Votaries of degrowth are the first to acknowledge that they are deploying a ‘bomb-word’. Yet it highlights an inconvenient truth–that infinite economic growth is not possible on a finite planet. Even ‘green’ growth, supported by technological wizardry cannot, by itself, address the deepening global crisis of under-employment, social dislocation, and environmental degradation….

The Bramble Cay melomys is the first mammal recorded extinct due to climate change.

Conserve/Resist

Ecologists are fiddling while our natural heritage burns, says Harvard scientist

21st October 2016

Aaron M. Ellison writes in Nature: Better data will not save elephants, rhinos or any other species. Countless individuals, institutions, governments, and multinational and non-governmental organizations have been collecting, assimilating and organizing such data for decades, essentially fiddling while our biological heritage burns… I suggest three crucial actions that scientists can take, beginning right now….

ALTERNATIVES

Saving the planet, American style: A critical review, and some thoughts and ideas

8th October 2016

To fight climate change, a war-like mobilization a la McKibben is not necessary. Actually we are not at war at all. If we are, then it is we who are the aggressors, we are the enemy of nature. Then the first task for the transition is to end our aggression. We need only to withdraw….

ALTERNATIVES

Why the Left should embrace degrowth

6th October 2016

Giorgos Kallis writes: Degrowth is a frontal attack on the ideology of economic growth. No Left party might dare to openly question growth, but I find it hard to see how in the long-term they can avoid it. Growth is not only ecologically unsustainable but, as economists like Piketty admit, increasingly unlikely, especially for advanced economies….