Saturday, October 23, 2010

Climate Change - Human Activities the Cause, Mea Culpa! But Consider 1816, the Year Without Summer!


The entire world seems sold on Global Warming and Climate Change - caused by human activities emitting carbon dioxide - and therefore the need to "green" planet Earth. Nobel prizes were awarded to the UN's IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and Al Gore several years ago; at the recent Copenhagen conference (follow-on to the Kyoto Protocol Climate Change Conference of 1997), President Obama led leaders of 192 nations in agreement with its principles, promising heavy financial reparations to 3rd world nations.

Scientists have calculated that emissions of carbon dioxide by human activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, gas flaring, industrial operations and breathing, amount to perhaps 30 billion tons per year. They also estimate that volcanic eruptions, a candidate consideration for cause, can normally emit between about 145 to 255 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere per year, on average, including both subaerial and submarine fissures and vents. This seems to indicate that human activities may release perhaps 100 times the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by volcanoes - thus, there seems to be a reasonable basis for the universal concern: human activities are impacting the climate of planet Earth - and in a negative manner - causing global warming.

However, Mother Nature must indeed have a strong sense of humor - on the heels of the international guilt-admitting furor at Copenhagen by world leaders and President Obama in support of Global Warming - along comes the coldest winter in recent decades. And now, with Obama's EPA poised to levy severe pollutant restrictions and harsh financial penalties on American industry, there comes a volcanic eruption in Iceland that has devastated the air-transport industry, closing down almost all flights over Europe for a week, with attendant cost consequences which may bankrupt major airlines(absent bail-outs by governments).

The reality of major natural catastrophes: this recent eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano (or Krakatau, or earthquakes, or tsunamis, or hurricanes, or cyclical coolings and warmings of ocean or atmosphere), should warn decision-makers that planet Earth is huge and complex, and that feel-good, simplistic ideologies dictating industrial restrictions and financial reparations (the EPA or the Cap and Trade bill) can cause great national economic damage while pursuing a noble cause ("greening" planet Earth) - but may provide little benefit.

Within the first 72 hours of the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull volcano, Iceland's Institute of Earth Sciences reported the average discharge rate of ash at 750 tons per second or 65 million tons per day - equivalent to the normal average annual discharge - and in just the first few days. The plumes of ash reached over seven miles into the skies; about 100,000 flights were cancelled, ten million passengers stranded; bankruptcy of major airlines distinct possibilities. There is also a caveat appendage to this Icelandic eruption - a similar eruption in Iceland in 1821 lasted for 13 months!

In light of the Iceland volcano eruption, a look at causes for global warming and climate change - other than man-kind activities - seems warranted. The summer of 1816 is considered to be one of the coldest on record, studied by many weather scientists. The year is known as the "Year Without a Summer"; it is also known as the "Poverty Year", due to widespread destruction of crops. Severe climate abnormalities during the summer destroyed crops in Northern Europe, Northeastern United States and Eastern Canada, and average global temperatures decreased sufficiently to cause significant agricultural failures around the world.

Of great interest to environmentalists were the unusual events prior to the summer of 1816: the previous year, the eruption of the 13,000-foot Mount Tambora volcano in Indonesia had hurled an estimated 37 to 100 cubic miles of fine dust, cinders and ashes more than 15 miles into the atmosphere. The estimates of deaths were about 10,000, the blast being heard 970 miles away. Meteorologists believe the eruption caused the greatest amount of volcanic dust to be ejected into the atmosphere in history. In addition, Earth's atmosphere had already been polluted by previous eruptions of other volcanoes, Mayon and Luzon volcanoes in the Philipines in 1814, and the Soufriere volcano on St. Vincent Island in the Caribbean in 1812. The dust from all these eruptions combined and lingered in the stratosphere - shielding Earth from the sun's rays - thus enabling heat to escape from Earth - resulting in reducing Earth's temperature.

The most likely cause of the severe climate change seems therefore, to be the volcanic influences. Proponents note the numerous large volcanic eruptions preceding 1816: Soufri?re and St. Vincent in 1812: Mayon and Luzon in the Phillippines in 1814; Tambora in Indonesia in 1815. The Tambora eruption has been estimated to be the most violent in historical times, the explosion believed to have blown 150 to 180 cubic kilometres of material into the atmosphere. (For a comparison, the infamous 1883 eruption of Krakatau ejected only 20 cubic kilometres of material into the air - and yet it affected sunsets the world over for several years after).

The seemingly most reasonable scientific "proximate" cause of drastic climate change during 1816 is therefore the volcanic theory of climatic influence: greatly increased volcanic activity causing immense amounts of ash and dust to be blown and trapped high in the atmosphere, causing increased reflection of solar radiation (instead of absorption at the Earth's surface), resulting in globally decreased temperatures on Earth.

Puny man and his activities seem trivial and inconsequential relative to the whimsicality and power of Mother Nature, plus the complexity and immensity of planet Earth, and the primary influence of our Sun.








Aaron Kolom qualifies as a "rocket scientist" with over 50 years aerospace engineering: Stress Analyst to Chief of Structural Sciences on numerous military aircraft, to Corp. Director Structures and Materials, Asst. Chief Engineer Space Shuttle Program through first three flights (awarded NASA Public Service Medal), Rockwell International Corp.; Program Manager Concorde SST, VP Engineering TRE Corp.; Aerospace Consultant.

Aaron L. Kolom - from Brainwashed* and Miracles**
* The Perceived Mind-Set of the Secular Elite re Darwin Evolutionism!
** To Believe in Them - Have Faith - In Science and Logic!

Visit website at http://www.brainwashedandmiracles.com to learn a bit about Science vs the Bible, from conflict to confirmation.


Friday, October 22, 2010

Improve Your Bottom Line by Going Green


In an environment of heightened awareness about water, carbon, climate change, air quality and pollution, corporate social responsibility and environmental responsibility will remain strong factors in an organization's value proposition to their employees.

A representative group was selected of over 14,000 staff from the three quarters of a million responses in our benchmark databases. These staff came from all types of organisations, large and small, government, not-for-profit and corporate. The responses included those of a rubbish collector and a Nobel Prize winner, and everybody in between.

This article discovers how improving environmental responsibility helps to attract and retain a skilled workforce.

Education and age affect expectations of employer environmental performance, but bosses would be unwise to ignore their scorecard from staff.

You'd be crazy not to look in the mirror before going out, and organizations are no different. Before seeking new clients and staff, smart organizations look in the mirror with a staff survey. Some get great confidence from what they see, others realize they're unkempt. Many also ask themselves if the mirror is telling lies.

Increasingly, all types of organizations are realizing that "looking good" in the market place includes being environmentally responsible. The answers in a study reveal that the mirror can lie. Bosses should pay careful attention to images of themselves.

What your people think of your environmental performance is important for a number of reasons:

o enhanced environmental performance is associated with increased employee commitment

o environmental issues are becoming more important to people and influence their buying decisions

o employees adopt employer branding and they are an important way of winning new clients

o potential new employees take a company's environmental performance into account and often ask current employees for their opinion

o employee actions determine your environmental performance and understanding how they feel is often the first step to meeting their expectations

To find out just how good the mirror is, a representative group of over 14,000 staff from the three quarters of a million responses was selected for this study. These staff came from all types of organizations, large and small, government, not-for-profit and corporate. The responses included those of a rubbish collector and a Nobel Prize winner, and everybody in between.

The responses were analyzed to find out what effect age, gender, tenure, education and size of organization might have on employee opinions. Its findings provide insight for all employers about how to better understand, manage, meet and leverage employee perceptions of their commitment to the environment.

Participants were asked to respond on a one to seven scale to the statement: "Our organization is committed to the environment."

Study findings:

Age

The age group with the lowest expectations of their employers' environmental performance were those greater than 54 years old. It was 25-34 year olds who were the most critical of their employers' environmental performance, more critical even than the younger generation Y employees. Age had the biggest effect on response to the survey statement and all organizations would be wise to realise that a workforce dominated by 25-34 year olds will hold them to a higher standard of environmental performance.

Education

The analysis was performed on those professionals in jobs requiring a degree against others. It was found that people in jobs requiring a university degree were more critical than others in their assessment of their employers' environmental performance. Therefore professional services firms which are dominated by people with degrees are held to higher environmental standards by their staff than manufacturing organizations which have a lower proportion of tertiary educated people.

Gender

Research into business and social ethics has produced mixed findings about whether women have higher standards than men. This study found men to have higher environmental expectations than women. The finding was statistically significant but the difference was small.

Tenure and seniority were also tested. No effect was found between these two factors and employee perceptions of their employer's commitment to the environment.

Size of organization

The sample was broken down into three groups, those from organizations of less than 100 employees, 100-1000 and over 1000. Organizations with 100-1000 people had roughly the same perspective on their employers' commitment to the environment as people from very large organizations. However people in smaller organizations, less than 100 employees, were more critical than the other groups of their employers' environmental performance.

3 reasons bosses need to listen


Organizations should pay attention to their employees' opinions because in this study a strong positive correlation was observed between employees who thought their employer was environmentally responsible and employees who were committed and satisfied with their jobs.

Should bosses just ignore what they're hearing from their people? They can if they want, but it would be unwise to do so. A study was performed where two almost identical employment brochures were given to a group of university students. The only difference between the two brochures was that one highlighted the environmental credentials of the prospective employer and the other didn't. Students were then asked whether or not they would be inclined to apply for a job with the company that had been described in the brochure. Significantly more students were interested in working for the company with the environmental credentials.

When environmental credentials of applicants were then analyzed, their increased likelihood of applying for a job was not solely related to the environmental ethics of the applicant. This means that being an environmentally sound company won't just stack your candidate pool with Greenies, it will stack your candidate pool with all types of people because environmental commitment is a recognized part of corporate social responsibility, which has been related in many studies to increased application rates and higher employee commitment.

The third reason why employers should listen to the messages from their staff is an issue of risk and reputation. Policies and practices that may harm the organization's reputation and financial status may be hidden from senior management and directors. Staff surveys are a great way for organizations to equip themselves with the right questions to ask. Think of Union Carbide and the Bhopal Disaster, BHP and Ok Tedi, Shell and Brent Spar, Hooker Chemical and Love Canal, or the Pacific Gas and Electric Company/Erin Brockovich story. These are examples of companies that have suffered very significant reputational damage as a result of poor environmental stewardship. If they had listened to their employees the problems may never have existed.

In an environment of heightened awareness about water, carbon, climate change, air quality and pollution, corporate social responsibility and environmental responsibility will remain strong factors in an organization's value proposition to employees. Improving environmental responsibility helps to attract and retain a skilled workforce. In an environment of low unemployment the importance of these issues is paramount.

Promoting environmental efforts will become increasingly important to attract and retain employees and customers. The imminent retirement of the Baby Boomers, the group with the lowest expectations of their employer with regard to the environment, means the issue will become more important to the majority of employees. This is because as baby boomers retire, generation Y enter. Generation Y have a higher tendency to change jobs and they hold employers to high standards in terms of development opportunities and their relationship with society.

Conclusion

To summarize, the mirror might not be a perfect reflection of an organization's performance, but the world sees the mirror more often than they see what an organization is really like. Improve your organization's value proposition and bottom line by going green.








For more information on this study click here: http://www.insyncsurveys.com.au/Articles/#employee-survey-green-study.

About Insync Surveys
Insync Surveys helps organisations improve their performance, customer relationships and the working lives of their employees.

Insync Surveys is a leading Asia Pacific provider of benchmarked stakeholder surveys. We deliver customer, employee and board surveys.

Find more about Insync surveys here: http://www.insyncsurveys.com.au.


Climate Change - Deception Or Ignorance?


The unproven theory that global warming is being caused by mans' industrial activities is a theory being supported by Alarmists. Their opponents, the Realists, regard the theory as being completely unproven but are prepared to listen to anything that may confirm the theory.

This international debate is the cause of much controversy with the Alarmists insisting their position is solid, whilst the Realists say much more concrete evidence is needed. Looking at the Alarmists' position two questions need to be asked - are they scientifically ignorant, or are they engaged in deception?

More accurate data needed before trends can be ascertained

What the Alarmists need to do is provide more compelling evidence to support their position. All they rely on at the moment is current data and compare it to climatic events since the 1890s when modern recording of temperatures began.

The major problems with this constricted approach are twofold:

Firstly, the instruments used today to measure such attributes as air temperature, sea temperature etc. are infinitely more accurate and sophisticated than those in use 50 years ago, never mind 110 years ago. So that begs the question - how accurate is any data older than say 10 years? The Alarmists have yet to clarify this point.

The second problem concerns the time period over which the current data has been collected. 110 years may provide a start, buy that's all it is, a start. Realistically though, 110 years in comparison to the scientifically recognized age of the earth being - 4.5 billion years - is statistically unsustainable.

To get a valid and meaningful understanding of recent changes in the worlds' temperature and the future trends in the area of climate change, the absolute minimum time frame to analyze such data should be no less than a thousand years.

As this is just not possible, the Alarmists are being too free and easy with the very limited information at their disposal. They're making a mountain out of a molehill, and the susceptible people in our societies are taking all this in and making the loudest noise. Hysteria is well under way.

The role of the UN in this deception

Recent reports issued by the UN's committee on climate change laid the blame for this perceived problem clearly at the feet of the industrial western world. Two reports made in early 2007 pointed to the damage being caused by industrial pollution leading to an increase in greenhouse gases, and an imbalance between the CO2 and oxygen in the worlds' atmosphere. The UN said quite clearly that this problem was caused by the ever-increasing expansion of industrial activity by the established western nations and the emerging industrial countries, notably China and India.

No mention was made of other factors that could be responsible for this atmospheric imbalance - factors that could have a profound influence.

Firstly no mention was made of the practice prevalent in third world countries of mass deforestation. ie the clearing of forests to enable land to be used for agriculture. As trees emit oxygen and take in CO2 they're able to keep in balance the relationship between these two gases. Trees help in controlling greenhouses gases, something the UN has not yet accepted.

The other factor the UN failed to mention was the explosion in the worlds' population over the past 50 years. In that time world population has grown from 2 billion to over 6 billion. As the human body converts oxygen into CO2, the omission of this from the UN reports add suspicion to their motives.

So if man is responsible for any increase in greenhouse gases, then more than industrial pollution is the cause. If the UN were to take a more responsible attitude to this, then they'd be a whole lot more credible.

Why are the Alarmists deceiving Us?

Why? What have they got to hide?

Why do they continually tell the world that of the ten hottest years on record, six have occurred within the past 10 years? This has been seen to be false. NASA recently reported that these 10 hottest years occurred before 1950, with the hottest decade being the 30s.

What about the influence of volcanoes on the amount of CO2 in the air?

Why do they keep repeating the line that over 5,000 scientists have signed a document saying that man-made climate change is happening, and ignoring the fact that over 31,000 scientists, including more than 9,000 PhDs have said that this theory is rubbish?

Why do the Alarmists refuse to answer the basic question - what caused climate change in the 12 previous occasions it's occurred during the life of the earth?

After 12 periods of climate change caused by Mother Nature, or for the religious inclined, God, Allah, Jehovah, why should the activities of man be responsible for present events?

And this last point raises a very important issue - what gives the Alarmists the right to think they can reverse Mother Nature or God? What gives Al Gore and his ilk the right to play God?

And why are the worlds' religious leaders saying nothing about this?

This is an attempt to put some balance into the ongoing international controversy that is the theory of man-made climate change.








Like most people, the author takes a keen interest in the world-wide controversy of climate change and global warming, and the alleged effect this will have on life on earth. He also takes an interest in more mundane issues such as weight loss tips and the best deals offered by satellite TV.


Thursday, October 21, 2010

The Importance of Developing Countries in Climate Change Initiatives


There has been a lot of talk surrounding the recent G8 summits and the unwillingness of developing countries to join in on environmental programs. It may not seem that important to include these developing economies in a climate control plan. Given the current statistics about energy use and pollution creation in which the US and other developed countries top the list it stands to reason that what the developing world is doing isn't that important. However, there are several key factors that are not being considered that make the developing countries of the world a very important part of any global climate change discussion.

First off, as we in the US are seeing now, once you have an established method of power generation, it becomes more difficult to change. The life cycle of a power plant is very long and it takes much of this lifecycle to recoup the costs of development. This means that power plants being developed today in developing countries to meet their growing electrical needs will still be in use 25 years from now. It is much easier to start out producing clean energy then it is to transfer to it after the fact. If developing countries continue to use dirty power generation to meet demand today, everyone will pay the price in the long run.

The second reason that we must be concerned about power generation in developing countries is the size of the populations in many of these countries. As countries like India and China start using more energy on a per-capita basis and approach the levels of more developed countries there is going to be a huge demand for electricity generation due to the massive size of their populations. If allowed to continue to meet this demand with dirty power generation methods they will over time create a huge pollution problem, the effects of which will be felt everywhere in the world.

If allowed to continue unchecked, the increase in dirty power generation in the developing world will offset any reductions in pollution made in developed countries. The world cannot afford to continue producing pollution at current levels, the goal of any environmental plan as to be to reduce global emissions. These developing countries are therefore a huge threat to any environmental program that is really trying to fix the problem. This is not to say that the developed countries in the world shouldn't reduce their emissions if developing countries don't agree to as well. Any effort to reduce emissions is better than none. However, it is important to get the support of developing countries in stopping global climate change. Without their help, nothing we do can truly stop the problem, it will just put it off.








About the Author: Barret Hudson is a representative of Green Collar Operations, a home weatherization company in Austin, TX. We specialize in home energy efficiency improvements. More information at http://www.greencollaroperations.com


Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Climate Change and Your Retirement - A Changing Future


Most people will look at their future and decide where they wish to live, how to spend their time and how best to afford it. They may even consult financial planners and know what they will do with their time once retired. They usually do not look at their future from the perspective of climate change and global warming and the outcome of an ever-increasing burden on the ecology.

One of the most important issues for all of humanity is to have a sustainable environment and sustainable living conditions. This issue is however, still ignored by most people. While it is likely there will no longer be an environmentally sustainable future left within the next 25 years not many people are taking notice of this fact. This will mean that the future we would all like, one with favorable ecological conditions, may no longer be a certainty.

Most people would like to have a future whereby all their needs are met including enough fresh, clean air, clean water and to be able to live in a sustainable environment. They do not expect a future with such severely reduced forests, that these forests can no longer support the environment, or a potential future with lack of fresh, clean air. However, with the current trend of ever-increasing pollution and continual further devastation of forests there will soon no longer be a future that can sustain all people.

While the country in which you live can influence the quality of your lifestyle, it cannot control the way the planet's ecological structures respond to the ever-increasing pollution and ecological damage which is becoming an increasing burden. Changing weather patterns are already happening more and more and are a result of climate change.

Our forests can soon no longer adequately supply oxygen, which is a major contributor to humanity's health and well-being. In addition, the oxygen we breathe might also become more and more contaminated because of man-made chemical processes as well as fall-out from volcanic eruptions. Within the next five to seven years this diminishing of fresh clean air will become a real environmental issue.

The climate is changing due to global warming and ecologically unsustainable environments. This, in turn, is creating the untenable situation whereby, most likely within the next fifteen years, many rivers will no longer be able to support humanity. Also, because of the amount of pollution that flows into rivers there may no longer be adequate fresh water supplies. This may begin to affect many more people in the next ten years.

While most of us do not look at our future from an ecological perspective, it is important to begin to think of what the result will be of the current continuing ecological devastation and how this may affect your future. The current climate change issues as well as the ever-increasing pollution are creating an ecological disaster situation that can no longer be fixed and nature is not capable of restoring itself

Humanity will need to make adequate changes to their lifestyle, as there are no longer other options. It is running out of time.

Mia's book "New Concepts for Business and Humanity" contains all the information she received about a possible bleak future for humanity. A future mainly affected by global warming. Your future is at stake. You need to review where you wish to live within the next fifteen years because of the changing climate, which will affect us all.








Mia has the ability to channel Truth. Her ability to channel has been recognized by many people who received personal guidance. Her latest book "New Concepts for Business and Humanity" contains information about a different future than most expect. A free download of the first chapter is available from her website http://www.miadenhaan.com


Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Could the Global Financial Crisis Be the Window of Opportunity to Seriously Address Climate Change?


It seems that in the face of the current global financial crisis we have all but forgotten a much greater issue, one with ramifications of monumental and potentially catastrophic proportions.

We are missing a window of opportunity to tackle both climate change and the global financial crisis

As long ago as November 1992, a document signed by sixteen hundred of the world's leading scientists, including half of all the Nobel Prize winners at that time, issued a warning to all humanity that human beings and the natural world were on a collision course. The document listed all the pending crises in the atmosphere, water resources, soils, the oceans, forests, biodiversity and over-population. The same eminent persons warned that no more than one or a few decades at the most remained to avert the threat of vast human suffering and misery and admonished world leaders that great changes in our stewardship of the Earth and its resources were needed to avoid the irretrievable mutilation of our global home.

Alas, humanity has virtually ignored these most astoundingly important pronouncements, losing nearly two decades in which we could and should have begun the introduction of tangible measures to preserve and protect the biosphere against further harm.

There is little doubt that every year lost has contributed massively to the potential hardships and suffering our children and grandchildren will endure.

Is global warming part of Earth's natural cycle?

Scientists tell us that approximately one hundred million years ago when the continents were arranged differently, Earth was in fact 5 to 15 degrees (C) warmer than it is today. Of course that was long before the existence of Homo sapiens. Then, as the continents drifted apart, the planet cooled steadily. Ice core samples taken from the Arctic show that over the last nine thousand years the Earth's temperature has been relatively stable.

That stability lasted until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. However, since that time, there has been a marked rise in temperature. Because the temperature rise has been over a relatively short period and it has coincided with increased greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and de-forestation, there can be little doubt that the progressive heating of the planet is due to man's activities. Nevertheless, temperature increase has been most marked since the 1950's when consumerism became the Western World's new code for living and factories geared for the war effort, switched to pumping out products for the new "throw away" age.

With the emergence of China and India's industrial economies that are now pumping seemingly endless volumes of harmful pollutant gases into the atmosphere, the rate at which temperatures are escalating each year is sounding alarm bells around the world. Al Gore in his sensational cinematographic epic The Inconvenient Truth brought the message home to millions. Except for diehard sceptics, Gore finally dispelled the last vestige of arguments asserting that global warming is merely a natural phenomenon. Since Gore's movie many climate scientists have in fact backed calls for a "global-wide call to arms" in the fight against potentially fatal climatic changes.

Unfortunately, to this day, some hold the belief that only one or two degrees spread over the next fifty or so years will make little difference. Regrettably for the world, there are many politicians and business leaders among these deniers of the facts.

These ill-informed folk should speak to those residing on low lying nations such as Tuvalu, The Maldives, Bangladesh and many coastal areas of just about every nation that's not landlocked. They would soon discover unfortunate folk of these and many other nations are under imminent threat from rising sea levels.

In addition to the growing inundation of heavily populated nations, we are already experiencing an increase in the severity and frequency of devastating tornadoes, cyclones and storms. Most climatologists now attribute these events and changing weather patterns to the over-heating of our planet.

Droughts have also increased in severity and duration, while polar ice caps along with all of the world's glaciers and the Greenland ice shelf are melting at alarming rates. Africa's and Asia's deserts continue to expand, forcing many poor communities to abandon traditional homelands, throwing greater strain upon the ability of impoverished and bankrupt nations to respond to the growing number of the new ecological refugees.

Vector-born diseases such as malaria and encephalitis are now becoming common in areas previously immune from such threat.

As crops regularly fail through lack of rain, starvation is a growing problem while in the planet's oceans, many marine species are under threat of extinction from higher seawater temperatures, increased acidification, the loss of corals and sea grasses and the rapid proliferation of marine vermin such as, the Crown of Thorns starfish. Meanwhile, grass has been discovered growing in the arctic for the first time. While this enables some creatures to move closer to the North Pole, many species such as polar bears and emperor penguins which are dependant upon cold conditions are threatened with extinction. Flowers are blossoming, birds are migrating and frogs breeding 2 to 3 days earlier with each passing decade and while some life forms flourish in warmer temperatures, others have been forced from their habitats. With the thawing of vast areas of tundra, massive quantities of methane (which is five times more damaging that CO2) are being released into the atmosphere exacerbating the already critical problem we blithely call, "the greenhouse effect."

The world's oceans affect our weather more than many realise. They are in fact, massive natural engines driving climates and weather patterns across the globe. As warm water from the equator is driven northward by wind and air currents, evaporation and the formation of sea ice contribute to the density of arctic seawater which then cools, sinks and returns southward again.

In 2004, submarine exploration beneath the arctic ice cap discovered that only two of the seven gigantic cold water columns that help drive ocean circulation were functioning. Alarmed scientists reported that global warming is threatening the ability of these currents to operate. They found the remaining columns were pathetically weak in comparison to their normal function, raising speculation that rising temperatures may completely shut down thermohaline circulation with potentially catastrophic consequences for Northern Europe, Russia and The United Kingdom.

There is no longer any doubt that the major cause of entire ecosystems collapsing is anthropogenic, although such factors as the Earth's orbital path, volcanic eruptions on the sea floor and beneath the arctic ice, gravitational changes, energy from deep space and sun spot activity all play a part. However, where changes in temperature result from such causes, the Earth's ecosystems could probably compensate and adapt without significant harm to life. On the other hand, the planet's complex systems are clearly unable to cope with man's intervention.

Because there are so many factors contributing to the climate change debate, scientists really do not know what will happen within the next five years let alone the next fifty. Nevertheless, few would deny the devastating consequences of man's impact upon the planet, or that these will continue for thousands of years even if we were to halt all greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow (and that's obviously not going to happen). Despite the best efforts of scientists so far, most predictions and prognosis have proved inaccurate. For example, the rates at which the arctic icecap is melting, the disappearance of glaciers and changing weather patterns have exceeded the worst predictions.

If there is a collapse or further significant slowing of thermohaline circulation, no one knows whether Northern Europe will become appreciably warmer, cooler, or even plunge into a new ice-age!

Most climate experts would now agree, we cannot afford to adopt a wait and see approach while climate change boffins continue with more computer modelling and study the complex web of interdependent factors.

Even if we still believe that global warming and climate change are just part of the Earth's natural cycles, the outcomes will be the same as if they are anthropogenic. There will be massive misery and suffering if we fail to act now.

Merely reacting to changing circumstances will not suffice; we must become super-proactive and assume that worst-case scenarios will become our reality. We must rapidly implement counter-measures and form long term plans to cope with a crisis that is unprecedented in ferocity and magnitude since the history of man.

Meanwhile, back to the global economic meltdown

While the pain of industry bankruptcies, mortgage foreclosures and job loss is very real in the hardships inflicted upon those most affected, we cannot afford to drop the ball when it comes to climate change. Indeed, the suffering we are now experiencing as a consequence of corporate greed, and the undoubted lack of appropriate checks and balances on lending, will seem insignificant compared with the prognosis of many of the world's top scientists, should we fail to heed their warnings.

In the hope of boosting consumption, governments appear to be almost throwing money at national economies with "bailout" packages and handouts to citizens, while many are left wondering if it is a gigantic gamble that's destined to fail. After all, when any individual spends more than he or she earns, thus ending up owing creditors, isn't it responsible and logical to knuckle down, work hard, repay debts and live within one's means?

Surely, when in financial trouble, any sane person wouldn't go out and borrow more money and spend it just to maintain a lifestyle which has proved disastrously extravagant? Haven't too many of us been living in a fool's paradise of rampant consumerism and excessive personal luxury? Is the plight of the nation any different just because it is on a much bigger scale? Didn't the economic house of cards have to come crashing down at some point?

Where should taxpayer's money be going?

Maybe, the strategy of borrowing against the future to ease present pain will work, but is it fiscally responsible to prop up industries based on fossil-fuel technologies when oil reserves are running out and environmental costs of polluting the biosphere at current rates will spell our demise?

If we are going to mortgage our children's future, should we not be looking at spending money on infrastructure projects that will not cause further environmental damage and will improve the quality of life for our citizens in the future? This would seem the right moment to also accelerate the development and introduction of environmentally sustainable technologies and other measures with maximum long-term benefits to all humanity?

Here are some worthwhile suggestions where government subsidies could have lasting benefits:

1. Establishment of giant solar power plants similar to that due to come on line in California

2. Solar, wind, geothermal hot rock (GHR) and tidal power,

3. Hybrid motor vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell and electric cars and other technologies yet to evolve,

4. Solar hot water systems, thin-film photovoltaic cells,

5. Double glazing and eco-friendly buildings and homes,

6. Water tanks, grey water systems,

7. Household water treatment systems that re-use water over and over,

8. Domestic wind turbines,

9. Research into the development of "water from air" devices,

10. Making current buildings and homes energy efficient,

11. Designing new buildings for sustainability,

11. Better city and town planning which discourages automobile usage and encourages patronage of energy efficient, zero emission public transport.

Injection of capital in such areas would undoubtedly create new jobs. In addition, by offering incentives to existing companies, who are currently struggling to survive and urging them to divert productive capacity into the examples outlined may save countless jobs which could otherwise be lost.

Australia, like many nations has vast deserts and straddles latitudes from tropical to temperate zones. Traditionally, the nation's food bowl has been in the cooler south, however, these agriculturally productive areas are drought-stricken and have been for so for several years, devastating production. The hotter north now bears the brunt of more severe cyclones and their inherent flooding.

While the large percentage of the country's population has dealt with water restrictions, abundant rains fill northern catchments to overflowing with much of this water running to waste in the oceans. Met with cries of, "too expensive," proposals to pipe water from northern dams, rivers and lakes to satiate the south's needs never get passed the drawing board, but perhaps should be revisited with an eye on drought-proofing the nation and assuring it is able to play its part in feeding a world whose hunger grows exponentially each year.

More now than ever before, we need leaders with vision and courage and if viewed through a different perspective, the global economic crisis might just be a blessing in disguise.








Alan Greenhalgh is a former New Zealand Police Sergeant and Inspector in The Australian Protective Service, a division of the Federal Police tasked with providing counter terrorist response and diplomatic and consular protection.

As a former member of the N.Z. Police Search and Rescue, Diving, Armed Offenders and elite Team Policing Squads, Alan was also tasked with controlling local gang elements in New Zealand. He has many enthralling anecdotes in his repertoire of police life and is well qualified to write about the human condition. He was the first security manager for Western Australia's parliament house and having completed a major security review resigned to pursue a career in private enterprise. After working for two years as a private investigator he retired to pursue a long held dream to write.

Throughout Alan's careers he authored various in-house manuals and as a security analysts wrote may publications covering matters predominantly related to security, although in his spare time he studied the writer's craft and composed bush ballads.

To learn more about climate change and help pressure governments and world leaders to act meaningfully, go to the not-for-profit website: http://www.upthem.org


Monday, October 18, 2010

Climate Change - Threat To The Earth And Lives


Today, the unwise use of the natural environment due to ignorance, poverty, overpopulation and greed amongst others has led to the degradation of the world, especially African environment. This degradation occur as Africans attempt to adjust their selfish endless wants and desires for food, shelter, recreation, infrastructural facilities, and have led to soil erosion and desertification and that over crowding has led to the spread of shanty towns and urban blight, all of which would worsen if the present population growth continues. The consequence of this environmental mismanagement is threats.

Climate change is certainly no longer alien. Already, its effects are being felt in the world. one of the pronounced effects of climate change is the gradual warming of the atmosphere which could portend doom for the inhabitants of the earth. A warming atmosphere means rise in sea level, which could lead to coaster flooding, and more diseases such as malaria, West Nile disease, dengue fever and river blindness. Climate change is an "unprecedented" threat to food security and this affects the whole world. Droughts are getting worse and climate uncertainty is growing. The world is getting warming (global warming). "Global warming means that that many dry areas are going to get drier and wet areas are going to get wetter. Africa is truly facing the greatest catastrophe in human history. If nothing is done to proffer sustainable solutions to this threat, large part of the continent may be wipe off. Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth said that "Climate change is overwhelming the situation in Africa... unless we take genuine steps now to reduce our emissions, people in the developed world will be condemning millions to hunger, starvation and death".

I'm on a short time research on the effects of this problem in the island area of Lagos, Nigeria...My research so far shows that climate change represents a nightmare scenario for the future of the people of the world. Areas such as Lekki, Victoria Island in Lagos could become submerged. The sea level is rising at an alarming rate, drought and erosion are hitting deep many cities and lives are in serious danger. The consequence of these problems would be dramatic declines in rainfall and a fall in crop yields that could make previous famines look like small tragedies. There are likely to be severe water shortages in many parts of the African continent. We are even seeing the signs of this, as the people are living in great fear even when the words "Climate Change" is a confusing term to them because they lack the proper understand of it.

Despite these diseases such as malaria, West Nile disease, dengue fever and river blindness that were mentioned above, the governments are not even concern about the threat of climate change. Even journalists and media houses are busy promoting political "corruptors" and businesses/organizations that lacks personal or corporate social responsibility rather than educating the common people via public awareness of this devil called "Climate Change". Anyway, many of African journalists don't even know what climate change is all about. IT IS TIME FOR CHANGE. We must stop the various causes of climate change such as:

-Deforestation

-Desertification

-Urbanization

-Degradation

-Pollution

-Unplanned Industrialization, and

-Corruption

It is time for positive action against climate change








Okon E. Promise is a motivational speaker, environmentalist, business and leadership consultant. He has helped multitudes of people to reached and maximised success. He speakes and consults on business, leadership, entrepreneurship and personal development/effectiveness. He is a C.E.O of a marketing and branding company in Nigeria. He also organizes seminars on the aforementioned areas. He is working on bringing up an NGO for poor and disable people. He is a columnist with 4sight magazine and one of those championing the course for a "NEW NIGERIA" and the reformation of the "AFRICAN CONTINENT" as a whole. He resides in Lagos, Nigeria.


Urgent Call - Global Warming and Climate Change


All over the world, countries are experiencing climate change and it's effect to the global environment. Some scientists have claimed that if we don't act now, the damage to our ecosystem will be irreparable. The Amazon Forest is a victim of deforestation for several years. Because of this, different species of animals and rare plants are fast diminishing in numbers. Forest fires is also a factor. Let us not forget the ever present air pollution, improper waste management and the continued use of non biodegradable materials. Mankind was taught for several generations about the importance of having a clean environment and taking care of it for the future generations' sake. However, we have to admit that some doesn't bother anymore because of living a busy life, doesn't have the time nor the interest.

Alarming news of tragedy that erupted globally has spurned researchers to give a hint or to come up with a definite resolution to the problem, but alas, it will take billions of hands to work hand in hand to achieve this seemingly impossible feat. Several countries and industries have already taken steps to introduce products that are environment friendly. For household items there are detergent soaps, bags and kitchen appliances that are made to help minimize the harmful pollutants present in the air that causes the "greenhouse effect". Refrigerators are one of the kitchen appliances that was remodeled to be "CFC" free. Chloroflourocarbon is a pollutant mostly present in air conditioners, refrigerators and other cooling appliances implicated in the acceleration of the ozone layer depletion.

There will be change if all people will help. Solar powered cars are invented, a machine that converts dirty or rainwater to be pottable. Two years ago, biodiesel as an alternative fuel was introduced. It garnered a lot of support from the government and several non profit organizations. Proper waste management, recycling and compost are just few of the simple ways we can help Mother Earth to survive. There's the gasifier that converts municipal solid waste, sewer sludge, petroleum and oily wastes, animal manures, biomass, scrap tires and coal into a renewable resource of energy that can provide electric power for homes, equipment, power plants and motor vehicles.

A joint effort will spur the changes and get the balanced ecosystem back. We can help even in out own ways as industries strive to invent machinery that doesn't harm the environment. I hope that future generations have a clean and environment to live in. The Blue Planet.









Sunday, October 17, 2010

Is the Chipko Movement Towards Forest Appraisal


"Let us protect and plant the trees

Go awaken the villages

And drive away the axemen."

- Ghanshyam Sailani

The forests of India are the unique resources for the survival of the rural people of India which were exploited greatly for commerce and industry. The Chipko Movement of India taken birth in Himalayan foothills gained great significance throughout the world's environmentalist circles for its successful efforts against deforestation. Chipko, which means literally "to embrace" has spread to many other parts of India and has drawn worldwide attention for its resourceful efforts to fight against deforestation and thereby protecting ecology and society. Women played a unique role in making success of the Chipko Movement because they being the dependents on the fuel, wood and fodder for survival found it difficult to procure them for over the last several decades.

In an Indian Civil Society, the workday of the women starts early in the morning. Particulary in the hilly areas, they should fetch water, grind wheat for bread, fulfil the needs of the husband and children, and finally sets out to forest for fuelwood, grass and leaf fodder for animals, etc. Bearing bundles on the head for hours they come home before noon and prepare mid-day meal. Durning the dry season, when upto 80% of the livestock feed is supplied by the forests, their afternoons are also taken up to search for the leaf fodder. This is the need of the forests for the women and her family's survival.

The forests in the Himalayas play the same role today - two harvests in a year, i.e, rice and millets in the monsoon season and wheat in winter, observing a heavy toll on nutrients in the soil. To make for the shortage of the nutrients it is necessary to collect organic matter in the form of leaf fodder and leaf litter over extensive areas of the forest which may be as large as thirty times the size of a typical cultivated field. If the distance between the village and the forest becomes too far, or if there are no more trees, then it is impossible for the women to bring enough organic matter to keep the nutrient supply in balance. To compensate this shortage, it becomes necessary to burn dried dung in place of fuelwood which further results into fertiliser deficit resulting into poorer harvests and even lower yields of buffalo milk. Further towards compensation of this food shortages, women are many a times forced to sell their gold jewellery and other costly important items which are originally intended to keep as a dowry for their daughters.

In the 19th century, British colonial administrators in India took control of vast areas of forestland and subsequently exploited them through Imperial Forest Service where a reasonable portion of this land was originally been managed communally in accordance with the local rules and regulations. With the advent of British Raj (Colonial Rule) conflicts broke out between rural population and the Forest Service because the village systems of resource use broke down and forest degradation accelerated rapidly. The Chipko Movement, founded in 1973 was the outcome of this conflict, started with an objective to conserve forest in the Himalayas.

Deforestation on the hills is at peak during British rule being they did it greatly to fulfil their commercial ends because of which the hill stations rapidly became black holes as wood is needed to fire limestone and large quantities of timber for the construction of government offices, official residences and for infrastructures to make their rule convenient, effective and commercial, which were architecturally of very high standard and costly to both economy and ecology. In 1844 an English contractor named Wilson obtained a concession from the Feudal Lord of Tehri-Garhwal permitting him to harvest Himalayan cedars which grew at altitudes above 1,800m and had to be rafted for months down the Ganges to reach the plains. Wilson's contract permitted him to fell as many trees as per his requirement for a fee of 400 rupees per year for twenty years which resulted into disappearance of the magnificent cedars within a span of a decade.

The arrogance or exploitation of power was apparent at a Forest Service Conference in 1875 where it openly declared that the "victor" is entitled to enjoy the "rights of conquest" which gives a clear admission of the rationale behind the setting aside of reserved forests in accordance with the provisions contained in the Forest Act of 1878. Reserved Forests which ordinarily covered the half of the total area of the village had been foreseen wherever timber was produced profitably or where the forest had a protective function. It became the property of the colonial government immediately after the available rights like right to obtain leaf fodder or to graze goats had been rescinded and after informing the local population through a public notice.

In 1920 Mohandas Gandhi, who lead India to Independence in 1947, began his first nation-wide campaign of civil disobedience to protest unjust laws. Gandhiji characterized the newly established forest reserves as a symbol of oppression. However, in the following year, the local population as a regular practice just before commencement of monsoons set fire to forests of Chir, a newly established reserved forests by the British Government owing to the World War I, so that the coming rains would generate the growth of hardy fodder in soil fertilized by ashes. But this year the fire broke out wildly consuming hundreds of thousands of pines known as Chir which resulted into the regional protest by people in the Himalayan Foothills forcing the British Government to abandon the newly established reserved forests.

>From 1920 onwards the population growth increased steadily, particularly in the lowlands. Timber was transported from the hills to the lowlands where it was a great demand for energy and construction. Very often it was auctioned even before it is felled. The forest officials closed their eyes towards this slipshod (Slipshod means without any authorisation and recklessly) felling and the inclination of the contractors to fell the timber even where it has not been marked. Infact they even exercised strict police powers in dealing with the local people like destroying sickles which women used to cut branches and meted out with severe punishment even for petty offences. Further, successful contractors appointed the workforce for a low wage from outside places in place of the resident population. This phenomenon resulted into very costly for the ecology, economy and residents especially.

The significance of forests on environment and society is first recognized primarily by the women in India when the deforestation was taking place in the Himalayan Mountains of India where the forests are logged excessively. The Chipko Movement was a revolutionary step adopted to save Himalayan ecology and society from deforestation. Women, the badly effected class due to deforestation, were simply the strongest, dedicated and the active participants in this movement. Infact, besides environmental movement it was a women's movement where a women played a vital role within the Chipko Movement against the State for more promising logging and forestry policies so that both the Himalayan environment and society are protected.

Devoid of good forests in England, the British realized the commercial value of Indian Forests and attempted to hold rigid control over them. Accordingly, the Governor General, Lord Dalhousie issued a memorandum on forest conservation called the charter of Indian Forests through which he suggested that the teak, timber, etc be as State Property and its trade be strictly regulated. This paved the beginning for a systematic forest policy of 1855.

During 1856, the Forest Department was established and the first Forest Act was legislated under the guidance of Dietrich Brandis, a German Botanist, the first Inspector General of Forests. He made a record of trees in India and classified them. In 1865, the first Act for the regulation of forests was passed. It gave the power to the government to declare all lands covered with trees and or brushwood as government forest and to make rules to manage them. This Act is applicable only to all the forests which are under the government control which made no provision for the rights of the users.

The Act of 1865 was replaced by a more comprehensive Indian Forest Act of 1878 which divided forests into protected forests, reserved forests and village forests. Several restrictions were imposed upon the people's rights over the forest land and produce in the protected and reserved forests. Further, the Act empowered the local government to impose duty on timber produced in British India or brought from any other place whereby encouraging them to earn revenue from forests. Infact, this Act radically changed the common property into State property. It then resulted into protests which fuelled a wide ranging debate on the reform of forest policy, to make it more democratic and accountable and into argument that State-citizen relations in the realm of forestry have gone through four overlapping stages: conflict, conversation, negotiation, and abrogation.

The government declared its forest policy by a resolution on 19th October, 1894 which stressed on State control over forests and the need to exploit forests for augmenting state revenue. This resulted into the enactment of Indian Forest Act of 1927 replacing the earlier Act of 1878 which includes all the major provisions of the earlier Act, extending it to include those relating to the duty of timber, which is still in force together with several amendments made by State Governments with the enactment of the Government of India Act, 1935, giving a clear emphasis on the revenue yielding aspect of forests.

Historically, the Indian Himalayan region which was under the control of foreigners, especially Britishers and Germans, since 1855, used to produce lumber for railroads. Further, the then government nationalized one-fifth of the total forest area and enacted legislation in this regard. To make things still worse, the Indian Forests Act of 1878 restricted the peasant access to those forest areas not deemed commercially economical and sanctions were levied on those who violated such restrictions. As a step forward, the Forest department passed an order to excavate the complete forest land area, mainly by cutting down the ash trees, to utilise the same for commercial purposes. This approach developed the revolutionary attitude among the Himalayan residents, mainly one person called Shri Chandi Prasad Bhatt, leader of Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh, who had been converted to the idea of Sarvodaya by Sunderlal Bahuguna some years earlier suggested to hug the trees when the fellers came to cut down of trees. Particulary women and their children hugged the trees to prevent them from felling thereby giving birth to Chipko Movement in 1973.

The Chipko Movement - a green venture started by Shri Sunderlal Bahuguna, Leader of Sarvodaya Movement, in the first half of 1973 in the area of Uttarkhand in Uttarpradesh comprising of eight Himalayan districts which is rich in natural resources exploited by the outsiders paving way to deforestation. Infact, the state managed Forest Department used the most of the forests for timber showing no attention towards the employment and welfare of the local people and towards serious ecological damage arising out of such deforestation. This seriously had a negative impact on economic and social conditions in the Himalayan region. The most affected are the local people, mainly the women. In this movement especially the women hugged the trees by interposing their bodies between the trees and the contractor's axes.

The advent of independence and the dawn of the princely states unfortunately accelerated the deforestation in the Himalayan region. The formulation of new guiding principles towards economic growth and development made the government to extract natural resources on an unreasonable scale which even exceeded to that of the colonial era which badly effected the conditions for forest ecosystems and destabilized the hill communities. Further, end of the border war between China and India in 1962 resulted in the construction of roads by logging many trees in the forests though initially accepted by the local people for the employment, these infrastructure projects are created but had a considerable adverse impact on the hill society that remains in effect even today. These negative impacts on the Himalayan ecology and society resulted in further growth and success of the Chipko Movement against deforestation.

Inspired from Chipko Movement, many popular movements developed with an objective to protect and manage natural resources for the benefit of the rural population in many parts in India. In Bihar and Gujarat, these movements arose to revolt against conversion of natural forests to teak plantations, a move which deprived the indigenous forest-dwelling Adivasi people of their only resource base. Further, in Karnataka, the Appiko Movement arose when the forest service did nothing to stop the activities of the contractors who were felling 35 trees per hectare instead of the stipulated 2 per hectare.

After independence, the Constitution of India adopted a number of provisions from the Government of India Act of 1935 and retained forest as a state subject in the 7th schedule. The National Forest Policy Resolution adopted by the government in 1952 stressed that the forest policy shall be on national needs but not on commerce, industry and revenue. For the first time, the resolution highlighted on the ecological and social aspects of forest management. But this remained as a pious declaration without any execution.

The Ministry of Forest was initially a part of the Ministry of Agriculture which the National Commission on Agriculture treated it as such. The National Commission supported the commercialization of forests giving no importance to the survival of adivasi and other forest dwelling communities because it is on the strong belief that they have not contributed much towards the maintenance or development of forests and so they don't have the right to expect that somebody else provide them with the forest produce with free of charge. Further, the commission recommended that the revised National Forest Policy be formulated basing on the important needs of the country, the forest lands be bifurcated into protection forests, production forests and social forests giving high priority to production forests and least to social forests, with the object that the forest management be that each hectare of forest land shall be in a position to yield a net income of many more times than is being obtained at present. For this purpose it further recommended to the revision of all India Forest Acts.

In 1985, the Forest Department was shifted from the Ministry of Agriculture to the Ministry of Environment and Forests thereby changing the emphasis from revenue to environmental concerns. In December, 1988, the Parliament passed a new forest policy resolution called the National Forest Policy, 1988 rejecting the recommendations of the National Commission and emphasizing on the welfare of the adivasis and other forest dwelling communities. As per this policy, the survival of adivasis and other forest dwelling communities revolves within and near the forests which is to be fully protected. But in spite of this resolution which was a pro-tribal policy, the old Act of 1927 with all the subsequent amendments remained unchanged.

In 1994, the Ministry of Environment and Forests prepared a draft of the new bill called the Conservation of Forests and Natural Eco-Systems Bill, 1994 to replace the Indian Forests Act, 1927 which generated a lot of debate on it. Infact, a number of voluntary organizations presented an alternate draft and submitted it to the Ministry of Environment and Forest. The bill was not presented to the Parliament and the old Forest Act, 1927 with all its subsequent amendments is still in operation.

Some salient features of the draft bill prepared by Voluntary Organizations are as follows:


Preamble has been expanded to include the objectives of meeting the basic needs of the people, especially fuel-wood, fodder and small timber for rural and tribal people and maintaining the intrinsic relationship between forests and the tribal and other poor people living in and around forests by protecting their customary rights and concessions on forests as laid down in the National Forest Policy Resolutions 1998.




Definition of Gramsabha, Resident, Community and monoculture have been added.




In place of Forest Settlement Officer, Forest Settlement Board has been suggested with its composition and thereafter Forest Settlement Board has replaced the Forest Settlement Officer.




References to practice of Shifting Cultivation in Chapter 11 on Reserved Forests, Chapter -III on Protected Forest and Chapter V on the Conservation of Forest and Lands, not being the Property of Government has been deleted and a separate Chapter 4A on Shifting Cultivation has been added.




Rules for the publication of notice to constitute a Reserved Forest or a protected Forest have been explained in detail.




The Provisions of penalize the entire community by taking away its right to pasturage or to forest produce in case of willfully caused fire etc. have been deleted.




Procedure of formation of Village Forests, and in particular constitution of Village Forests committees has been elaborated in detail and their powers expanded.




The powers of management have been given to the State Forest Committee instead of the Forest Officer.




The constitution of Urban Tree Authority has been changed and the formation of Urban Forest Committees has been suggested.




The constitution of Central Forest Policy and Law Monitoring Committee has been amended. A new committee called State Forest Policy and Law Monitoring Committee (in brief Central Forest committee) has been suggested and the powers Forest Officers have been made subject the control of State Forest Committee.




New Committees called District Forest Committee have been suggested at the District level and the major decisions relating to the forest in the District have been made subject to their sanction.




It has been specifically mentioned that the Act will be extended to the States in the North East India and the scheduled areas only after necessary amendments have been made.


All these and other amendments have been suggested to encourage the preservation and development of the forest more participatory and effective and to achieve the main objective of Forest Policy Resolution 1988 of creating a massive people's movement with the involvement of women, for achieving these objectives and to minimize pressure on existing forest.

Source : forestlegislation.pdf

Environmental deterioration and the fall of the great forests increased the natural disasters. Commercial contractors from the plains carried out on large scale the extraction of natural resources like timber, limestone, magnesium, and potassium by unreasonable means like blasting mountainsides, clear cut forests, excavated quarries, etc. and consumed the resources for their own corporate needs. This resulted in massive disruptions of the fragile Himalayan ecology, flooding and landslides claimed more victims and caused extensive damage. This massive destruction of Himalayan ecology, flooding and landslides claimed more victims and caused extensive damage like in 1970 the Alaknanda river flooded destroying many homes and killing hundreds, in 1978 the yamuna river floods had their origins in the erosin and in 1977 the landslides in Pithoragarh district resulted in falling rocks killing 44 people and ruined 150 acres of land. These unbearable conditions and loss of life resulted in revolution among Himalayan residents, particularly women, who holded Chipko Movement as a weapon in their hands to protect and safeguard the Himalayan Ecology from further deterioration.

The areas of conflict between the forest departments and tribals and other forest dwelling communities living within and near forests are many. Some of the important ones' are discussed here. Encroachments on forest lands where a number of lands under the jurisdiction of the Forest Department are in actual possession of the people whose occupancy was being regularized from time to time in different states. But in some areas the orders of regularization are not properly implemented by the forest departments because they were reluctant to part with the forest lands under their jurisdiction. Infact, though there is no bar to the extent of issue of regularization orders till the promulgation of the Forest (Conservation) Ordinance passed in 1980 which made impossible to issue any orders in the future. Attempts to evict tribal households from forests and the removal of encroachments resulted into severe and violent clashes between the people, police and forest officials. Further, the projects, pertaining to construction of dams, defence, industrial complexes in both public and private sectors for habitation and cultivation, also resulted into the eviction of tribal households from forests lands. Being the rehabilitation plans for the evicted tribal people are poorly implemented they refused to vacate the forest lands due to lack of other source of livelihood inspite of severe oppression from and the law which is on the side of the officials.

Infact, the earlier accomplishments through adopting the strategy of 'Chipko' encouraged the villagers to demand for consultative and democratic management of shared resources, greater accountability and environmental sensitive development. Through this approach, villagers also learned the value of their own forests and the need to protect and preserve them. Thus, the scope of the movement widened dealing with different issues that came to existence towards environment and society. Dasholi Gram Swarajya Mandal (DGSM) is one such voluntary organization led by Shri Chandi Prasad Bhatt which combine local participation with developmental activities. It was an organization worked against logging of forests and the state decision to allocate forest resources to a sporting good factory at the expense of the local enterprise. It is an active participant in the development programs such as social forestry and in the Chipko Movement which has become replica for grass-roots environmental actions. These movements infact have shaken the Apex Court resulting in the amendment of the law of land to prevent, protect and safeguard the environment from hazardous environmental degradation.

In the words of Shri Chandi Prasad Bhatt, the movement strives for 'Judicious use of the trees' and not the 'Saving trees'. People in the plains are alone eligible for the products of our forests. Their struggle for survival gave them the management of their forests. He was a strong believer that the people be well off in their existence if the forests are managed by those who dwell in them.

The Chipko Movement played a vital role for growing environmental activism which had an impact on moulding Village Cultures towards environment protection. This is illustrated by the tree planting ceremony of the Maiti. As per this ceremony when a Maiti girl gets married, the other girls get saplings from the nursery to plant near the bride's house. Further, the bride gives a sapling to the groom to plant it while the Brahmin chants the sacred verses. The Maiti tree has a special meaning to the bride and her family. This new tradition which expanded to 500 villages, blended with the culture without any large investment where the women of Uttarkhand played a key role in making this cultural movement a great success to preserve diversity and to protect the natural heritage of the Himalayas.

Chipko was quite successful in influencing government policy at both centre and state level. After multiple bans had been ordered on green felling in various regional forests, in 1980's this movement targetted a great victory when Smt. Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, ordered a complete fifteen year ban on cutting down of trees above 1000 meters in the Himalayan forests which was further extended to the forests of Western Ghats and Vindhyas. This created a pressure for a Natural Resources Policy to meet the people's and ecological requirements. The movement took its foot steps to Himachal Pradesh in the North, Karnataka in the South, Rajasthan in the West, Bihar in the East and to the Vindhyas in Central India.

The active participants in this movement were primarily village women who fought for their livelihood and communities. Men were also involved too where some of them rouse as great leaders of this movement like Shri Sunderlal Bahuguna, Shri Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Shri Dhoom Singh Negi, Shri Ghanasyam Raturi and Shri Indu Tikeker. Shri Sunderlal Bahuguna, a Gandhian activist and philosopher, is a prominent man whose appeal to Smt. Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, resulted in the green felling ban and whose trans Himalayan footmarch upto 5000 kilometres in 1982-83 helped in spreading the Chipko Movement. He is the person who coined the Chipko Slogan "Ecology is permanent economy", Shri Chand Prasad Bhatt, one of the earliest Chipko activists, who nurtured locally based industries for conservation and sustainable use of forest wealth for local benefit, Shri Dhoom Singh Negi alongwith Bachni Devi and many village women first protected the trees from logging by hugging them and coined the slogan -'what do the forests bear? Soil, water and pure air.', Shri Ghanasyam Raturi, the Chipko poet, whose songs echo throughtout the Himalaya of Uttar Pradesh and Shri Indu Tikekar, a doctor of philosophy, whose spiritual discourses throughout India on the ancient Sanskrit scriptures and on comparative religion have stressed the unity and oneness of life and placed the Chipko Movement in this context. The prominent women leaders were Ms.Gauri Devi and Ms.Ganga Devi who formed vigilance parties to act as a watchdog on the axemen to protect the Reni forest from deforestation. Infact, the women of this movement were very strong willed, very creative and extremely empowered to protect the forests from deforestation even at the cost of their husbands and their lives. The women participation in the Chipko Movement not only protected the ecology and environment but also developed the world's consciousness on environmental aspects.

Infact, the Chipko Movement inspired Ms.Vandana Shiva for the development of a new theory called as 'Ecofeminism' which specifically explains the link between the women and the ecology. It inspired for development of literatures and discussions on 'Women and Ecology' which were in great demand in the market. To be more clear, Vandana Shiva's Ecofeminist Movement brought imperialism inscribed in the colonial practices, into the center of the Environmentalist debate.

Gaining moral support from the Chipko Movement, another environmentalist movement called Narmada Bachao Andolan led by Medha Patkar gathered popularity globally. It is the Narmada campaign which is to protect Narmada river against the construction of various dams on it in the state of Gujarat. However, it's main objective is to protect the rights of the people whose villages and livelihood will be submerged in the process of construction of dams on the Narmada river. The people strongly believe the proposal to construct such dams is unjust, iniquitous and the cost-benefit analysis is grossly inflated in favor of building the dams on Narmada River. Further they also believe that they are many other suitable alternative(s) to provide water and energy to the residents of the Narmada Valley, Gujarat and other regions which are expected to be socially just and, economically and environmentally sustainable.

In India, the collective movements connected with indigenous rights predate the Global Non-Governmental Organizations. Environmental activism in India is in the forefront of organizing movements for alternative ways of life because it became vital for the Britishers to make progress. It has been critical of the colonial imperative of progress, manifested in the commercialization of natural resources and the use of seemingly retrogressive modes of organization of land and collection of revenues that broke the backbone of the peasantry.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which are strong supporters of Chipko Movements are increasing their influence on global and national forest policy. The functions of the NGOs are from promotion of wilderness protection and land purchase, through campaigning on issues such as old-growth forest logging and pesticides use, to the development of the coherent vision of forest stewardship. They are linked to the environmental existence being many ecosystems are undergoing an apparently inexorable degradation that Post-World War II worsened this situation and further the centralized governments rarely have the long term proposals to cater the needs of the local people. Forest NGOs are actively participating in the role of 'environmental conscience' helping in identification and publicizing threats to both the ecology and society. It's work received appreciation from both the Government and by those people who had a negative approach towards the work of NGOs in the past. Concerted action of the NGOs on the particular issue is capable to drag towards global attention. The growth of the modern environmental movements, following Stockholm Conference in 1973 observed many NGOs involving in high spirits against logging in natural forests, large scale dam construction, the use of pesticides and intensive forest management.

During 1990 NGOs nature of activity has been changed in different aspects like recognition has been increased that temperate and boreal forests are facing the serious environmental problems though the concentration is on the quality of the forests as the area under the trees. Further the participation is also more in restricting the logging for roads and occupation for offices. The entry of Greenpeace into the international forest debate through a series of high profile operations in British Columbia, Kare has drawn global attention to issues that were previously of only local concern and has increased direct action. More recently, some international networks are formed to work as liaison bodies between different NGOs, large and small, including Taiga Rescue Network in Boreal region and the Native Forests Network throughout the temperate countries. Infact, The 1992 Earth Summit and the subsequent spate of forest initiatives like Intergovernmental panel of Forests, World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development regional criteria and indicator initiatives all provided fora for NGOs to engage with governments and intergovernmental bodies.

The movement of Chipko Movement was carried on and became successful mainly through Public Interest Litigations. It resorted to demonstrations, pickets and letter-writing campaigns to draw public attention for the objective it was striving for and on the state of affairs it felt unjust and felt the need to reform for the benefit both in terms of environment and society. Tehri Bandh Virodhi Sangharsh Samiti campaigned against environmental degradation and loss of habitat for nearly 10 million people. Sastra Sahitya Parishad in the Kerala State was instrumental in the final giving up of a proposed hydo-electric project which would have drowned a rare rain forests known as Silent Valley.

Infact, Human rights is the basis for much of the work in which the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) or Social Action Litigation groups are involved in. Thus, Public Interest Litigation groups are litigated around rights where much of the research was done around rights and the law reform is based on the superior recognition of rights. Infact, the alternative tribunals tried to adjudicate on principles of rights. PIL was proved to be successful being it became a boom to the civil society for active participation in questioning public decision making, including decisions on political structure and democratic space. It became a weapon in the hands of the civilians to challenge and bring a change in the major public policy decisions and campaign for social, economic and political reform.

Chipko movement has an active reforestation programs stressing on ecological dependency of the local people upon the forests and the need to sustain the forest environment. During 1970s, the government of Uttarpradesh started reciprocating to the growing popular pressure, which was the result of the various fasts undertaken by Shri Sunderlal Bahuguna. Timber felling was temporarily prohibited in certain areas, the contractor system was suspended and organized felling was delegated to a newly formed government forestry corporation. Further, in 1975, the DGSS began a reforestation campaign. Foresters offered members of the sangh guidance on how to establish a nursery. Close collaboration rapidly became the order of the day and the Sangh became successful in bridging the considerable gap which still existed between the population and the forest service. The afforestation projects it regularly organizes achieved a high rate of successful growth, in contrast to government projects. Today, the Voluntary Afforestation Program conducting by DGSM is the largest one in India.

One of the significant approach of Chipko Movement is against the state policy of social forestry. During February, 1988 in the district of Chamba, thousands of eucalyptus saplings were digged up in a forest department nursery as a protest for the failure of the forest department to plant suitable trees for fuel and fodder, as the eucalyptus tree is not an ecologically sensible tree being it does not protect the soil or the villages from landslides. This is an accomplishment of the women of the Chipko Movement which are in great number and which maintained to continue till today.

In one of the earliest re-evaluations of India's forest policy, the Government of India initiated a massive, nationwide Social Forestry Program (SFO) in 1976 in an attempt to reconcile industrial forestry and the basic, forest-related needs of the rural communities. The State recognized 175 million acres wastelands, deforested or overgrazed private and communal lands to be made available for this program. The Program comprises of creation of strip plantations along roadsides and embankments, community based woodlots, using communal lands for mixed species planting and farm forestry or agroforestry related planting on private farm land. The various State Forest Departments are authorized to execute and supervise such various individual social forestry programs duly guided by a particular afforestation objective. Infact, social forestry was a path to introduce a community-extension orientation into State Forest Departments that adopted this program because States own their respective forest lands exercising considerable jurisdiction in terms of forest management approach though the nature of execution and supervision varied considerably from State to State. The State Forest Departments, in its attempt to involve local communities in such social forestry programs, worked with the local government units (LGUs) or more particularly with the gram panchayats because it is necessary for the possible coordination of local needs with the state forest management.

The year 1970 is the beginning for the national government and various states towards experimenting with community-oriented approaches from which the Joint Forest Management evolved as a policy-based program to establish management partnerships among local forest dependent communities and the State for the sustainable management and joint benefit sharing of public forest lands. Realising the importance of Joint Forestry in response to a growing enlightenment among the public for effective protection of forests in the country, the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, decided to adopt the policy of Joint Forest Management through establishment of Joint Forest Management Monitoring Cell. Further, on 1st June, 1999 the secretary of Ministry of Environment and Forests issued a circular to all the States and Union Territories Forest Secretaries stressing the need of participation of village communities and voluntary agencies towards reforestation of degraded forest lands and also laid guidelines to provide usufructuary benefit to the village communities towards such participation in the afforestation programmes. In this context, Usufructuary benefit means that the beneficiaries or NGO's shall be given usufructs like grasses, lops and tops branches, minor forest produce and a portion of proceeds from the sale of trees on maturing basing on the terms and conditions as decided by the State/UT Governments.

These developments were successful experiments and a departure from the commercial objectives of the old policy. With this inspiration, thousands of forest protection committees existed in different states and the joint ventures continue to exist. However, the success of these committees or ventures mainly depended on the attitude and behavior of forest officials at all levels.

In September, 2001 Villagers who participated in Chipko Movement of the seventies from Advani Village in Tehri district protested against the felling of trees and stalled work on the power transmission lines from Tehri Dam. This is because the Power Grid Corp., decided to cut out two corridors, each of 95 meters wide, for the construction of the high tension lines for which thousands of pine and sal trees from a forest more than a 100 years old be logged.

Each confrontation of Chipko Movement was non-violent and successful. This resulted in gradual development from a protective movement to prevent the Commerical clear-cutting to the broad movement for ecological and human rights of the hill people and for adherence to a conservation ethnic. Infact, its expansion developed two sections within Chipko - one towards protection of existing forests from deforestation and the other for promoting afforestation and development of sustainable village production systems based on forests and agroforestry. The latter section is led by Shri Chand Prasad Bhatt, one of the original organizers which has joined subsequently in the Ministry of Environment and others to organize "eco-development" camps for massive tree-planting campaigns, which achieved 85-90% survival rates.

CHIPKO MOVEMENT DEMANDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS :


All tree felling in the sensitive watersheds must be banned and there should be large scale plantation. The trees must not be cut for construction purposes unless it is ascertained that this does not affect the eco-system adversely. In such areas, the forest conservation system ought to aim at protecting the forest land and the water resources, as well as in balancing the climatic features.




The contract system should be immediately stopped and rural organizations and labor co-operatives should be established to replace them. The local hill people must be actively involved and consulted in any work related with the forests. Such organization and individuals should be provided with relevant training and guidelines.




The daily needs of the forest dwellers in the region should be duly evaluated and they should accordingly be given reasonable rights over the forest resources, Forests must be surveyed properly in order to know their exact condition as well as to evaluate the rights of the natives.




Rural industrial ventures, based on the forest resources of the region should be executed by involving the local available work force. Towards this assistance must be provided to enable them to obtain the sufficient raw material, finance and technical know how.




The denuded hills must be regreened through afforestation drive on a war footing. Again, the local must be involved and encouraged to take up forest-farming (agro-forestry). Efforts should be made to foster love and affection among the local people towards the trees and plants.




A detailed geological, ecological and botanical survey of the hills should be carried out before any heavy construction or execution of forest department working plan.




These demands are not hollow; they have achieved results like the following:


Commercial forest felling is completely banned not only in the Alaknanda basin from where the Chipko movement was started but in the whole Central Himalaya. This ban is continue till today.




A recent satellite remote sensing study conducted by the Space Applications Center, Ahmedabad show that the forest cover which was lost due to commercial felling between 1959-1969 has nearly been regained in the sensitive catchment of the Upper Alaknanda river. This could have been achieved due to the motivation and participation of the local people.




In February 1980, the Uttar Pradesh forest department sent directives to revise its working plans with a view to harmonizes them with the notion of the "sensitivity" of these areas. Though their definition of sensitivity is at variance with ours, but atleast they have started realizing this vary crucial fact concerning the Himalaya.




In 1975, the Alaknanda Soil Conservation Division of the U.P. forest department came into existence in Chamoli in order to undertake the Himalayan task of rejuvenating the barren slopes. The next five years witnessed functioning the Civil Soyam Forest Division in the entire Central Himalaya. In order to intensify such steps in Chamoli, the Upper Ganga catchment has been established with the objective of evolving planning for the security and safety of the small rivers and rivulets against soil erosion and landslides as also in afforestation drive.




Source :nvsecase.htm

The main indication of empowerment as a result of Chipko has been the increasing and the effect of village level women's organizations called Mahiula Mangal Dals (MMDs). Irrespective of the intentions of the Chipko workers, the women who participated in the Chipko meetings, protests and other programs became aware of their strengths and began demanding a share in the decision making process at the community level. All this resulted into emergence of several forest management initiatives in India where some are initiated at the State level while some are at Panchayat level. By 1998, around 10,000 of these types of initiatives are in existence covering about two million hectares of degraded forest land. Chhaya Kunwar of the Himalayan Action Research Center of the village of Bacchair which constitutes all-women forest members, though it is not legalized to manage their natural resources being the center is at village level institutions, sets a suitable example for the successful forest management. Further, at the Conference on Women in Beijing, one of the five commitments made by the Indian Government recognized the contribution of grassroots women's groups in natural resource management and ensured women's participation in the conservation of the environment and control of environmental degradation, which is still to be executed. Likewise, women's organizations in the process of enriching their immediate environment are a step forward to influence the International Environmental Movement to increase the environmental awareness at the world-wide.

A historical chapter opened in the last quarter of the century on June 01, 1972, when a U.N. Conference was held in 'Stockholm' on human environment and subsequently followed by more and more summits for the nature conservation to posterity. The historical 'Earth Summit' on environment and development in 'Rio de Janerio' Brazil from 3rd to 14th June, 1992 which was a biggest stride having broad based ramification in the environment from further deterioration. All associated nations of the globe assembled under one roof to bring under deliberation the most challenging threat to which 'Mother Earth' is confronted with. This being the call of the hour to protect and faithfully defend the natural resources whatsoever left to the posterity and to add to it more forest campaign for tree culture and afforestation if human life at all has to survive on this only bio-cushioning planet 'The Mother Earth'.

However, the world's forests continue to deteriorate despite international efforts because the deforestation rates in tropical countries are increasing, sustained management is rare, matured forests are being replaced by even-aged simplified stands and international standards are of limited use. However, some of the most important promising avenues are being stimulated, nurtured and implemented by non-government institutions including private business interests.

Nevertheless, normally in such peoples' program there are always some setbacks mainly from vested interest groups within the village and outside. Such setbacks may be dealt with though it is difficult to solve by open debate on the merit of any new program. For example, when decisions are made about a direct action, DGSM takes people into confidence along with their consent as to how one should proceed with. It is a collective approach and becomes feasible due to the informal structure of the Chipko Movement. Though the initiators are the collective workforces of DGSM, however, finally the decision is finalized in open assembly during the village level meeting and off late in the Eco-development camps.

The demonstrations, state level achievements and the popularity gained through Chipko Movements, resulted some change in the social consciousness among the people. In a broader perspective, India is already in the stage of change in consciousness among the people in the opposite direction, towards the neoliberal (i.e, traditional liberal concerns for social justice with an emphasis on economic growth) model of development where Chipko activists caused people to stop and reconsider their directions in some areas like agroforestry (i.e., use of land in which harvestable trees or shrubs are grown among or around crops or on pastureland as a means of preserving or enhancing the productivity of the land). Thus, these movements are exhibiting how the resource-intensive demands of development based on short-term criteria of exploitation have built-in ecological destruction and economic deprivation.

While addressing the Chipko Movement, the following are to be taken for understanding:

1. Is Chipko a movement rooted in economic conflicts over mountain forests or guided by ideas of deep ecology?

Documented evidences from the movement sources do not indicate any influences of the brand of thinking known as 'deep ecology'. Dependable historical account of this widely written about movement is, surprisingly, scanty. Among the early writers on the history of the movement, Bandyopadhyay (1992) as well as Guha (1989) have not indicated any link with 'deep ecology'.

2. Is Chipko a social movement based on gender collaboration or a 'feminist movement' based on gender conflicts?

In the early literature on the Chipko Movement no serious questions were raised about the movement being based on gender conflict. There was no lack of recognition of then fact the issue of forests in the Garhwal and Kumaon Himalaya touches the women much more intensely than the men. It was not a question of planned organization of the women for the movement, rather it happened spontaneously and the men were out of the village so the women had to come forward and protect the trees. The presence of large number of women in the forest action at Reni, and the large scale participation of the village women have led to some analysts claiming Chipko to be a 'women's movement'. However, inspite of that, Shiva (1992) identified Chipko as a 'women movement' though no activist woman from the movement has made any such claim.

3. Has anyone in the Chipko movement actually hugged trees at the risk of her/his life and not for waiting photographers?

All the photographs of 'Chipko Actions' represent enactments. When the only reported incidence of embracing trees to protect them from felling occurred in Salet forests in the Garhwal Himalaya, and human life was at risk, there was no photographer around in the remote mountain forests.

Source : bandj99a.htm

The initial start of the Chipko Movement was with the conflicts over mountain forests between the economic interests of the mountain communities and the ecology of the plains. This fundamental basis gradually resulted from contract system of felling being stopped to the establishment of public sector Forest Department Corporation. The fellings were then onwards undertaken with the help of local village cooperatives.

Chipko though not in original form still continues in the form of the traditional custom of tree hugging besides taking part in more project oriented work including large-scale educational work with local governments. Women are still the active participants of the Chipko Movement because they are the ones' who are mostly involved in agriculture and connect deforestation with environmental and society problems. Infact, they are the first to identify the environmental problems with deforestation and fought against commercial logging and development. They are the tough fighters in the protection of forests. As a women's movement, Chipko Movement is still continuing to fight for proper forestry policies.

Environmental Harm, i.e.,harm to forests, wild life, etc, effects not only the private individual but the society as a whole. A conflict pertaining to environment goes beyond the individual and acquires the dominion of public law. There exists five legal remedies for individual citizens of India towards environmental harm such as constitutional remedies, civil litigation, criminal prosecution, citizen suit under environmental statutes and judicial review of administration.

Constitutional Remedies : The subject of forests was included in the State List in the seventh schedule of the Constitution. But during the emergency, the subject was transferred from the state list to the concurrent list through the 42nd amendment to the Constitution. After the transfer of forests from State list to Concurrent list, the Government of India promulgated the Forest (Conservation) Ordinance on 25th October, 1980 prohibiting the State Governments from allowing the use of forest lands for any other purpose without the approval of the Central Government. Such ordinance was later on passed as The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 duly amended in 1988 in which the state governments were prohibited to allocate in the form of lease or otherwise any forest lands or any portion thereof, to any private person or authority not owned, managed or controlled by government without the previous sanction of the Central Government.

India is the only country with constitutional provisions for environmental protection. These are incorporated vide Article 48A and Article 51(A)(g) in the Constitution of India by the Constitution (forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976. Article 48A is a directive principle of the State which states that the "State shall endeavor to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wildlife of the country". Article 51(A)(g) is a fundamental duty of a citizen where the citizen of India has a duty to "protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wild life and to have compassion for living creatures". Infact, as per the Article 21 of the Constitution of India, right to clean the environment is a part of the right to life as examined by the Supreme Court in the Subhash Kumar vs. State of Bihar case. Accordingly, Right to life is a fundamental right under Article 21 which includes right to enjoyment of pollution free water and air for full enjoyment of life". It further ruled that "if anything endangers or impairs that quality of life, in derogation of laws, a citizen has a right to have recourse to Article 32 of the Constitution for removing the pollution of water or air which may be detrimental to the quality of life. The courts rely on these articles for adjudicating many cases pertaining to environmental matters.

The 73rd amendment to the Constitution of India and the recommendations of the Bhuria Committee appointed by the Government and the Panchayat Raj (extension to the scheduled areas) Act of 1996, several states have made provisions for panchayat raj institutions in the scheduled areas giving them wide powers of control over the natural resources including land and forest produce though some states tried to curtail the rights of these panchayats like Maharashra Act omitted the apta, tendu leaf and bamboo from the list of minor forest produce.

Civil Remedies: Civil Remedies for environmental harm in the common law system are based on the principles of the Law of Torts. Civil remedies available are similar to the citizens of United Kingdom, United States of America and India. The different kinds of torts connected to environmental pollution are negligence, trespass, nuisance and the rule in Rylands vs. Fletcher case. The civil remedies may be either in the form of damages, injunctions or declarations.

Criminal Remedies: The deliberate acts of pollution are crimes as per Common Law. In ancient days only the pollution of rivers, streams, ponds and wells are visualized under the Criminal system. However, when specific statutes were enacted for the regulation of environmental deterioration, certain activities were alone said to be the criminal offences. The criminal remedies in India are, in addition to the state machinery for prosecution, an individual can institute proceedings against an offender who violates the penal provisions. But prosecutions for certain offences can be instituted only as per certain Statutes like in the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 and the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 the court can take the cognizance of the offences on a complaint by the Pollution Control Boards or its Authorized Officers.

Remedies under Environmental Statutes: In India almost all major environmental laws have citizen suit provisions for instituting criminal prosecution for the offences specified therein. The citizen suit is a recent innovation in the legislative field which enable a private citizen to initiate proceedings for violation of legal provisions and for compelling the authorities to enforce the statutory provisions properly.

Judicial Remedies for Administrative Action: Regulation of the environment is accomplished through the administrative agencies established by law where such agencies deeds and misdeeds are to be controlled. Judicial Remedies in the United Kingdom, United States of America and in India are aimed at judicial control of administrative actions. The courts intervene in the administrative actions of the executive if such actions are ultra vires, unreasonable, malafide, inconsistent with the rules of natural justice and suffering from procedural irregularities. The judicial control of administrative decisions becomes necessary to protect the citizens from usurpation or unbridled exercise of power. Judicial control is achieved through the mechanism of issuing writs such as certiorari, mandamus, prohibition and quo warranto as specified under Article 32 of the Constitution of India.

Class actions and representative actions are the special procedures which enables the class having the same interest to sue or to be sued. In the case of environmental harms, being the effected class have the same identical interests and since their grievances are common, class action or representative action is the most suitable form of litigation for redressing their grievances. In the Bhopal tragedy case, the Government of India filed a class action suit on behalf of all the victims as per the provisions of Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster (Processing of Claims) Act, 1985 by which the government assumed parens patriae jurisdiction.

Admittedly and beyond any shadow of doubt, the forests of India rich in the past which lost most of its richness due to inefficient and mismanagement. With the advent of Independence and being well versed with the importance of forests on ecology and society due to various environmental protection movements like Chipko Movement 'The Indian National Forests Policy' was formulated which highlighted that minimum of 33.3% of the total land should come under forests. Even prior to this policy, many Forest Acts, Policies, Amendments, Repealings during British rule came into existence in the years 1878, 1890, 1891, 1901, 1991, 1914, 1918 and 1920. However, the Indian National Policies so formulated from time to time after independence laid down a unique formation having uniform enactments like The Environment Protection Act, 1956, The Forest Conservation Act, 1980, The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, etc, at all levels except at few stages where the people formulated their own Forest Acts and laws made thereunder, or related Acts thereto. The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 was enacted being nearly 4.5% of the total land in the country is covered under protected areas which is classified into national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and protected areas. The Act administers these areas placing several restrictions on the residents of villages in these areas and attempts are made to relocate these villages outside the areas which are met with strong opposition from the residents and by facing violent conflicts in many areas. Further, the government placed severe restrictions on the hunting of animals included in the list of wildlife species, as also a number of economic activities, due to pressure from the World Bank and the environmental protection fund agencies, which resulted into shelving of development projects in these areas. Currently, the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 undergone several amendments and became The Wildlife Protection Act, 2002. The Environment inclusive of forests, its wildlife, biosphere, eco-system, air, water and soil, through legislations and enactments has been fortified and made more stringent. Yet it is not upto its expected mark being there is brutal application of forests under the influential shadows like mushrooming of forest mafias, hunters, poachers, green fellers, etc.

The Environment been heartlessly disturbed from "Mountainous Himalayas" down below Gangetic Valley and Southern-tip (North-South), and Assam to Rajasthan (East-West) being the fresh and green mountainous regions are under rapid deforestation replacing them towards commercialization or money making. Also, the air pollution coupled with noise and river pollution are the man-made hazards which in one way or the other also became the growing peril to the environment. This scenario is 'World-Wide' with no exceptions. Though in present scenario, every country is enlightened with the importance of forests on environment and society and been put in constant pressure to formulate and implement various afforestation schemes on the fast track, yet the result is yet to be seen being the ecological imbalance is still a burning issue in the society.

"Environmental Protection' is the call of hour not only in India but world-wide being each and every nation should rise from nap and give utmost importance and efforts to the possible afforestation and to prevent complete deforestation so that the impact of unforeseen serious negative climatic changes on the survival of living creatures can utmost be avoided.

The Conservation and regeneration of forests is primarily a social problem rather than a biological problem. In India as elsewhere, Visheswar Dutt Saklani's afforestation project, in which oak trees were planted at suitable sites, was impressive evidence of this. The great work performed by Chipko activists was to call attention and to expose the long-running conflicts between local population and foresters. Today, the Chipko Movement no longer exists in its original, influential form but increasingly appears to be assuming an almost mythical status, perhaps destined to take its place among the many myths found in Himalayan culture. Yet it will undoubtedly remain as a symbol of non-violent action in the forest. As such, it has already had a further incarnation in the Amazonian region of Brazil.

However, the history of forest legislation in India and the difficulties faced by the tribal and other forest dwelling communities due to these legislations stresses the need for immediate and effective remedy to overcome such difficulties. It may be noted that the Environmentalism in India emerged from the failed promises of the nation state.