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“WE are only ‘pinching’ the Sabarmati over a 10-kilometre stretch as it passes through the centre of Ahmedabad,” explains Bimal Patel, consultant to the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), which has conceived and initiated the controversial Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project. “We (…)

In the years to come, India’s expanding steel production will be largely driven by sponge iron. But its manufacturing process, based on coal, is highly polluting. The repercussions are already visible near sponge iron factories which have mushroomed in iron ore- and coal-rich areas. People are (…)

One telling example was the recent Chinese government-sponsored ‘top Chinese enterprises in Africa’ competition, won by China Road and Bridge Corporation [CRBC]. The aim of the award was officially stated as being ‘to commend the contributions by Chinese enterprises in Africa’ and ‘reply to (…)

Last fortnight we discussed the clandestine endgame afoot at Cancun to change the framework of the climate change negotiations to suit big and powerful polluters.
Since then Cancun has concluded and a deal, in the form of a spate of agreements, has been gavelled into existence by the chair. (…)

Last month, after 18 years of negotiations and more than 2 weeks of tense discussions in Nagoya, Japan, the world finally struck a deal on access to genetic resources and benefit sharing. The agreement — the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and Equitable Sharing of Benefits — was, (…)

Biomass and biogas are the cheap, decentralised renewable energies to choose for India. But the ministry of renewable energies — and the technocrats and entrepreneurs surrounding it — appear to favour hi-tech solutions such as grid solar power, with only a few exceptions such as the project to (…)

Clambering over garbage heaps, rummaging through trash cans, 13-year-old Supriya Bhadakwad didn’t set out to save the planet, just her family. But two decades later, in the global arena of climate negotiations, she and other rag-pickers are making their voices heard, tilting with big corporate (…)

The definition is contested as the answer has immense economic implications. If bamboo is a tree or timber, it belongs to the forest department and can be auctioned to the paper and pulp industry, often at throwaway rates.
If it is a grass, then it would be classified as a minor forest produce (…)

Anywaa Survival Organisation-ASO is concerned about the unprecedented land grab and destruction of ecological environment of the Gambela region. Since 2008 foreign companies with the help of the Ethiopian authorities in the centre have been acquiring vast fertile farmlands with limited (…)

Enough is Enough is the single most complete collection of policy initiatives, tools, and reforms for an economy that makes enough its goal instead of more. This report features the papers given at the Steady State Economy Conference, Leeds 2010, published by CASSE and Economic Justice for All. (…)

As global attention switches from the new Nagoya Protocol of the Biodiversity Convention to the next climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, ETC Group releases a groundbreaking report that lifts the lid on the emerging global grab on plants, lands, ecosystems, and traditional cultures.
The New (…)

The Kalahari Bushmen, who have lived in Southern Africa for more than 20,000 years, are now being starved off their land to make way for lucrative diamond extraction, says Survival International.
In past years, the Bushmen have relied on water from a borehole in one of the Kalahari (…)

“A new IEEP report analyses the indirect land use change (ILUC) impact of the substantial additional biofuel usage that will be generated up to 2020 by the targets under the EU renewable energy Directive. Plans from national governments setting out how they will reach these targets, which are (…)

On a brief visit to Pakistan this week I noted that the recent floods have left deep impressions on the country’s policy and political leadership. They spoke about the scale of devastation, human suffering and the massive challenge of rehabilitation. They also noted, interestingly, that in their (…)

At the end of September the rumours were put to bed as Wal-Mart made a formal but conditional offer for Massmart, of R32 billion. To put this in perspective this amount is less than 20% of Wal-Mart’s present annual operating income of $24 billion and a fraction of their $408 billion (R2.8 (…)

Nearly a quarter of endangered plant species are threatened with extinction, natural habitats continue to vanish, and waterbodies to be degraded. The world has failed to meet its target of a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, says the third ‘Global Biodiversity (…)

The high corridors of the nation are abuzz with talk about how much food should be given to the country’s poor as a right. Should it be 25 kg of rice or 35 kg of wheat a month per person at highly subsidized rates?
Then they worry who should get this right to food. All who are poor, the very (…)

Although its record of reserve-based biodiversity conservation is striking, Beijing’s approach to the conservation of living natural resources outside reserves is less impressive. Pressures for economic development often eclipse complex ecological and cultural factors. This is especially true on (…)

At this point, only one thing is clear: the greater China’s reliance on imported petroleum, the greater the risk of friction and conflict with the United States, which relies on the same increasingly problematic suppliers of energy. The greater its reliance on coal, the less comfortable our (…)

Floods in the Indus, triggered by the heavy monsoon rain, devastate vast swathes of land and render millions homeless in Pakistan. Moving at a furious pace from the mountainous north-western region of Gilgit-Baltistan to the fertile south, the Indus river, swollen and bursting its banks (…)