Yaxhpal's List: Environment and Ecology

• despite claims that genetically engineered crops can feed a projected nine billion people by 2050, in 17 years GM seed companies have not gone beyond a 4 per cent area globally. Even this has been in cash crops like cotton, corn, canola and soybean which predominantly only have non-food uses and do not contribute to food security
• there is empirical evidence that there is no increase in yields but rise in superpests and superweeds
• This is like mortgaging farming to MNCs
• Position in India
• a Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) has recommended a 10-year moratorium on open field trials of transgenic food crops until adequate regulatory mechanisms and safety standards are put in place
• also opposition to the proposed Biotechnology Regulatory Authority Bill that calls for a single-window clearance to GM crops as well monitoring by the same agency

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• World Wide Fund for Nature – India (WWF-I)
• poaching of leopards in the southern States has increased
• local people were not involved in poaching
• a group which came from outside and indulged in poaching
• An analysis of seizure of tiger skins revealed that body parts of 474 tigers were seized in the country between 2000 and 2010, indicating that, on an average, more than three tigers were killed every month
• In an attempt to reduce poaching, the WWF has launched anti-poaching modules and a special team was formed

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• This disaster has been caused by unplanned development. It is the result of mindless misuse of the state’s natural resources

• The Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH), along with two other bodies, is spearheading a move to evolve a sustainability code for the Indian tea industry to benchmark it against international practices
• producers and marketers were getting together
• Altogether five million farm workers are engaged in this industry.

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• The world experienced unprecedented high-impact climate extremes between 2001 and 2010
• more national temperature records were broken during the period compared to any other decade
• The report, 'The Global Climate 2001-2010, A Decade of Extremes'
• first decade of the 21st century was the warmest for both hemispheres as well as land and ocean temperatures, since measurements began in 1850
• Floods, droughts and tropical cyclones were all experienced across the world throughout the decade, killing over 3,70,000 people, which is 20 per cent more than the casualties in previous decade due to such calamities
• Floods were the most frequently experienced extreme climatic event
• Eastern Europe, India, Africa, and Australia were particularly affected, as well as Pakistan, where 2,000 people died and 20 million were affected by floods in 2010
• Droughts however, affected more people than any other natural disaster due to their large scale and long-lasting nature
• Tropical cyclones were also prominent throughout the decade, with more than 500 cyclone-related disasters killing nearly 1,70,000 people
• affecting over 250 million, and caused estimated damages of USD 380 billion, the report said
• The report incorporates findings from a survey of 139 national meteorological and hydrological services and socio-economic data and analysis from several UN agencies and partners

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• Hill regions (high ranges) in three Kerala districts have been identified for implementation of a unique eco-governance programme in the country
• This plan, jointly prepared by the Global Environment Facility (GCF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), will be forwarded to Kerala government for the final nod
• The state will receive a grant of Rs 35 crore for the five-year programme

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• after the Fukushima disaster Yukiya Amano, Director General of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency said that “valuable lessons” have been learned from the tragedy and “effective steps have been taken to make nuclear power plants safer everywhere.”
• Up to 90 new nuclear power plants may be added over the next 30 years to 434 reactors in operation today
• Nuclear power is a tried and tested technology
• We need to ensure that the most robust levels of nuclear safety, based on IAEA safety standards, are in place at every nuclear power plant in the world,” he said.

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• A man-made forest in the heart of Aluva is the effort of a group of environmentalists headed by Professor S. Sitaraman
• ‘Harithavanam’ on the banks of the Mangalapuzha near Sivarathri Manappuram, Aluva was born when a sensitive bureaucrat with a love for plants and a group of nature lovers with a drive to green the city got together
• The initial five years
• t took more than five years to stabilise. We had a lot of problems initially. People were speculative about our efforts. But we both strived hard. There was a paid assistant to help us. Today, things have changed, people are appreciative and accept this as unique work

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• a small chance of an El Nino or La Nina system
• The two phenomena cause an abnormal warming or cooling of the surface of parts of the Pacific Ocean and lead to heavy rainfall and flooding in some parts of the globe or drought in others

• Coastal erosion and lightning, two disasters that often strike Kerala with fatal consequences, are not mentioned in the central government's 2013 list of disasters, despite repeated requests
• Kerala disaster management department officials said that on an average 70 lives are lost in the state every year due to lightning.

• Hydel power generation has now come to a standstill with many generating companies stalling their operations on account of high silt content in water
• water had entered into the Dhauliganga Power Station (280 MW) and submerged all the systems on June 17

• The catastrophe in the Himalaya is the result of deforestation, unchecked construction of dwellings and large-scale building of big dams

• Environmentalists describe the death and damage as a man-made disaster while geologists say the extent of destruction could have been far lesser if stricter regulations had been put in place and the authorities equipped to deal with the situation
• Suggesting that the States along the Himalayan ranges reconsider their development models, Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment, said that while there could not be a blanket ban on development activities in these fragile zones, given the needs of the people, “we need to look at ways of development without destroying natural resources.”
• development in the ecologically sensitive areas had to be different from the plains. “We cannot have roads on the Himalayas like the ones on the Alps. The Himalayas are young mountains,” she said. Technology was available for this, and one need not depend on the Border Roads Organisation as it outsourced construction works
• Gopal Krishna of Toxiclinks Alliance said no agency should be allowed to build permanent structures in ecologically fragile zones. “Development fundamentalism, combined with religious tourism, is eroding ecological heritage.”
• Stage-managed and faulty environmental clearances in India and China contributed to the colossal crisis that is staring us in the face

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• The ongoing global growth in the human population has the potential to threaten hundreds of mammals and birds species with extinction within 40 years,

• The basic concept is to ensure that no residential areas are built in vulnerable zones and dwellings in low-lying areas are replaced with parks, playgrounds or fields so that the vulnerability to life and property can be reduced

• study published today (June 20) in the journal PLoS ONE
• global crop production needed to double by the middle of this century
• Boosting crop yields, rather than clearing more land for agriculture, was the preferred solution to meet this goal
• area harvested database to examine yield changes across the globe in maize, rice, wheat and soybean
• Yields of these crops needed to grow at about 2.4 per cent annually to double production by 2050
• global average yield increase was only 1.6 per cent a year for maize, one per cent for rice, 0.9 per cent for wheat and 1.3 per cent for soybean
• Clearly, the world faces a looming and growing agricultural crisis
• Additional strategies, particularly changing to more plant-based diets and reducing food waste, could reduce the large expected demand growth in food

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• Substantial increase of acreage under organic cultivation in some districts
• Numbers from some of the districts show that there is substantial acreage under organic cultivation (both certified and uncertified).
• Kasaragod district, where pesticide endosulfan has caused major health problems, has 3,482 hectares (involving more than 6,000 farmers) under organic cultivation

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• Uttarakhand: Natarajan bats for eco-sensitive proposal
• At a time like this when so many thousands are stranded (in Uttarakhand), and rescue operations are going on, I think the first priority is rescue and relief, and after that, I believe very strongly that the eco-sensitive zone proposal is vital and important

• ‘Paruthi’, an organic cotton brand, aims to promote rain-fed cotton, grown in Madurai, in the Indian fashion scenario
• It’s a symbol of life and livelihood for farmers in the black-soil belt
• silently engaged themselves in a revolution to change the environment for the better
• Nearly 400 farmers in the region have adopted organic cotton farming, saying a strict no to the usage of pesticides in their fields
• The farmers follow rain-fed cotton farming
• nvolves multiple-cropping technique
• 99 per cent of our cotton is genetically modified.
• Adoption of organic cotton is the answer to reduce carbon prints

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• One of the critically endangered bird species in the world, the move is aimed at studying this rare birds movement and its preferred habitat
• The Great Indian Bustard, one of the endangered flying bird species in the world, will soon be tracked by satellite by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) to understand the movement of this rare bird and its preferred habitat
• primarily in Gujarat and Rajasthan, besides few other Indian states like Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh
• It can easily be distinguished by its black crown on the forehead contrasting with the pale neck and head
• The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) recognised it as critically endangered in 2011
• The portal of IUCN, the world’s largest global environmental organisation, states that the species’ total population was estimated at 300 in 2008 indicating that there are probably fewer than 250 mature ones remaining
• The Rajasthan government recently launched its own project Great Indian Bustard, at a cost of over Rs. 12 crore, to identify and provide secure breeding enclosures
• WII, a government institution, run by the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE)
• Endemic to the Indian sub-continent, Lesser Florican (Sypheotides indicus), also known as ‘Likh’, is a large bird in the bustard family, coming annually to Gujarat for breeding during the monsoon season
• It is a good example of how we can use technology in wildlife
  conservation . India need innovative and technological solutions to save
  its wildlife stock

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