Indian Railways goes on a green drive with low-emission trains

You can check out the full story here at
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Business/Railways_plans_low-emission_trains_to_earn_carbon_credits/rssarticleshow/2282618.cms

EIH withdraws Floating Hotel Project on Hebbal Lake

You can read the full story here at :
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Bangalore/Green_protest_sinks_floating_eatery/articleshow/2283664.cms

Contributed by Nikhil Lele, Senior Research Associate, ATREE

Appeal

Dear Friends,

This is a critical time. The European Commission (EC) is currently revising the law - known as Directive 86/609 - that governs animal experiments across Europe. 86/609 is a hugely powerful Directive that has power of life and death over millions of animals across the continent - setting out minimum standards for how and whether animals can be used in experiments.

A staggering ten million animals are used in outdated and wasteful experiments in European laboratories every year. The Directive is supposed to ensure "the protection of animals used for experimental and other scientific purposes" but the huge numbers show that it’s just not doing that. There is a real possibility that with enough support the EC will ban all primate tests as part of the revised law.

Written Declaration 40/2007 urges the European Parliament to use the revision process of Directive 86/609/EC as an opportunity to establish a timetable for replacing the use of all primates in scientific experiments with alternatives. The Declaration will fall on 7th September and the signatures of half the MEPs in the Parliament is needed by then.

If you care about animals visit the following webpage to urge them to sign Written Declaration 40/2007 at http://www.navs.org.uk/take_action/39/0/885/

If you want to do more:-

Please write to the European Commission and ask them to ban primate tests. To help, a prepared letter can be found at http://www.eceae.org/saveprimates/en/action.html

The address is:-
Mr. Stavros Dimas Commissioner for Environment European Commission B-1049, Brussels, Belgium

For more information:-

http://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2987

http://www.buav.org/

Thank You

Tony Gallett

tony_gal_001@yahoo.co.uk

2nd International Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations

Venue: Kerala 21-24th March 2008

"Creating better places for people to live in and for people to visit"

Kerala Tourism, along with International Centre for Responsible Tourism (ICRT) India, is organizing the Second International Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations. The Conference will be held in March 2008 in Cochin, Kerala and will provide an excellent opportunity to learn more about what has been achieved and to discuss how to move the agenda forward.

21st March : an Academic Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations
22nd -24th March : the 2nd International Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations.

Please put these dates in your diary and spread the word.

If you would like to present a paper at the academic conference please email Professor Harold Goodwin

If you would like to be kept informed of the details of the conference please register online here

Details of a wide range of accommodation options from home stays to five star; flight options and registration fees will be available shortly.

Kerala has experienced very rapid growth in visitor numbers, with around 6 million domestic and 0.5 million international visitors in 2006. The WTTC has identified Kerala as the destination with the highest forecast annual growth over the next few years. In this context the Kerala government has recognized the importance of engaging with all the stakeholders to pursue a responsible tourism initiative.

The Second International Conference on Responsible Tourism will be a follow up to the Cape Town Conference held in 2002 and, will be looking at the development of Responsible Tourism in the last 5 years in Kerala, The Gambia, South Africa and a number of other destinations .

The Kerala Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations in March 2008 is being jointly chaired by Dr Venu V, Secretary of Kerala Tourism and Professor Harold Goodwin of the International Centre for Responsible Tourism (ICRT) at Leeds Metropolitan University

The objectives of the conference are to:

• Review progress towards Responsible Tourism around the world since 2002, including initiatives in destinations and the initiatives of hotels and tour operators.
• Reflect on Kerala’s experience of working towards being a Responsible Tourism destination and to share experience internationally.
• Discuss how tourism can contribute to local economic development and poverty reduction
  consider how the environmental impact so the industry can best be managed.
• Discuss the ways in which tourism can contribute to social development and mutual understanding and respectful encounters between tourists and local people.
  
  For further information contact : http://www.rtd2kerala.org/ or #7, 1st Floor, 7th Main Indiranagar 2nd Stage, Bangalore 560 038 India. Tel +91.80.41152218 Mob +91.9886753286

Conference Organizers

Dr Venu Vasudevan, Secretary of Tourism, Kerala Government
Gopinath Parayil, Managing Trustee,ICRT India
Prof Harold Goodwin, Director ICRT Leeds Metropolitan University UK

Contributed by Dr Priyadarsanan Dharma Rajan, Fellow, ATREE

PES Lessons from Costa Rica

Here's an interesting article written by Ms Rohini Nilekani, Executive Board Member, ATREE published in today's Hindu.

http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/03/stories/2007080354281300.htm

Contributed by Nithin, ATREE Librarian

Workshop on Biodiversity databases, Eco-informatics and Niche Modelling tools at EIC

Dear Friends,

The Eco-Informatics Centre is organizing a one day workshop on 31 st August, 2007 at ATREE. Dr Townsend Peterson from the University of Kansas and Dr Shaily Menon from the Grant Valley University are the resource persons on this day.

Dr Peterson will give two talks on biodiversity databases and informatics to applications of ecological niche modeling in a wide range of areas from testing hypotheses related to species distribution and biogeography presentation. One of the talks will be tailored to a more general audience of ATREE and the second one will be more specialized for those interested in exploring how to apply it to their current research. Dr Shaily Menon will present her work on Asian nuthatch ecology and geography. The afternoon session will cover technical details of Niche Modelling tools, followed by a discussion session.

All of you are invited to attend the presentations and to be a part of the discussion session. I will update you with details (time and topics of their presentations) soon. Please mark the dates in your diary.

Best Regards,

Maya Rajasekharan
_________________________________
Co-ordinator
Eco-informatics Centre
Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)
Hebbal, Bangalore, India

e-mail: maya.rajasekharan@atree.org
Website: http://www.ecoinfoindia.org/
Phone: +91 80 23638771 ext-35
Fax: +91 80 23530070

Rare butterflies, moths and beetles stolen from Himalayan forests

Check out this news at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/6916134.stm

Contributed by Dr. K.N.Ganeshiah, Trustee and Executive Board Member, ATREE, and Professor, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore

SSCP inspires debate on what is public purpose

2nd Aug, 2007, 0445 hrs IST,

Jacob John

Whether it is the opposition parties asking for the justification of the public purpose behind the land acquisition at Singur, or the Supreme Court querying the largescale acquisition of land from farmers, the meaning of public purpose is today under scrutiny. Traditionally, the public purpose doctrine has been for public infrastructure projects like electricity, roads, railways and other projects that were deemed to be of strategic or particular importance.

The Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project (SSCP) is similarly justified, with project proponents stating that it would save up to 36 hours of shipping time. However, the detailed project report (DPR) itself states that the biggest saving will be for journeys from Tuticorin to Chennai, and it will, in fact, be 30 hours and not 36 as frequently claimed.

Recently, many naval experts have repeatedly stated that with the exception of voyages from ports on the Indian west coast to the Indian east coast, there are unlikely to be any significant gains for ships that are making the voyage through the Sethusamudram canal. This information is not reflected in the L&T Ramboll DPR, as it assumes that voyages for all ships begin either at Tuticorin or Kanyakumari. The savings for these ships may be acceptable: a reduction in time between 10 and 30 hours. In dollar terms, a 20,000 dead weight tonne (DWT) ship save about $17,962 per voyage as per DPR. DPR hopes to charge 50% of this amount ($8,981) for ships using the canal. This represents a saving in time charter and fuel costs for ships using the canal.

For ships coming from places like Europe and Africa, the average savings is just 8 hours! A journey from Mauritius to Kolkata would actually be longer by nearly four hours for an average ship. The average savings for a 20,000 DWT ship, making a voyage from either Europe or Africa, is just $3,989: just 22% of the savings projected in DPR. The lack of gains for ships from Africa and Europe may not have been significant had it been a part of the project design and factored in the risks of the project.

However, 65% of the voyages (and hence revenue), as per DPR, originate from Africa, the Middle East and Europe. For ships from Africa and Europe, using the canal would mean making a loss of $4,992 on every voyage at the proposed tariff structure. Ships could be incentivised to use the canal (by reducing tariff rates). The catch with that scenario is that the pre-tax IRR of the project then falls to just 2.6%! This is a level at which even public infrastructure projects are usually rejected.

The project rests on a set of assumptions that are fundamentally flawed. It assumes savings for all ships are the same while they are actually very different. The public purpose of a reduction in shipping time is, in fact, not valid for most of the ships using the canal. Neither does the project provide revenue for the government. If the aim of the government is to boost shipping along the peninsula, there are very good alternatives. The annual interest savings of the project could provide a subsidy of around Rs 250 crore that could be spent on upgrading the ports in Tuticorin and Chennai, as well as providing a subsidy to all ships calling at these ports.

Central to the debate on the public purpose of SSCP is the idea of public purpose itself. While projects are routinely justified on the grounds of a larger public purpose, there is little scrutiny or accountability to the public purpose that has been used to justify it. If SSCP does not benefit the number of ships outlined in DPR, what are the mechanisms to ensure that the country at worst cuts its losses and at best penalises the project promoters?

Building in an accountability mechanism to make sure that projects like SSCP do not prove to be a constant drain on the economy is an important step that we need to take to scrutinise the very generously overused terms of public purpose. It will help build realism into the project design unlike the present where there is an incentive to exaggerate the benefits while neglecting or minimising cost.

(The author is a infrastructure economist) Email: j.t.john@gmail.com [This article is an abridged version of a chapter from a larger report titled ‘Review of Environmental and Economic Impacts of the SSCP’ by Sudarshan Rodriguez, Jacob John, Rohan Arthur, Kartik Shanker and Aarthi Sridhar which is to be published soon.]

A larger version of this article was published in the Economic and Political Weekly, VOL 42 No. 29 July 21 - July 27, 2007.

www.epw.org.in/epw/uploads/articles/10823.pdf http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/Economy/Policy/SSCP_inspires_debate_on_what_is_public_purpose/articleshow/2249751.cms

Contributed by Sudarshan Rodriguez, Senior Research Associate, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) Mobile: +91 9840680127

Email: sudarshanr@yahoo.com

Address for correspondence :
CHENNAI
Flat 2B, Aditya Apartments,
38 Balakrishna Road,
Valmiki Nagar, Thiruvanmiyur,
Chennai-600 041
Tamil Nadu, India.
Phone:+91 44 420 19470
Fax: +91 44 420 19468

BANGALORE
Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment
No 659, 5th ‘A” Main, Hebbal,
Bangalore 560024
Direct line: 080 - 65356130
Tel: +91 80 23533942, 23530069, 23638771
Fax: +91 80 23530070

Post- Tsunami Environment Initiative
(http://www.ptei-india.org/)

Here's a nice article about Dr Vanaja Ramprasad and her work

Saviour extraordinaire

Sumana Bharadwaj

Dr Vanaja Ramprasad, a gutsy lady who had dedicated her life to saving biodiversity believes that unless small farmers are saved from the onslaught of global pressures and indigenous crops revived, we are looking at a bleak future.

At first glance, she seems like any other grandmother playing with her granddaughter in her study amidst piles and piles of books on a wide range of subjects, including books authored by her. But what belies the seeming ordinariness is the extraordinary and exemplary work she has done to preserve biodiversity and help the small and marginal farmers in the semi-arid regions of south India. Meet Dr Vanaja Ramprasad, Director of Genetic Resource Ecology Energy Nutrition (GREEN) Foundation (GF).

A nutritionist by training, Dr Vanaja has dedicated herself to the cause of empowering the custodians of our biodiversity, the food producers of our country — the small farmers from the backward regions. Her vision, along with her team of committed individuals at GF, is to help them lead a life of dignity and to help sustain their livelihood in agriculture in a manner which is both ecologically and economically viable while at the same time ensuring food security for one and all.The beginningWhat started off as a quest for answers to the paradox surrounding her during her career at the Community Health Centre in the 70s, eventually culminated in the movement called GF.

It was the decade of the Green Revolution and the entire nation was rejoicing over it, while she was treating children for malnourishment! So Dr Vanaja set off on a mission to find answers. She worked with various other grassroot organisations and after years of research, the answers to her search slowly began to unravel. As the connection between food production and poverty became clearer, Dr Vanaja realised that, poverty is not result of lack of development, poor technology or scarce resources, but is, ironically, the manifestation of the extensive and invisible costs of resource intensive and resource destructive processes, which form the very foundations of a 'developed nation'.

She was convinced that the western model of development while seemingly offered solutions, was simply not sustainable and was in fact depleting and polluting natural resources. And finally, it was the small farmers in backward areas who bore the brunt of it all, steeped in debts and dying from hunger. Most of us are looking westwards for solutions to problems of poverty and underdevelopment, which have come to falsely mean not having high consumptive power and lifestyles perched on western science and technology, with the naïve belief that by increasing investments, creating jobs and raising incomes, poverty can be eliminated.

But Dr Vanaja firmly rooted in her convictions, believes that unless the small farms are saved from the onslaught of global pressures and traditional agricultural practices and indigenous crops are revived and the fast dwindling biodiversity conserved, we are looking at a bleak future. This eventually led to the emergence of Green Foundation as a proactive initiative to empower the small farmer by conserving agricultural diversity through a network of seed banks across the state.

Green Foundation was thus formalised as an organisation in 1996 with 5 farmers and a handful of seeds in 2 villages and the whole team of committed individuals GF today boasts of about 2,000 farmers in 161 villages who participate in seed conservation programs through out Karnataka. And since its inception, GF has facilitated conservation of approximately 382 indigenous seed varieties of millet, paddy, vegetable and oil seeds, which would have otherwise been threatened by extinction due to non-organic farming practices. In the process, the movement has been instrumental in elevating the economic status of the rural women and revival of traditional farming methods and culture.

GF was awarded the United Nations’ Equator Initiative Prize in recognition of its outstanding community effort for reduction of poverty and biodiversity conservation over a decade. Among the various programmes run by GF towards this purpose are the concepts of kitchen garden, the one-acre integrated farming practice, and community farming for landless farmers, integrated agroforestry and livestock management to meet the community's need for fodder and fuel and reduce dependence on external inputs, training programmess to encourage community participation, essential for conserving biodiversity, community marketing programs to market the wholesome, healthy food products directly to consumers and holding workshops/seminars/conferences by linking with other organisationss to bring in policy changes.

The future
Looking back, the results that Dr Vanaja's efforts have brought, fills her with hope that things can be changed and by anyone too. The degree of devastation that the earth has seen in just the last 6-7 decades is enormously high and there is still so much to be done, says Dr Vanaja. And so, Dr Vanaja will continue to do her 'bit' to the society for as long as she can, even as she modestly says, "I haven't done anything"! And the least, we the people from 'developed cities', can do, is to applaud her single handed efforts in trying to bridge the big gap between the producer and consumer, which is central to saving our environment.

here's the link to the article published in Deccan Herald http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Jul282007/she2007072715482.asp

Contributed by Ms Kalpana Prasanna, Executive Assistant to the Director, ATREE