A ‘UNESCO Protected Biosphere Reserve’ tag alone may not be adequate to protect our fast deteriorating basket of natural resources in the country. The high GDP growth rate paradigm adopted by the successive governments have rendered even the Protected Areas (PA) open for exploitation in the name of development projects, even though most of them may not be needed, or have benign alternatives.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NCR citizens seek ‘UNESCO Protected Biosphere Reserve’ tag for Aravallis
https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/ncr-citizens-seek-unesco-protected-biosphere-reserve-tag-for-aravallis/article70471397.ece
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As per media reports, a study of the PARIVESH portal of MoEF&CC has indicated that about 85% of all the project proposals before MoEF&CC, seeking diversion of forest lands even within PAs and the associated buffer zones, have been approved between a time period 2014 and 2018; which may also indicate the highly troublign scenario of thousands of Hectares of natural forest cover getting destroyed in about 20 years, despite the fact that the country has only about 22% of the land area covered by forest & trees, as compared to the national forest policy target of 33%.
TN picks ‘least-impact’ site for Upper Bhavani pumped storage project
https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil-nadu/2026/Jan/05/tn-picks-least-impact-site-for-upper-bhavani-pumped-storage-project