INTRODUCTION: The U.N. General Assembly adopted The World Charter on environment on 28th October 1982.

It declared that nature shall be respected and its essentials shall not be repaired. It made it necessary for Conservation and Pollution to part of the planning process. It also emphasized that the principles of the charter must be enacted as laws in each state. It is further mandated that there should be cooperation sought from states, public authorities, international organizations, individuals and groups. The U.N. Conference on human environment was held in 1972 at Stockholm. This gave rise to two strategies. Evolution of principles and action plan: for controlling and regulating human environment Arrangement of institutional and financial support: to achieve the goal. India's Environment Pollution and Protection: This study makes an attempt to understand the status of India's environmental problems and the factors responsible for the same. Overexploitation of the country's resources is it land or water and the industrialization process has resulted in considerable environmental degradation of these resources along with the pollution of these and the other environmental parameters. The demographics and socio-economic factors have also influenced the environment, though indirectly. Hence, with an aim to provide a comprehensive picture of India's environment pollution and protection scenario, the State-Pressure-Response framework has been followed in the entire report. The State section deals with the analysis of extent of environmental degradation in the country over the years; Pressure section analyses the factors responsible for such changes and the Response section deals with the interventions made by the government by way of policy reforms, institutional, legislative and regulatory mechanisms as well as the non-governmental initiatives.

 STATUS OF INDIA'S ENVIRONMENT: 1. Air Quality: The urban areas represent complex environmental problems. The living conditions of millions of urban poor are such that they pose a threat to their health and have potentially catastrophic social consequences. For the urban poor, the living conditions are the worst. If these problems are not addressed to in an adequate and timely manner, serious environmental and associated health consequences will follow. Burgeoning urban population beyond the carrying capacity of the different components of urban eco-systems, coupled with indifferent urban governance, are the root causes for urban environmental problems. Air pollution can cause chronic and acute respiratory diseases, ventilator malfunction, heart diseases, cancer of the lungs and even death. The blood lead levels of persons in Ahmedabad, Bombay and Calcutta have been reported to be higher than the corresponding levels of persons in lead-free gasoline areas. The rural population uses substantial quantities of noncommercial fuel i.e. crop residues, animal dung or wood. Although their share in total fuel consumption is decreasing, these still provide 80 per cent of rural energy for cooking. Several adverse health effects are suspected to arise due to indoor pollution especially where conventional sigri has not been replaced with smokeless chulha. Respiratory infection in children, chronic lung diseases, lung cancer in adults and adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as low birth weight and still birth of the child, for women exposed during pregnancy, are some of the diseases associated with indoor pollution. 2. Water Resources and Water Quality: India is rich in water resources, being endowed with a network of rivers and vast alluvial basins to hold

groundwater. Besides, India is blessed with snow cover in the Himalayan range which can meet a variety of water requirements of the country. However, with the rapid increase in the population of the country and the need to meet the increasing demands of irrigation, human and industrial consumption, the available water resources in many parts of the country are getting depleted and the water quality has deteriorated. In India, water pollution comes from three main sources: domestic sewage, industrial effluents and run-off from agriculture. The most significant environmental problem and threat to public health in both rural and urban India is inadequate access to clean drinking water and sanitation facilities. Almost all the surface water sources are contaminated and unfit for human consumption. The diseases commonly caused by contaminated water are diarrhea, trachoma, intestinal worms, hepatitis etc. Many of the rivers and lakes are getting contaminated from industrial effluents and agricultural run-off, with toxic chemicals and heavy metals which are hard to remove from drinking water with standard purification facilities. Even fish and shellfish in such water get contaminated and their consumption may cause diseases. The Constitution of India has assigned the responsibility of protecting the environment to the Union and State Governments. Environmental protection laws have been enacted under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986; the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 and the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974. The Environmental (Protection) Act, 1986 has empowered the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to lay down and maintain the ambient air quality and water quality standards, to demand information regarding effluent emissions, to shut down polluting activities and to prevent discharges of effluent and sewage. Although these regulations give the CPCB and its State-level counterparts broad powers to control the problem of air and water pollution, the enforcement has been weak. 3. Solid Wastes and Hazardous Chemicals:

There has been a significant increase in the generation of domestic, urban and industrial wastes in the last few decades. This is largely the result of rapid population growth and industrialization. The per capita solid waste generated is 0.20 tones in Mumbai, 0.44 tones in Delhi and 0.29 tones in Chennai. Although a major part of the waste generated is non-hazardous, a substantial quantity of hazardous waste is also generated. The growth of chemical industries has resulted in the extensive use of chemicals, which release huge quantities of wastes into the environment in the form of solids, liquids and gases. A substantial amount of these wastes are potentially hazardous to the environment. The leaching of hazardous wastes at the dumping sites is a common feature. This results in the contamination of surface and groundwater supply and is a potential risk to human health. Effective control of hazardous wastes is of paramount importance for the maintenance of health, environmental protection and natural resource management. 4. Land Degradation and Soil Loss: Soil erosion is the most serious cause of land degradation. Estimates show that around 130 million hectares of land (45% of total geographical area) is affected by serious soil erosion through ravine and gully, cultivated waste lands, water logging, shifting cultivation etc. Fertilizers and pesticides are important inputs for increasing agricultural production. Their use has increased significantly from the mid-60s. Over and unbalanced use of these chemicals is fraught with danger. However, fertilizers and pesticide use are concentrated in certain areas and crops. Suitable agronomic practices will be helpful in this regard. Reforms in agricultural extension already initiated and proposed to be undertaken on wider scale are discussed under the following sub-heads: Policy Reforms Institutional Restructuring Management Reforms Strengthening Research Extension Linkages

Capacity building & Skill Up gradation Empowerment of Farmers Mainstreaming of Women in Agriculture Use of Media & Information Technology

PRODUCTION, PROTECTION AND PARTICIPATION IN FOREST MANAGEMENT: AN INDIAN PERSPECTIVE IN ACHIEVING THE BALANCE Forests are the most valuable natural resources available to the mankind on planet earth. On the one hand, they are the essential source of livelihood for the poor and marginalized sections of the society; on the other hand they provide furniture and other items of desire for the rich. After years of neglect, forestry is acquiring international dimensions. The role of forests in the environmental amelioration and peoples life assumed global significance after the 1992 Rio Summit. The saga of deforestation in the developing countries on account of rising population and consequent poverty has attracted global attention of scientists, resource managers and law makers. To reverse the degradation in resources, and action programmes for conservation and development of forest resources have taken shape in most of the countries. This paper present the perspective of India in achieving balance in the forest management practices with regards to protection, production and participation with a view to achieving sustainable forest management. The paper starts with a note on global forest cover vis--vis Indian achievements in monitoring its forest areas, and then moves on to discuss the Indian Forest Policies evolved over the last 125 years ever since scientific forestry was initiated in India in 1864 listing out the major events and initiatives in forest conservation and development efforts.

The paper discusses the degradation of forests, its causes and extent and initiatives taken by the Government and people to rehabilitate the degraded forests and extend tree cover through joint efforts and to bring legal and institutional changes to secure conservation of forests. Forests of the world are a most valuable renewable natural resource for the mankind and have been providing goods and services since the human race appeared on the planet earth many millions years ago. Be it a living room of a citizen of a developed nation or a tribal hamlet in some developing country in the tropics forest products will find a sizeable space and use; though the level and type of use would vary significantly between the rich and the poor people. Whereas, forests are essentially source of livelihood for the poor and marginalized sections of the society, they provide luxurious items for the rich. Global Events in Forestry: The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) provided a formal comprehensive endorsement of the Principles of Sustainable Development. The Conference also adopted, along with Agenda 21, a statement of Principles for a Global Consensus on Management, Conservation and Sustainable Development of forests the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Framework Convention on Climate Change (Anonymous, 1998). UNCED follow-up has resulted in burgeoning interest in conservation forestry stemming from the global environmental awareness and international publicity for controversial natural resource issues. Issues have been globalize, the stakeholders multiplied and long held beliefs of forest science have been questioned. Global events in forestry will have a far reaching policy implication for all countries particularly the role of forestry in the climate change. The warming of earth is responsible for global climate inconsistencies. In India, according to one estimate by 2050, the country will be at least 3 degrees Celsius hotter, many of its rivers would have dried up, floods and droughts would be regular, cyclones more intense and there will be severe water and food shortage (Kaul, 2000).

There has been intense rainfall variation in India during 90s. State like Punjab, Rajasthan and Haryana have got 40-80% more rain. The Orissa cyclone came with wind speeds of 250 km/hr. The disappearance of mangrove forests played a key role in destruction of life and property. Rapid deforestation has added to the excess heat on earth. World community especially the political leadership and intellectual class in the developing countries should act and take mitigating steps to control the global warming. The protective and productive role of forests in this regard assumes importance. After several rounds of discussions in the Inter-governmental Forum on Forests, it was decided in the year 2000 to have a separate forum on forests within the machinery of the United Nations to deal with emerging forest issues in a holistic comprehensive and integrated manner. This reflects the importance of forests in the global climate change negotiation. In view of these changes at the global level, the management of forests in every country has to be thought of in global perspective and acted upon locally. Global Forest Cover: According to the State of World Forests 1999 published by FAO (Anonymous, 1999-a) the position of the various regions of the world regarding percentage of forest cover, per capita forests and annual loss between 1990-1995 is given below in Table-I.

No .

Region/ Country

1 2 3 4 5 6

World Asia Africa Europe China Pakistan

% of Forest Per capite Annual Cover to forest change land area between 1990-1995 (in thousand ha) 26.6 0.64 -11269 16.4 0.1 -2901 17.7 0.7 -3748 41.3 1.3 +519 14.3 0.1 -87 2.3 Non-55

7 8 9 10

Nepal Banglade sh Sri Lanka Indonesia

33.7 7.8 27.8 60.6

significant 0.2 Nonsignificant Nonsignificant 0.6

-55 -9 -20

Forest Resources of India: Physiologically, India is one of the most diverse countries. The forests cover of India is monitored by the Forest Survey of India a government of India organization, through biennial assessment using remote sensing technology. The latest assessment was done in 1999 and published in 2000 (Anonymous, 1999-b). The details of the forest cover assessment are given below in the table II: Table II Area in Sq. Percentage of Class Km geographic area Dense Forests Open Forests Mangrove _______________________ _ Sub- Total Scrub Non- Forests Total Indias Forest Policies: The era of scientific forest management in India began in 1864, which marked a break in the old indigenous practices. Since then in India forest policies have been enunciated in 377,358 255,064 4,871 637,293 51,896 2,598,074 3,287,263 11.48 % 7.76% 0.15% 19.39% 1.58% 79.03% 100.00%

1894, 1952 and 1988. The implementation of these policies has had a major influence on forest management strategies and methods. The Forest Policy of 1894 subordinated forest conservation to the promotion of agricultural interest. The policy clearly stated that whenever forestland was required for agriculture it should be excised without hesitation. Forest ecology and conservation in those days though were considered inconsequential but nevertheless, did aim at soil and moisture conservation.

Major UN agencies and bodies:

1.INTERNATIONAL MARITIME ORGANIZATION (IMO): The first

global institution established to deal uniquely with marine affairs and marine environmental protection. It was created in 1959 as a specialized agency of the United Nations in accordance with the terms of the Convention on the InterGovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization of 1948. It changed its name to International Maritime Organization in 1982. IMO's main objective is to facilitate cooperation among States on technical matters affecting international shipping, in order to achieve the highest practicable standards of maritime safety and efficiency in navigation. It has also a special responsibility for safety of life at sea, and for the protection of the marine environment through prevention of pollution of the sea caused by ships and other craft. 2. FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION (FAO) OF THE UNITED NATIONS: FAO was established in 1945 as a specialized agency with the aims, among others, of raising levels of nutrition and standards of living; improving the production, processing, marketing and distribution of all food and agricultural products from farms, forests, and fisheries; promoting rural development and improving the living conditions of rural populations; and eliminating hunger by these means. CONCLUSION:

In order to promote environmental research, nearly 400 research projects have been sanctioned to universities, R&D institutions and non-governmental agencies. Coordinated, multi-institutional projects in priority areas of heavy metals, microbial degradation of industrial wastes and ethno biology have been take up; as also a multi-agency post-audit environmental monitoring. Research relevant to the integrated development of the Western Ghats, Himalayan region and the Ganga basin has also been initiated. One centre of Excellence has been set up at HSc, Bangalore which has, as its primary focus, research on problems of the Western Ghats. Data regarding trends in environmental quality would emerge from the monitoring of selected indicators such as extent of forest cover, extent of wasteland, rate of desertification, rate of change in population of endangered species, number of municipalities adequately treating effluents, pesticide residues in water bodies, incidence of acid rain, destruction of fertile land through urbanization, etc. Much of this information will be generated under various sectoral programmes such as pollution control, etc.