Feature Article

The public sphere of civil society is not static; it continually shrinks, expands and moves in the face of changing contours of political economy at the local, national and global levels. As a consequence, those within such public spheres have to navigate

A recent Seafood Summit in Barcelona discussed the challenges and responses from West Africa to the issue of traceability of fish. Decreasing resources and swelling populations, as a result of internal migration generated by desertification, political unrest, etc., mean that if coastal communities are to continue making a living from fishing, each fisherman must fish less, but earn more by improving the quality and adding value to his product, taking due account of the fact that women from the fishing communities are key in these value-adding operations.

Rice-wheat is a major crop rotation in the Indo-Gangetic region. Tillage is one of the major crop production operations and is an important contributor to the total cost of production. It is a common observation that direct tilling of any crop into combine-harvested rice stubbles from a reasonable rice yield is not possible without any prior burning or removal of straw.

Effect of forest fire on woody vegetation and regeneration behaviour was studied in Chir pine forest situated between 1150-1800 m in Solan Forest Division in Himachal Pradesh, India. Fire is considered to be one of the main causes of disturbance in Chir pine forests. The disturbance has become a requirement for vigorous ecosystem functioning and should be considered a normal part of an ecosystem's physical environment.

Harvesting a crop generates a huge amount of crop residue. Uttar Pradesh tops the list of the Crop Residue Producing States followed by Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and so on. A large part of this crop residue is burnt in the open fields since the farmers do not have any worthwhile use of this waste. Burning of residues give rise to emissions of aerosols, major gases and trace gases.

The forest resources of all the states are dwindling and the supply of forest produce to forest based industries has to be re-examined. In this context the supply rates of Bamboo Industrial Cuts to various paper mills of Andhra Pradesh and adjoining states of A.P. have been analyzed.

The gregarious flowering nature of bamboos is often a limitation for the availability of bamboo seeds for propagation. Propagation from rhizomes of unknown age is also dangerous as the plants may flower and dry before their economic use starts.

Nearly a quarter century after the 1984 World Conference on Fisheries Management and Development, organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and 13 years after the formulation of the 1995 FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, FAO will be organizing a global conference, in association with the Royal Government of Thailand, on "Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries" (the 4 SSF Conference) in Bangkok from 13 to 17 October, 2008.

A seven year remediation program for the hazardous waste treatment site situated at the Ramat Hovav Industrial Zone in Israel begins.

It's a major polluter of the air. It is responsible for emissions of fine particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and ozone. It affects large segments of the population in every part of the country. But something may
finally be done to ameliorate the problem of vehicular pollution in Israel.