In Garhwal and Kumaon, numerous large and small patches of forests are protected and preserved as “sacred groves” by communities. Villagers, through ‘divine sanction’, are stopped from harming any vegetation in these groves. It is utterly wrong to blame the recent forest fires in the state on villagers who are devoted to conservation
Anmol Jain
Tribune News [...]

Excerpted from Big Cats News
Business Standard – New Delhi September 28, 2008, 0:38 IST
The rampant poaching of leopards in the wilds of Uttarakhand is as alarming as the earlier revelation about vanishing tigers in protected areas, a development that forced the government to set up a special Tiger Task Force in 2005 for revamping the [...]

D H News Service, Dehra Dun:
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Bhojpatra, a unique tree having tremendous medicinal qualities, is on the verge of extinction at Gangotri forests in Uttarakhand thanks to its massive uprooting.
Compounding the problem, thousands of Kanwarias, pouring into Gangotri to collect Ganga water are also wrecking heavy damage to the Bhojpatra forests.
Environmentalists are now [...]

Posted: 23 Jul 2007
by Neeta Lal
Every year some 600,000 pilgrims make their way through the Valley of Flowers in the Indian Himalayas, and until recently, left behind a trail of garbage. Now the Valley and the adjoining Nanda Devi National Park has been cleaned and restored, thanks to the efforts of a diminutive female Forest [...]

Tania Saili Bakshi
Tuesday, June 5, 2007 (Garhwal)
Environment activist Vishweshwar Dutt Saklani has single-handedly regenerated once-barren hills in and around Pujargaon in Uttarakhand into lush green forests.
Nestled deep in the Garhwal hills of Uttarakhand the Pujar village echoes with the voice of the ‘Tree Man’ as Saklani is popularly known, as he goes into a trance [...]

Tania Saili Bakshi
NDTV Tuesday, June 5, 2007 (Garhwal)
Environment activist Vishweshwar Dutt Saklani has single-handedly regenerated once-barren hills in and around Pujargaon in Uttarakhand into lush green forests.
Nestled deep in the Garhwal hills of Uttarakhand the Pujar village echoes with the voice of the ‘Tree Man’ as Saklani is popularly known, as he goes into a [...]

ARCHI RASTOGI / CSE
Down to Earth, May 31, 2007
in the first week of May, 200-odd Van Gujjar families started moving towards their summer homes in Uttarkashi district, Uttarakhand. They had been stranded around Vikasnagar near Dehradun before a response to a right to information application revealed that Uttaranchal’s forest department had rescinded an earlier decision [...]

Dhananjay Mahapatra & Nitin Sethi
Times of India, March 7, 2007
NEW DELHI: The Central Empowered Committee (CEC) has recommended that the Uttarakhand government deploy adequate number of officials to protect the Ganga basin area.
On the advice of the Wildlife Institute of India, the Uttarakhand government had mulled over a proposal to stop pilgrims at the temple [...]

Jaskiran Chopra
Times of India, January 25, 2007
(Photo courtesy Garhwal Post)
DEHRA DUN: Over 50 years after his death, Jim Corbett will feature in a Republic Day tableau at a time when wildlife in India is under threat as never before.
The tableau of Corbett National Park representing Uttarakhand at the parade will show figures of James Edward [...]

Since the 1980s, one man’s quiet effort has pioneered a village movement to restore the forests of Uttarakhand’s denuded hills. Sanjay Dubey profiles Sachchidanand Bharti.
Tehelka, January 27, 2007
There is little to set Sachchidanand Bharti apart from others in the village of Ufrain Khal, and it is only when he greets us with a rose and [...]