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Commonwealth NGOs
related to forestry | | |
 Energy and Resources Institute
Darbari Seth Block, IHC Complex
Lodhi Road
Delhi 110 003
India
Email: mailbox@teri.res.in
Website: www.teriin.org
Type: Industry
Scope: national
Interest in Forestry: peripheral
Description
We are proud to be TERI – The Energy and Resources Institute. The change in our name — from the Tata
Energy Research Institute — marks a new phase in the life of this Institute, but also a
continuation of the traditions, the values and work culture that we have established over the years,
ever since the Institute was founded in 1974 and began its own research activities at the end of 1982.
Topics
Indian Energy Sector
A fast-growing economy, India is targeting ambitious growth rates of seven to eight percent over the
next two decades. Economic growth coupled with a growing population necessitates an increase in
energy consumption. Alongside, the imperative to reduce poverty by meeting the basic needs of the poor,
renders energy a crucial input for India`s development process. The need of the hour,
therefore, is to meet the energy needs of all segments of India`s population in the most efficient and
cost-effective manner while ensuring long-term sustainability.
Renewables in India
India recognized the importance of increasing use of renewable energy sources for achieving a sustainable
energy base in the early 1970`s. During the past quarter of a century, a significant thrust has
been given to the development, trial and induction of a variety of renewable energy technologies for
use in different sectors. Renewable energy is seen as an effective option for ensuring access to
modern energy services in our vast country. In addition, it also provides a degree of national energy
security. In recent years, the rationale has been further buttressed by the environmental imperative.
Local and regional environmental problems associated with the generation of conventional energy have
provided a strong argument for enhancing the role of renewable energy within the broad energy
development plans of the country. More recently, the Kyoto Protocol, agreed at the Conference of Parties
to the Framework Convention to Climate Change, in December 1997, adds a global
perspective to the environmental imperative.
Climate Change
The earth’s climate has been evolving continuously over millennia but the last two centuries have witnessed
the development of the greenhouse problem, which threatens to change climate in an
unprecedented manner.
Biodiversity
Life exists in many forms: plant range from grass to giant trees and animals from tiny worms and insects
to elephants and whales; life is found everywhere, from the depths of oceans to the tops of
mountains and from arid deserts to tropical rainforests. From a purely utilitarian view, life is represented
in forms that can be both benign [e.g. periwinkle, which yields a life-saving drug] and malignant
[e.g. curare, a deadly poison]. It is this wide range that makes up biodiversity, which is defined as
‘the variability among living organisms from all sources, including terrestrial, marine and other aquatic
ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are a part; this includes diversity within species,
between species, and of ecosystems’.
Forest Management
The increasing depletion of India`s forest resources has brought into sharp focus the inherent inadequacy
of traditional state-owned and -run systems of forest management in sustaining the forest
resource base against the growing human and livestock population pressures, industrialisation, urbanization,
and overall economic development.
Genetically modified plants
Genetically modified plants are created by the process of genetic engineering that allows scientists
to move genetic material between organisms with the aim of changing their characteristics. All
organisms are composed of cells that contain DNA [deoxyribonucleic acid] molecules. Molecules of DNA
form units of genetic information known as genes. Each organism has a genetic blueprint
made up of DNA that determines the regulatory functions of its cells and thus the characteristics that
make it unique.
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