COMMENTARY

Conservation and Development in the Western Ghats

A Tale of Two Committees and More
Kanchan Chopra

The Ministry of Environment and Forests by its hasty order of 20 December 2013 has set in motion events that go against the recommendations of the Western Ghats Ecology Experts Panel and the High Level Working Group. Decisions with respect to the Western Ghats 39 sites within which now have the World Heritage tag and are the repository of unique biodiversity rich regions will now go back into the hands of individual state governments, driven by their own short-term economic and electoral interests.

Kanchan Chopra (kanchanc136@gmail.com) is former director, Institute of Economic Growth and Member, High Level Working Group on the Western Ghats, 2012-13.

he Western Ghats, traversing over six states, are in the limelight lately in the context of the reports of two committees on their ecology and economy.1 This article aims to examine the unfolding scenario following in particular the responses of civil society, local populations, industry, governments and other stakeholders to the two reports. It is generally agreed that ecologically sensitive areas (ESA s), including those in the Western Ghats, need to be protected at all costs, as some would say. After all, the mountain range is the repository of one of the most ecologically diversied landscapes and home to 39 World Heritage sites, apart from being the source of several rivers of the south. We claim we care about what we leave as a legacy for the future. Successive pieces of legislation in the last 20 years have endorsed such an understanding. We argue in international forums about the responsibility of the richer nations in the current impasse with respect to global climate change. Domestically too, the motivation to conserve at the cost of reckless development exists in several quarters. And this is undoubtedly the motivation behind the desire to use a slate of policy instruments introduced by the central government to conserve so-called ecologically sensitive areas, known also in the literature as no-go areas or as inviolate areas. Over the years, committees of experts have also been constituted to examine the issue and offer suggestions. The Sen Committee report way back in September 2000 had been mandated to identify parameters for designating ecologically sensitive areas. As recently as 2012, the report of the Committee on Inviolate Forest Areas had
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been submitted to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF). Its mandate was to formulate broad parametres for identication of inviolate forest areas. The latter was set up by the MOEF in pursuance of the directive of the group of ministers (GOM) on 20 September 2011 that identied pristine forest areas where mining would cause irreversible damage and so these locales should be barred from any kind of nonforest activity. It was in this vein that the Western Ghats Ecology Experts Panel (WGEEP) was set up by the MOEF in March 2010. It was a panel of experts, chaired by Madhav Gadgil, with the following mandate:
(i) To assess the current status of ecology of the Western Ghats region. (ii) To demarcate areas within the Western Ghats Region which need to be notied as ecologically sensitive and to recommend for notication of such areas as ecologically sensitive zones under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. In doing so, the Panel shall review the existing reports such as the Mohan Ram Committee Report, Honble Supreme Courts decisions, recommendations of the National Board for Wildlife and consult all concerned State Governments. (iii) To make recommendations for the conservation, protection and rejuvenation of the Western Ghats Region following a comprehensive consultation process involving people and Governments of all the concerned States. (iv) To suggest measures for effective implementation of the notications issued by the Government of India in the Ministry of Environment and Forests declaring specic areas in the Western Ghats region as eco-sensitive zones under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. (v) To recommend the modalities for the establishment of Western Ghats Ecology Authority under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 which will be a professional body to manage the ecology of the region and to ensure its sustainable development with the support of all concerned states.

It is worth noting here that the terms of reference already referred to a comprehensive consultation process involving people and the governments of the ve states and the panel was asked to recommend the modalities of the establishment of the Western Ghats
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Ecology Authority under the Environment Protection Act (1986). Muddying the Waters One would assume that these were to be the cornerstones of the policy to follow. The committee, after due diligence, submitted its report on 31 August 2011. But it was made public in May 2012 only after a high court injunction asking for the same.2 The reasons for this can only be conjectured. Perhaps some of its recommendations tilted towards conservation and local-level decision-making had not found favour with the powers that be. Be that as it may, the undue delay in making the report public had already muddied the waters. Over 1,700 responses were received by the ministry when the WGEEP report was put on its website. The parleys among decision-makers then resulted in the setting up of a High Level Working Group (HLWG) under the chairmanship of K Kasturirangan. The MOEF put it thus,
Taking into account the comments and suggestions made by different stakeholders including State Governments and Central Ministries on WGEEP Report, the MoEF constituted a High Level Working Group (HLWG) to suggest an all-round and holistic approach for sustainable and equitable development while keeping in focus the preservation and conservation of ecological systems in Western Ghats.

It must be noted that the HLWG (popularly referred to as the Kasturirangan Committee) had been mandated to examine the implementation of the Gadgil Committee report with a view to wholistic development. It submitted its report in April 2013. It was to be expected that in view of its mandate it would have viewed the implementation of the WGEEP report based on economic reality and constitutional imperatives. In essence, the HLWG report recommendations were built on four pillars: (1) Identifying ESAs and asking for their notication across the Western Ghats. (2) Recommending restrictions and a complete ban on some economic activities in the ESA s. Development projects to be undertaken with the concurrence of the gram sabhas in these ESA s. (3) Incentivising green growth in the Western Ghats. (4) Moving towards constitutional changes
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in centre-state relations that will support the above. As expected, there were differences between the WGEEP and the HLWG reports. The latter deviated in respect of the delineation of the ESAs. There was widespread discussion of the fact that the Kasturirangan Committee had limited the ESAs within the Western Ghats to 37% of the total area, as against about 64% in the WGEEP. The report maintained that this gure was arrived at by the HLWG after a detailed geospatial analysis for identication of ESA s at a ne resolution of 24 m with village as the unit.3 Further, it had distinguished between natural and cultural landscapes and limited the ESAs to natural landscapes. It also recommended that villages falling under ESA will be involved in decision making on the future projects. All projects will require priorinformed consent and no objection from the Gram Sabha of the village. The provision for prior informed consent under the Forest Rights Act will also be strictly enforced. However, in the so-called cultural areas individual rights to land, both agricultural and plantation were to be respected. In these areas, a set of economic incentives were to be set in place for movement towards green growth and sustainable agriculture. Additionally, the HLWG took note of the environmentally-friendly practices in coffee plantations in Kodagu and elsewhere. Taking into account this harmony between people and nature in parts of the Western Ghats, the HLWG recommended policies to incentivise green growth that promotes sustainable and equitable development across the Western Ghats region. It emphasised that the future lies in working on green growth strategies that build on the natural endowment of the Western Ghats region to create a vibrant economy, while preserving, conserving and rejuvenating the ecology. The HLWG report outlines incentives to individuals, communities and state governments which would help in moving towards environmentally sound development. It does not leave everything to local level decision-making bodies but outlines some positive steps
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towards incentivisation of environmentally sound growth and watershed-based development. It also points towards steps to result in convergence of rural development and conservation, pointing also to a report from the Ministry of Rural Development on this issue. It argues for creation of mechanisms for states to come together to negotiate for debt for nature swaps, whereby part of the outstanding debt of a state government is swapped for new initiatives by it to protect its natural resources. Further, a part of these payments would be retained by the state governments and a part used to nance local conservation trusts at the village/panchayat level (as in several countries). In other words, the report envisages a moving together of the ve state governments in pursuance of some common goals in relation to the Western Ghats. It points out that the prevailing understanding of economic planning does not extend to an area-based ecological planning and recommends that one way forward is to consider extending entry 20 on economic planning in the concurrent list and introduce an appropriate entry 20A to ensure that development projects and activities are undertaken within an overarching ecological framework. The HLWG report, after demarcating the area under ESAs in the Western Ghats, recommends a complete ban on mining, quarrying and sand mining, red category industry thermal power projects and large urban developments in the ESA. Some activities such as hydropower projects and wind energy projects are to be permitted subject to conditions such as cumulative environmental assessment. These constitute then the costs of conservation. If the

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Western Ghats is indeed to be protected for the future, this is about the minimum that we have to be prepared to do after notifying the ESAs: some will claim it is too little. It is instructive and painful to note that almost all government, civil society and media attention has been focused on the identication of ESAs and the bans imposed therein. Also, there was criticism from both sides of the spectrum of stakeholders. To begin with, restive voices in civil society immediately claimed that the case for conservation had been compromised, both with regard to the extent of the ESAs and the primacy of local-level decision-making. It completely overlooked the recommendation that gram sabhas were to be the drivers of development in ESAs. State governments responded on the restrictions and bans on some activities within ESAs. These, predictably, related to industries and urban development projects. The restrictions were dubbed as anti-development. And this, when all the report was asking for was an alternative paradigm of development for some parts of the Western Ghats. Ministrys Unseemly Haste The government repeated its act of silence for a considerable period of time. In November 2013, almost eight months after its submission, the MOEF accepted the report in principle and decided to go ahead with the implementation of its recommendations. However, in unseemly haste, the MOEF through an order issued on 20 December 2013 stated that a nal decision would be taken only after consultation with the states (due presumably to a change in leadership at the highest level). It is understood that individual state ministers are now busy getting approvals for projects. Decisions with respect to the Western Ghats, 39 sites within which now have the World Heritage tag and the repository of unique biodiversity rich regions will now go back into the hands of individual state governments, driven by their own short-term economic and electoral interests. This goes against the recommendations of both the WGEEP
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and the HLWG. The WGEEP had asked for a Western Ghats Ecology Authority and the HLWG had argued at length for the centre and the states to take coordinated action to deal with issues relating to the Western Ghats. To quote the HLWG report
On recommendations relating to nancial arrangements and incentivising green growth in Western Ghats region, co-ordinated action needs to be taken by MoEF, Planning Commission and Ministry of Finance. In particular, the 14th Finance Commission should be persuaded to provide sufcient allocation of funds to the States in the Western Ghats for forest and environment conservation. Further, as recommended above, the Planning Commission should strengthen the implementation of Western Ghats Development Programme.

behest of vested interests in industry and elsewhere. The question that inevitably arises can be posed as follows: Is a movement towards thoughtful conservation and development possible? Are we as a nation at all willing to implement policies that ask for some degree of restraint in the exploitation of our natural resources? Or are we going to pursue a pattern of development which concentrates on the maximisation of present gains of the privileged few to the detriment of the interests of vulnerable people and ecologically fragile areas?
Notes
1 The reports, both submitted to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) are: Western Ghats Ecology Experts Panel (WGEEP), chaired by Madhav Gadgil in 2011 and the High Level Working Group Report (HLWG) chaired by K Kasturirangan in 2013. 2 To quote from the high court injunction It has further been directed that the WGEEP report be placed on the website of the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) before 10.05.2012. A further direction has been issued to the (MoEF) to publish all reports of commissions, special committees or panels within 30 days of receiving the same, unless it is felt that any part of such report is exempted under the provisions of Section 8(1) and Section 9 of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Further directions have been issued in this regard. 3 IRS LISS III derived spatial layers on vegetation type and landscape-level indices (with a ne spatial resolution of 24 m) were used as the basis for identication of ecologically sensitive areas (ESAs).

Thoughtful Conservation? Meanwhile, people in the region are rightly concerned about the uncertainty confronting their future. Several areas reported agitations based on the perception that local livelihoods would be affected by the implementation of the HLWG report. A large part of this concern is based on misinformation: but the tos and fros at the central level contribute to the confusion. One cannot help concluding that these u-turns in policy framing and execution are at the

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