Environmental issues, which touch and impact every aspect of our lives, have failed to stir the public conscience, impact mainstream concerns and inspire action. A healthy environment is our collective responsibility
The resolve for this column to have an optimistic spin — given that it is delivered to you on New Year’s day — took a beating with the eruption of what can only be called an orchestrated campaign to dilute and dismantle green regulatory norms. The tone and purport of the debate — if it can be termed so since it is largely one sided — of green concerns and laws being a key hurdle in India’s economic growth, is frightening.
Hard data has established that the rate of green clearances is at an unprecedented high, and accelerating. But it merits repetition: In the past nine years, six lakh hectares of forests have been cleared (over a third of these for mining), with the diversion of only 14,000 ha rejected. Forests cleared amounted to the combined areas of Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore. An analysis by the Centre for Science and Environment revealed that till April this year, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests’ rate of granting clearances for forest land diversion increased by 42 per cent , while that of rejecting projects nosedived to a mere 3.5 per cent. In other words, less than four projects out of every 100 proposed have been rejected. In the first three months of this year, the Environment and Forests Ministry’s Forest Advisory Committee allowed the diversion of about 15,000 ha of forest land, just a little less than the total forest land diverted in 2012.
Clearances given exceed targets in all key sectors — power, coal, steel, cement, etc. For example, the Ministry granted environmental clearances to 181 coal mines with a combined capacity of 583 million tonnes per annum, and forest clearances to 113 mines giving away 26,000 ha of forest land for the 11th Plan period till April 2011. This is expected to double capacity. Between 2006 and August 2011, a total of 2,10,000 MW of thermal power capacity were cleared. That’s 40 per cent in excess of what has been proposed till 2017, but only 32,394 MW of the power capacity was actually built in the past five years.
Is environment really a ‘hurdle’ causing slow growth, or does the problem lie elsewhere? How do you explain the clamour for clearances, when current capacities of coal and power lie unutilised? Why is there a rush to invest in new projects, when the shortfall for investment in electricity transmission (India loses nearly 40 per cent electricity to inefficient transmission) is Rs 4,00,000 crores?
Rules and policies safeguarding environment, forests, coasts and wildlife have been diluted. The Coastal Regulation Zone rules were weakened, and a notification which granted wildlife scrutiny to diversions for forests in elephant reserves and important wildlife corridors was nullified. Crucial wildlife concerns were disregarded, a case in point being Saranda — the world’s largest sal forest and prime elephant habitat, which was opened up for mining. Also, the allowing of barrages and further withdrawal of water from the Chambal river is a move which could be fatal to the critically endangered gharial.
Even when the Ministry rejected — no less than four times — mining in the Mahan coalfields in Madhya Pradesh, which will rip apart rich, pristine forests with very high biodiversity values, the rejection was overruled even in the face of stiff resistance from local communities.
It is not India Inc which has been thwarted, it is the environment that is being compromised. And at what cost?
The dawn of a new year is also a time for reflection. My major worry in this shrill cacophony of ‘silly environment regulations and sundry animals’ blocking growth, is not the apathy of the Government, but of the people. We appear largely unconcerned, or is it convenient ignorance of the fact that the foundation of sustainable economic growth and a healthy population is healthy environment.
India is currently an environment basket case: Water in our rivers is not fit for bathing, leave alone drinking. Even the holiest of them all, Ganga, is burdened by dams, sewage, polluting industries, toxins, effluents and power plants, to the extent that it is nothing but a filthy sewer. So bad is our air quality, that even breathing is difficult. According to Global Burden of Disease, 2013, outdoor air pollution caused 6.2 premature deaths in India in 2010, a six-fold jump from the one lakh deaths in 2000. The mining and industrial towns of Chandrapur, Vapi, Ludhiana, Kanpur are rated as amongst the most polluted towns in the world and are today living hell-holes, ravaged by diseases like lung and skin infections, tuberculosis and cancer.
Forests are critical not just for sustained growth but also to protect our basic life support systems: clean air, water, soil fertility and climate moderation. They influence the monsoons, nourish and nurture rivers and soils, absorb and sequester carbon, Up to a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions come from deforestation. Keystone wildlife species are indicators of a healthy ecosystem: Elephants and tigers denote a healthy forest, dolphins and gharials will only be found in clean, flowing rivers, bustards denote healthy grasslands while waterfowl indicate healthy wetlands.
Environmental and forest degradation, estimates the World Bank, is costing India around 5.7 per cent of its GDP annually. The math is frightening. Can we afford to ignore environmental consequences and not factor them into the development agenda? Can we afford to dismiss them as irritants, which we will deal with later? Resources are finite, extinction is forever, and some Rs 39,000 crore later, the Ganga is still as filthy.
Yet, environment issues, which touch and impact every aspect of our lives, have failed to stir the conscience, enter mainstream concern and inspire action. India Inc may run campaigns to save tigers, plant tree, promote solar lighting, and we may carry jute bags or sign petitions to save dolphins and tigers. It makes good CSR, and makes us feel good, but it is simply not enough. We need to empower ourselves with knowledge, understand the environmental, social and biodiversity costs of an unplanned development agenda. What is needed is to take substantial steps to ensure that businesses do not pollute our rivers and air, follow the law of the land and factor in environmental concerns when planning and developing their projects so that impacts on forests and wildlife are minimal, and addressed.
This is not the task of the environmentalist alone, a healthy environment is our collective responsibility. It’s election time. Have we, then, questioned the green manifestos of candidates, and political parties? No, environment is a non-issue in the election. In fact, of late it has become the the scapegoat which bears the brunt for everything from slow growth to an electoral drubbing. If anything, promises are being made to dismantle green regulations intended to safeguard the environment — and ourselves.
New year is also a time for beginnings, and I sign off with hope that this new year will usher in an era of environment consciousness.