Re-constitute wildlife board to protect both

By listing the re-constitution of the National Board for Wildlife in its first-100-days agenda, the BJP-led NDA Government has prioritised both environment and development concerns. The Board's tenure had expired in September last year, but between then and March of this year, when the Model Code of Conduct kicked in before the lok Sabha election, the UPA Government found no time to re-instate the panel. This, of course, was typical of the Congress-led regime's style of governance. A statutory body under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, the NBWl, led by the Prime Minister, oversees the implementation of the Government's wildlife policy. Its standing committee, chaired by the Union Minister for Environment and Forests, and comprising non-Government members as well, appraises all projects proposed either inside protected wildlife areas or within a 10km radius of any such zone. However, since the NBWl has been defunct for months now, more than 120 projects across the country are held up. Most of these relate to the construction of roads, highways and electric transmission lines in the vicinity of protected areas. In Noida, Uttar Pradesh, for instance, huge real estate projects (comprising about 30,000 flats), bordering the Okhla Bird Sanctuary, are in limbo after the National Green Tribunal ordered that they get the NBWl clearances. Builders have already lost several crores and buyers have been equally inconvenienced. In Tripura, the authorities are still waiting for permission to divert forest land from the Trishna Wildlife Sanctuary to construct a new railway line between Agartala and Sabroom. In Mizoram, the raising of a fence and construction of a patrol road along the India-Bangladesh border in the Dampa Tiger Reserve has been held up. 

Apart from dealing with the clearances backlog, the NBWl also has to take decisions on a whole range of regulatory issues — for instance, the demarcation of eco-sensitive zones around protected areas. State Governments are confused about the rules in this aspect and the Board needs to resolve the matter at the earliest. Similarly, it also needs to take a call on bringing wildlife corridors within its ambit. These corridors are crucial for wildlife survival but have also become veritable death traps in some cases wherein they cut through roads and railway lines. Indeed, reports of elephants being mowed down by speeding trains in north Bengal have become a matter of routine. Unfortunately, none of these issues mattered to the UPA regime which was effectively paralysed towards the end of its second term. However, it is a telling remark on the UPA's hollow governance model that, even as the NBWl was out of use, the MoEF sought to reduce the legally protected area around wildlife zones to avoid seeking the Board's clearance for hydro-electric projects in Sikkim. The stalled 520MW project, four kilometres from the Fambonglho Wildlife Sanctuary, is a typical example of the resultant mess.