Hydropower proliferation in the name of ‘clean energy’ has severely impacted existing land-use, disturbed forest biodiversity and fragmented the forest landscape in the remote, ecologically vulnerable Kinnaur Division of Himachal Pradesh in the fragile Western Himalayas.
The findings are part of the study titled “Mitigation or Myth? Impacts of Hydropower Development and Compensatory Afforestation on forest ecosystems in the high Himalayas”. The study, conducted between 2012 and 2016 and its findings appearing in the latest issue of ‘Land Use Policy’ journal, also found fault with the related compensatory afforestation plantations.
Environmentalists Manshi Asher and Prakash Bhandari, associated with the Himdhara Environment Research and Action Collective, in their study said that they found that of the area of ‘forest land’ diverted to non-forest activities between 1980 and 2014, 90 per cent was transferred for hydro-electric projects (HEP) and transmission lines (TL), leading to change in land-use, fragmentation of forests and loss of biodiversity in the vulnerable Kinnaur region.
“We found that the ‘compensatory afforestation’, carried out as a ‘mitigation’ measure for loss of forests and a mandatory condition for forest clearance for forest diversion has not been able to fulfil its stated objective and further, maybe leading to change in composition of forests.
“While plantation work was undertaken only in 12 per cent of the proposed area this was ridden with issues like abysmally low presence of surviving saplings (upto 10 per cent) interspecies conflict, infringement on local land usage, and vulnerability to disasters,” said the researchers.
The study also critically examines the role of state-led institutions and global green growth policies in driving and legitimizing these developments in the name of ‘mitigation’, ultimately causing more harm to fragile local ecosystems and communities dependent on these.
Moreover, these plantations may be causing further negative impacts like interspecies conflict and encroachment on local forest access and use, noted the researchers. They have now sought an independent, holistic and multidisciplinary inquiry into the impacts of these interventions and highlight “the need to confront the current notion of ‘mitigation’, the costs of which are being transferred to vulnerable ecosystems and people dependent on them.”
