Conserving India’s green cover is as crucial as setting up new plants and factories, and both deserve equal importance in development processes. Choosing any one over the other is not an option
Issues involving the forests, the environment and the wildlife have become critical in deciding the future of our developmental activities. As far as environmental conservation is concerned, on the one hand, India is on the threshold of getting affected by the vagaries of climate change, and biodiversity is getting depleted slowly yet massively due to over exploitation, poor management of natural resources and degradation of the forests. On the other hand, developmental process is moving slowly due to environmental log jams.
There are more than 10 crore tribal people and around 40 crore rural people who are fully or partially dependent on the forests and water-based resources. Indeed, the policymakers in India have a difficult choice to make. They cannot choose one over the other. Indian population is now over 125 crore and still, 60 per cent of the labour force in the rural areas are dependent on agriculture and its allied sector for their livelihood.
More than 85 per cent of the farmers are small and marginal farmers and due to population growth, fragmentation of the land continues. We have around 450 million cattle and since cattle rearing is mostly taken up by the small and marginal farmers and landless people, they let loose more than 280 million cattle in the adjoining fringe forests for grazing.
Pressure on the 32 million ha of fringe forests is, therefore, very high. Even after the implementation of the Joint Forest Management programme, natural regeneration of the flagship species of these forest in 68 million ha of the area is either scanty or deficient. Since India experiences tropical climatic conditions, it has to meet the water needs during the three-month monsoon period. River catchment area is mostly situated in the forests, especially in the 16 million ha of protected area network, and management of these forests and watersheds is key to combat climatic changes through mitigation and adaptation.
Developmental projects need land and there is scarcity of surplus land in the country. For development, the country needs massive industries like steel and machinery plants, mining of minerals, electricity, road, telecom and industrial infrastructure. All have to depend upon either on the farm lands or the forest lands.
There was a time, when there was rampant diversion of the forest land for non-forestry use till the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 was enacted. The diversion was reduced from 1,50,000 ha per annum in 1980 to around 30,000 per year until now. The problem is compounded due to the fact that the good forest patches and mineral bearing areas overlap each other.
So, one is forced either to remain or to leave the forest area. But the situation has to be co-existent. Indian mining companies should bring latest technologies that includes underground mining technology. Agricultural scientists have raised concern on the diversion of good productive agriculture land as well. Due to poor technology and investment, industrial pollution is degrading land and water resources and is also polluting the air.
Still, India is a mega biodiversity country due to the efforts of the citizens and a well-structured forest bureaucracy. The country harbours about 45,000 plant species and 91,000 animal species. How much of it is surviving, no one knows, as the forest biodiversity inventory has never been taken into account in an organised manner. Neither the State Governments nor the forest institutions have paid attention to it.
The Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education constituted a task force under the leadership of this writer in December 2011. The role of the task force was to re-visit forest types and to understand the impact of climate change on forest ecosystems and also tob provide the field foresters, a forest classification based on field management imperatives by preparing change matrix of the forest types of India which were last revised by Sir HG Champion and SK Seth in 1960.
According to a study completed in 2013, India’s forests are shifting towards drier conditions, resulting in reduced biodiversity of our forests. It is also adversely affecting the hydrological cycle of our country. Only evergreen forests are maintaining a certain level of stability.
India’s forests were classified into 16 major types and about 221 sub-type groups by Champion and Seth. The national-level data for 1901-2009 suggests that annual mean temperature for the country has risen by 0.56 degree celsius over the period. Between 1931-1960 and 1961-1990, there has been steady rise in the temperature in most regions ranging between 0.2 to 1.0 degree celsius. Of the 88 stations, for which climate data was analysed, 42 stations have shown a fall in rainfall during the period 1961-1990 as compared to the previous 30 years with variation ranging between 10 per cent to 20 per cent within the stations.
Himalayan temperate forests are moving to more xeric conditions. Stability of the Himalayan ecosystem is critical for agricultural productivity in the Indo-Gangetic plains and the regulation of hydrological cycle for water recharge of aquifers down streams and flow of water in major rivers.
It is in this respect that the management of forests and conservation of environment has to be decided. Instruments created by us for the management of our natural heritage and environment must satisfy all the stakeholders in order to ensure sustainable development, attaining the status of a developed country and for the realisation of millennium development goals of eradication of poverty, hunger, education and health.
The issues in the governance of environment and forests have attracted the attention of the judiciary, and after the 1996 Godavarman case, failures of the executive have been set right through court orders. The conscience of the country has gone in favour of conservation and proper implementation of the laws. The intervention of the Supreme Court in the Karnataka, Odisha and Goa mining cases was welcomed by most people including honest mining businessmen.
All thanks to former Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh’s sagacity, the UPA Government had to bow to public opinion and apex court pressure, so that the National Green Tribunal was created in 2009. Since then, the NGT is acting as the flag bearer of India’s collective wisdom on environmental issues. It is acting on the principles of sustainable development, polluter pays, precautionary principle and the doctrine of public trust in its activities in enforcing the Directive Principles enshrined in Article 51A of the Constitution.
(The author is former director general, Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education, and former Principal Secretary, Agriculture, Horticulture, Animal Resources and Forest Department, Government of Tripura)