In rebuilding the devastated areas of Uttarakhand, authorities need to ensure that the rebuild effort is in sync with the delicate balance that needs to be maintained between development and nature
The recent natural calamity in Uttarakhand has brought unimaginable destruction, with more than a 1000 lives lost and enormous damages to property. Amid pitched battles by political parties trading accusations and a pressured administration on an overdrive, one can see the real rescuer, the Army jawan, getting the survivors to safety. Though the nation and specifically the families of victims are yet to come to grips with their world being shattered, the analysis of the disaster has begun in right earnest. This analysis has thrown up a range of observations, from lack of preparedness to man-made causes having contributed to the disaster. In April, 2013, the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India stated in a report that the Uttarakhand disaster plan didn’t exist and that the officially mandated State Disaster Management Authority, formed in October 2007, never met.
The real challenge lies ahead, as the Government and the social communities try and rebuild everything from scratch. But in doing so, the Government and the environmentally aware sections of society need to step in and ensure that the rebuild effort does not go overboard and is in sync with the delicate balance that needs to be maintained between development and nature.
Rampant building projects, hydel-power plants, unrealistic tourism pressures on ecologically sensitive zones, encroachment and mining of dry river beds and the political-bureaucrat-contractor nexus have translated into nature being pushed on the back-foot and at a breaking point. A rebuild effort needs to strike the appropriate balance between disaster response and environmental protection.
In the process of a post-natural disaster rebuild, the authorities concerned as well as the participating non-Government organisations should project the bleak situation as an opportunity for the affected communities to come out stronger and resilient, with a clear focus on adherence of green practices and policies, establish incentives in order to maximise the participation of businesses and residents in rebuilding the affected State as a model green community.
The green rebuild effort should involve the local resident bodies in order to absorb their opinions and feedback and also to ensure their participation during the implementation of the green initiatives. Yet another initiative that the Government needs to take up is to ensure that the post-disaster debris is safely disposed of, thereby ensuring that health and sanitation issues of the local community are not compromised upon. The rebuild should also be designed in such a manner that infrastructure development is accorded the highest priority, as it enables the rebuilding process to reach far corners of the affected community.
A responsible recovery and rebuild for the environment is expedited if a Post-Disaster Environment Assessment tool is conceived as an integral part of the rebuild process. The PDEA can broadly address and identify environmental impacts and risks caused by the crisis and relief operations as well as potential environmental pressures induced by the recovery operations.
Besides this, the PDEA can also assess the negative response-related activities or coping mechanisms resulting from an emergency, that can impact the environment or create new environmental risks. The PDEA should be designed and implemented in a manner so that it can assess institutional capacities at the national and local levels to mitigate environmental risks and manage environmental recovery. The rebuild process should be designed to provide a forward looking plan that aims to ‘Build Back Better’, by integrating environmental needs within early recovery programming and across the relevant relief and recovery clusters.
Efforts should also be made to strengthen and rebuild livelihoods and sustain human security — especially those that depend on the environment and natural resources. It is also essential to identify how environmental degradation may have contributed to the underlying causes of the emergency and how environmental vulnerabilities can be addressed during recovery. The rebuild and recovery processes provide opportunities to re-orient livelihoods along sustainable pathways, using environmentally- sound construction practices and/or alternative energy options, by identifying ecosystem restoration requirements.
The processes should also account for the earlier environmental conservation projects that were either completed or underway when the natural disaster occurred.
The success of any restoration project post a natural disaster is a dark cloud with silver lining, as it provides an opportunity to rise from the ashes by correcting and learning from the mistakes and applying the outcomes in the ambitious rebuild for the future.