Uttarakhand Forest and Wildlife Minister Dinesh Aggarwal pointed out that the Kailash Sacred landscape Initiative involving India, China and Nepal could set a framework for future cooperation. He said this while speaking at the lawmakers’ session on the second day of the international symposium on transforming mountain forestry being organised at the Forest Research Institute by the institute in collaboration with International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).
Sanjay Upadhyaya, a lawyer practicing at India’s Supreme Court, said that the Supreme Court has passed as many as 700 orders on forests alone but transboundary issues including riparian concerns have yet to gain desired legal attention. Sikkim Forest minister Tsering Wangdi highlighted global recognition to the Kanchenjunga National Park as a perfect start to sharing obligations for cooperation at the transboundary scale.
Member of Parliament from Sikkim, PD Rai said that a policy dialogue amongst parliamentarians and lawmakers has been long overdue. “Institutionalised instruments like EIA act like band-aids, generating political outcomes that get managed by politicians alone,” he said. Political processes in policy formulation have been different from the science behind issues related to mountains. Incentive based mechanism such as payment for ecosystem services are still emerging concepts, and are not yet fully considered in policy making processes, he added.
A participant from Afghanistan pointed out that the gains of forest conservation in his country benefit riparian countries, Pakistan on the east and Iran in the west, since the natural flow of rivers has a geographical orientation towards these countries. There are no laws to ensure that benefits accrue to upstream riparian, he added. Upadhyaya added that the land Management law in Afghanistan does not include transboundary issues. Existence of different civil and common laws have become impediments to transboundary cooperation, he opined.
The overall emphasis of the session was on amplifying the voices of local communities and their connection with natural resources to creating conditions for lawmakers to press the ‘urgency clause’ for developing appropriate laws. The ICIMOD director general Dr David Molden stressed on the need for a voice to emerge from the grassroots for lawmakers to press the ‘urgency button’