Sustainable development is the only way out
India's incredibly rich and diverse natural heritage may soon be lost to future generations, unless immediate steps are taken to protect and conserve the country's green cover. Hopefully, a recent report, listing as many as 10 Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas in India as under threat, will goad the authorities to take action.
Prepared by Birdlife International, the world's largest network of nature conservation organisations, the global study has focused on five Indian IBAs —the Sailana Kharmor Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh, the Tillanchong, Camorta, Katchal, Nancowry and Trinkat Islands in Andaman and Nicobar, the Jawaharlal Nehru Bustard Sanctuary in Maharashtra, the Mahul Sewree Creek also in Maharashtra and Flamingo City in Gujarat. Birdlife International's Indian partner, Bombay Natural History Society, has red flagged some additional sites. Each of these sites is facing multiple threats — some emanating from unsustainable agricultural and aquacultural practices while others from ‘human disturbance' in the form of irresponsible tourism, unplanned urbanisation, and unsustainable industrialisation.
For example, the vast Jawaharlal Nehru Bustard Sanctuary, home to the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard, is under cultivation and human habitation. Since 1980, two grassland plots within the sanctuary, Nannaj and Karmala, where the bird was spotted regularly, have been earmarked for special conservation measures. Yet, the bustard has almost become extinct in Karmala while, in Nannaj, unprotected grazing is rampant. The story is much the same in the Sailana Kharmor Sanctuary, home to the endangered lesser Florican and a protected area since 1983. The area has long lost all its wooded cover and is now a grassland, primarily used for the purpose of cattle fodder. Natural habitat is also diminishing in the open mudflats of Trombay and Sewri, along the Arabian Sea coast. Though closed to the general public, this IBA is near the jetty of the Mumbai Port Trust and in the proximity of several oil refineries. Consequently, pollution levels are high and environmentalists believe that the situation will become worse once the proposed Sewri-Nhava Sheva Trans Harbour link is constructed.
The case of IBAs in danger puts the spotlight on the old conflict of man versus nature. While there can be no two ways about the fact that natural habitats needs to be conserved, there can also be no denying that that roads and bridges, dams and factories have to be built for the welfare of the people. The trick is to find a sustainable, middle-path. Moreover, as the Birdlife International report itself shows, India is not the only country grappling with this problem. For example, Malaysia's Belum Temenggor forest complex, is threatened by commercial logging, land conversion and industrial development while the Upper Panama Bay, which hosts about one and two million migratory shorebirds each year, is under pressure from industrial and urban development as well as over-fishing.