1. Were the Kerala floods caused only due to nature’s fury? - NOT ALONE - ALSO MAN MADE !!! 2. The Gagdil Committee report was criticised for being excessively environment-friendly and not in tune with the ground realities. 3. People in Kerala, especially Christian organizations, strongly protested the implementation of the report since most of the farmers in the hilly regions are Christians, especially in Wayanad. 4. During the 20th century, a very large number of Christians had migrated from southern Kerala and acquired forest land in Wayanad and other areas with abundant forest and waste land, in what is known as Malabar Migration. 5. Governments' seem to ignore the utility of the hills and its influence on rivers and lives of people in the plains of peninsular India. Almost all rivers in peninsular India originate in the Western Ghats and hence any policy with respect to the hills will have consequences for the whole of southern India. 6. "Solutions for conservation are in place but the political will to endorse and implement the same is lacking."

Opinion
   06/09/2018
              1384

Sub :-

1. Were the Kerala floods caused only due to nature’s fury? -  NOT ALONE - ALSO MAN MADE !!!

2. The Gadgil Committee report was criticized for being excessively environment-friendly and not in tune with the ground realities.

3. People in Kerala, especially Christian organizations, strongly protested the implementation of the report since most of the farmers in the hilly regions are Christians, especially in Wayanad.

4. During the 20th century, a very large number of Christians had migrated from southern Kerala and acquired forest land in Wayanad and other areas with abundant forest and waste land, in what is known as Malabar Migration.

5. Governments' seem to ignore the utility of the hills and its influence on rivers and lives of people in the plains of peninsular India. Almost all rivers in peninsular India originate in the Western Ghats and hence any policy with respect to the hills will have consequences for the whole of southern India.

6.

"Solutions for conservation are in place but the political will to endorse and implement the same is lacking."

Ref :-

1. Implementing Gadgil would have reduced Kerala havoc : The Financial Express : August 22, 2018

2. Destruction in Kerala would have been limited if Gadgil report implemented: Experts : Press Trust of India : Thiruvananthapuram :  August 23, 2018

3.  Kerala floods: The prescriptions for the Western Ghats :

The devastation wreaked by the Kerala floods make it amply clear that the state's political class failed its people by rejecting the Madhav Gadgil Commission recommendations on the preservation of Western Ghats ecosystem.

It is not just in Kerala that the political class has ignored environment, ecology and sustainability in its calculations for development.

The devastation wreaked by the Kerala floods make it amply clear that the state’s political class failed its people by rejecting the Madhav Gadgil Commission recommendations on the preservation of Western Ghats ecosystem. The Gadgil committee had strongly batted for declaring the entire Western Ghats as an ecologically sensitive area, assigning three levels of sensitivity to its different reaches. It had called for a ban on all developmental activities in the highest-vulnerability areas, while, only some such works were to be undertaken in the other areas, under the strictest regulation. In fact, it had specifically cited the example of the Idukki dam, whose construction engulfed the entire catchment area of the Periyar river in the area, when it talked about how reservoirs in the Western Ghat states were accumulating copious amounts of silt—leading to severely compromised storage capacity—largely because of encroachment and deforestation in the adjoining areas. In the context of the floods, Gadgil, who founded the Centre for Ecological Studies at the Indian Institute of Science, told The Indian Express that activities like stone quarrying which have proliferated in Kerala in violation of existing environmental laws compounded the damage from the floods. What is ironical is the Kerala’s state disaster management plan, published in 2016, had squarely blamed construction and quarrying in Western Ghats districts for landslides that have become a common feature of the south-west monsoons.

It is not just in Kerala that the political class has ignored environment, ecology and sustainability in its calculations for development. In fact, when all six stakeholder states—Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu—rejected the Gadgil Commission report in 2011, the Union government, instead of foregrounding the concerns the report had highlighted, set up the K Kasturirangan committee to review the Gadgil recommendations in a “holistic and multidisciplinary manner”. The Kasturirangan report, of course, recommended that just a third of the Western Ghats be designated ecologically sensitive. Even after, just 9,993 sq km of the total area in Kerala was notified as ecologically sensitive—a good 3,115 sq km lesser than even the Kasturirangan recommendation. In Uttarakhand that faced similarly devastating floods in 2013, there are over 244 proposed and existing hydel projects. There have also been reports of illegal sand and stone mining in the catchment areas and the mountains in the state. While there is a need to harness the hydroelectricity potential, this has to be done responsibly, with ecology and sustainability being the compass. Instead, since the state’s creation in 200, there has been a rush by different governments to announce hydel and other development projects in an area that has not only become vulnerable to landslides through building and tunnelling activity, but also lies in a seismic zone. There is no doubt that development—and the attendant job creation—is as much a governance imperative as a political one. Indeed, as Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment, who was a member of the Kasturirangan panel, pointed out in a 2014 blog-post, the key question is how policy can “promote development that is sustainable”. Sadly, the Centre and the states—and not just Kerala and Uttarakhand—have really put environment and ecology front and centre in their development policies. With climate change effects worsening and extreme weather events becoming more common, this will only mean more Kerala-like devastation.

2. Destruction in Kerala would have been limited if Gadgil report implemented: Experts : Press Trust of India : Thiruvananthapuram :  August 23, 2018

Highlights :-

1. Kerala floods: Environmentalist Gadgil says it is also a man-made disaster
2. WG panel recommendations neglected: Ecologist on Kerala floods
3. Centre had denied info on Gadgil report under RTI: Ex-CIC
4. Goa may go Kerala way, warns ecologist Madhav Gadgil
5. Report on Western Ghats:Kerala submits revised recommendations

The miseries and destruction caused by the rains and floods in Kerala would have been less severe if the government had taken the initiative to implement the recommendations made in the Gadgil Committee report on preservation of the Western Ghats, a noted environmentalist has said.

Ecologist Madhav Gadgil's report had suggested checks on quarrying, discouraging cultivation of yearly crops on hill slopes and planting fruit-bearing tress there and restriction on construction in the area, according to Prof V S Vijayan, a former chairman of the State Biodiversity Board.

"Climate change is a reality and heavy rainfall leading to floods witnessed in Kerala and droughts would occur in future also," Vijayan, also a member of the committee, told PTI.
Goa may go Kerala way, warns ecologist Madhav Gadgil.

"What we can do is to take precautionary steps to resist the impact of such calamities. In this regard, the recommendations of the Gadgil Committee are very important," he said.

The committee recommendations were submitted in 2011 and if the government had started implementing it, the damage caused now could have been less than 50 per cent of what has happened, he said.

Advocating the implementation of recommendations in toto at least now, Vijayan said the main suggestion was to protect and preserve the Western Ghats as an ecologically sensitive zone.

"However, it was not possible to protect and preserve the whole of the Western Ghats as we need development also. So what is required now is to take development and conservation together," he added.

The basic concept of the report was that development and conservation were not two conflicting things, he said.

Dismissing charges that the Gadgil report is "anti-development" and "anti-farmer", he said it is a pro-development report to the core but it wanted development initiatives in the Report on Western Ghats:Kerala submits revised recommendations region to be carried out in a sustainable manner.

Vijayan said he had warned earlier that the extremely fragile Western Ghats region was prone to natural calamities and chances of an Uttarakhand-like tragedy in the region could not be ruled out. He said scientific conservation initiatives have to be implemented at the earliest.

Indiscriminate plundering of natural resources and illegal and unscientific constructions have made it geologically fragile, he added.

Those who are agitating against the Gadgil report should try to understand the facts first before making a hue and cry, he said.

The Gadgil Committee report had been a point of debate in the state ever since it was submitted with all major political parties showing reluctance in accepting and implementing the recommendations in toto following protests from local people in high range areas.

Business interests having stakes in granite quarrying, real estate, timber and tourism, who thrive in the biodiversity hotspot for decades, opposed the report.

The local people and those who oppose the report fear the implementation would result in large-scale displacement of small and marginal farmers settled on the slopes of the hill ranges.

Even the Kasturirangan report, which studied the recommendations of Madhav Gadgil report, has also not received total support.

3. Kerala floods: The prescriptions for the Western Ghats :

Amid Kerala floods, Madhav Gadgil says his 2011 ecology suggestions may have limited scale of disaster. What did his report say, and why did states object, leading to another panel that made new suggestions?

The floods in Kerala have brought the focus back on an almost forgotten 2011 report on the Western Ghats that had made a set of recommendations for preserving the ecology and biodiversity of the fragile region along the Arabian Sea coast. Its lead author, Pune-based ecologist Madhav Gadgil, has publicly argued that had the report’s suggestions been implemented by the concerned state governments, the scale of disaster in Kerala would not have been as huge as it is. A look at some of the main recommendations of the Gadgil report, how these were substantially relaxed by a subsequent committee led by space scientist K Kasturirangan, and whether implementation of the first report would have made any difference to the Kerala crisis:

Why was the Gadgil Committee set up?

In February 2010, then Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh attended a public meeting in Kotagiri in Tamil Nadu organised mainly by those associated with Save the Western Ghats group. Speakers pointed to threats to the ecosystem from construction, mining, industries, real estate, and hydropower. After the meeting, Ramesh set up the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel under Gadgil. The panel was asked to make an assessment of the ecology and biodiversity of the Western Ghats and suggest measures to conserve, protect and rejuvenate the entire range that stretches to over 1500 km along the coast, with its footprints in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu.

"Kerala tragedy partly man made : Madhav Gadgil, expert who headed Western Ghats report"

Kerala floods: The committee had strongly recommended a ban on certain new industrial and mining activities in the area, and called for strict regulation of many other “developmental” works in consultation with local communities and gram panchayats.

What did the Gadgil Committee say?

It defined the boundaries of the Western Ghats for the purposes of ecological management. The total area in this boundary came to 1,29,037 square km, running about 1.490 km north to south, with a maximum width of 210 km in Tamil Nadu and minimum of 48 km in Maharashtra. It proposed that this entire area be designated as ecologically sensitive area (ESA). Within this area, smaller regions were to be identified as ecologically sensitive zones (ESZ) I, II or III based on their existing condition and nature of threat. It proposed to divide the area into about 2,200 grids, each approximately 9 km × 9 km, of which 75 per cent would fall under ESZ I or II or under already existing protected areas such as wildlife sanctuaries or natural parks.

Kerala tragedy partly man made: Expert behind Western Ghats report “Idukki dam is a classic case wherein the entire catchment was encroached along the dam construction,” the report said.

*“Idukki dam is a classic case wherein the entire catchment was encroached along the dam construction,” the report said.

It recommended:

* Ban on cultivation of genetically modified in entire area
* Plastic bags to be phased out in three years
* No new special economic zones or hill stations to be allowed
* Ban on conversion of public lands to private lands, and on diversion of forest land for non-forest purposes in ESZ I and II
* No new mining licences in ESZ I and II area
* No new dams in ESZ I
* No new thermal power plants or large scale wind power projects in ESZ I
* No new polluting industries in ESZ I and ESZ II areas
* No new railway lines or major roads in ESZ I and II areas
* Strict regulation of tourism
* Cumulative impact assessment for all new projects like dams, mines, tourism, housing
* Phase-out of all chemical pesticides within five to eight years in ESZ I and ESZ II

The committee proposed a Western Ghats Ecology Authority to regulate these activities in the area.

‘Floods in Kerala grave… political lobbying prevented implementation of Gadgil report’

K Harinarayan, president of the World Malayali Council's Pune chapter*
.....................................................................................................................

*

K Harinarayan, president of the World Malayali Council’s Pune chapter, tells The Indian Express that the floods in Kerala were not caused only due to nature’s fury, but also because the state government had rejected the Madhav Gadgil report on Western Ghats.


What was the need for the subsequent Kasturirangan Committee?

None of the six concerned states agreed with the recommendations of the Gadgil Committee, which submitted its report in August 2011 (its official public release was cancelled). Suggestions and comments were received from a number of others as well. In August 2012, then Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan constituted a High-Level Working Group on Western Ghats under Kasturirangan to “examine” the Gadgil Committee report in a “holistic and multidisciplinary fashion in the light of responses received” from states, central ministries and others. This committee submitted its report in April 2013.

Its report revealed that of the nearly 1,750 responses it had examined, 81% were not in favour of the Gadgil recommendations. In particular, Kerala had objected to the proposed ban on sand mining and quarrying, restrictions on transport infrastructure and wind energy projects, embargos on hydroelectric projects, and inter-basin transfer of river waters, and also the complete ban on new polluting industries.

‘Floods in Kerala grave... political lobbying prevented implementation of Gadgil report’ Rescuers evacuate people from a flooded area to a safer place in Aluva in Kerala (Reuters)
So, what did the Kasturirangan Committee say?

It broadened the definition of Western Ghats and included a total of 1,64,280 square km in it. It then classified it as comprising cultural landscape and natural landscape. It said nearly 60% of the Western Ghats was cultural landscape, where human settlements, agriculture and plantations existed. The remaining was natural landscape, of which the “biologically rich” area was only 37% or about 60,000 sq km. It was only this part that the committee said needed to be classified as ecologically sensitive area (ESA)

Its main recommendations for ESA

* Ban on mining, quarrying and sand mining
* No new thermal power projects, but hydro power projects allowed with restrictions
* Ban on new polluting industries
* Building and construction projects up to 20,000 sq m was to be allowed but townships were to be banned
* Forest diversion could be allowed with extra safeguards

What was finally decided?

Last year, the Environment Ministry issued a draft notification, demarcating an area of 56,285 sq km in the Western Ghats as ESA. This was slightly less than the 59,940 sq km recommended by the Kasturirangan committee. In Kerala, specifically, the Kasturirangan committee had proposed an area of 13,108 square km as part of ESA. This was brought down to 9,993.7 sq km at the insistence of Kerala government. A final demarcation of ESA in Western Ghats is still awaited.

Would implementation of the Gadgil report have lessened the impact of the Kerala floods?

The Kerala disaster essentially has been caused by extreme rainfall. Since the 2013 Uttarakhand flooding, such extreme rainfall events have led to one disaster-like situation in India every year. The Gadgil report was submitted in 2011. Even if the state governments had begun implementing the recommendations in all seriousness immediately thereafter, it is not clear what activities would have stopped. What Gadgil seems to be arguing for is the need to learn lessons from past tragedies, and increase the resilience of disaster-struck areas through sustainable and long-term development that would involve minimal intervention in natural processes. Even in the Uttarakhand disaster, uncontrolled construction, large hydropower plants and deforestation were assessed to have aided the scale of destruction.

NOTE :-

Gadgil Committee :-

1. Profile :-
Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel
Gadgil Commission Report.jpg
Gadgil Commission Report
Abbreviation WGEEP
Successor Kasturirangan Commission
Location
Environmental Science
Region served
Western Ghats
Chairman
Madhav Gadgil

2. Introduction :-

The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), also known as the Gadgil Commission after its chairman Madhav Gadgil, was an environmental research commission appointed by the Ministry of Environment and Forests of India. The commission submitted the report to the Government of India on 31 August 2011. The Expert Panel approached the project through a set of tasks such as : -

*Compilation of readily available information about Western Ghats
*Development of Geo-spatial database based on environmental sensitivity, and
*Consultation with Government bodies and Civil society groups.
*People in Kerala, especially Christian organizations, strongly protested the implementation of the report since most of the farmers in the hilly regions are Christians, especially in Wayanad. During the 20th century, a very large number of Christians had migrated from southern Kerala and acquired forest land in Wayanad and other areas with abundant forest and waste land, in what is known as Malabar Migration. The Gagdil Committee report was criticised for being excessively environment-friendly and not in tune with the ground realities.

3. Ecology Expert Panel :-

I. Chairman : Professor Madhav Gadgil, Ph.D (Harvard University), Former HOD, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

II. Members :

*Dr. V.S. Vijayan, Ph.D. (University of Mumbai), Founder Director, Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, Coimbatore; Former Chairman, the Kerala State Biodiversity Board.
*Prof. (Ms.) Renee Borges, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
*Prof. R. Sukumar, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
*Dr. Ligia Noronha
*Dr. K.N. Ganeshaiah
*Shri. B.J. Krishnan
*Ms Vidya S. Nayak
*Dr. D. K. Subramaniam

III. Ex-officio members :

*Dr. R.V. Varma, Chairman, The Kerala State Biodiversity Board
*Chairman, National Biodiversity Authority(NBA)
*Prof S.P. Gautam, Chairman, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB)
*Dr. R.R. Navalgund, Director, Space Application Centre (SAC)
*Dr. G.V. Subrahmanyam, Advisor (RE), Ministry of Environment & Forests, Government of India, New Delhi.

2. Major recommendations of Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) :-

*The panel recommended a National-level authority, Western Ghats Ecology Authority (WGEA).
*The Gadgil Committee report was criticised for being too environment-friendly.
*The report was considered by UNESCO, which added the 39 serial sites of the Western Ghats on the World Heritage List.

3. Kasturirangan Report :-

The Kasturirangan committee report has sought to balance the two concerns of development and environment protection, by watering down the environmental regulation regime proposed by the Western Ghats Ecology Experts Panel’s Gadgil report in 2012. The Kasturirangan report seeks to bring just 37% of the Western Ghats under the Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) zones — down from the 64% suggested by the Gadgil report. Dr. V.S. Vijayan, member of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) said recommendations of the Kasturirangan report are undemocratic and anti-environmental.

A crucial report on Western Ghats prepared by K. Kasturirangan-led high-level working group (HLWG) has recommended prohibition on development activities in 60,000 km2 ecologically sensitive area spread over Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

The 10-member panel, constituted to examine the Western Ghats ecology expert panel report prepared under the leadership of environmentalist Madhav Gadgil, has also moved away from the suggestions of the Gadgil panel.

The Gadgil panel had recommended a blanket approach consisting of guidelines for sector-wise activities, which could be permitted in the ecologically sensitive zones.

3.1. Livelihood options -

“Environmentally sound development cannot preclude livelihood and economic options for this region... The answer (to the question of how to manage and conserve the Ghats) will not lie in removing these economic options, but in providing better incentives to move them towards greener and more sustainable practices,” the HLWG report says.

The panel submitted the report to Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan.

3.2. Prohibitory regime :-

Roughly 37 per cent of the total area defined as the boundary of the Western Ghats is ecologically sensitive. Over this area of some 60,000 km, spread over the States of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the working group has recommended a prohibitory regime on those activities with maximum interventionist and destructive impact on the environment, the panel says in its report.

The Working Group was constituted to advise the government on the recommendations of an earlier report of ecologist Madhav Gadgil-led "Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel" (WGEEP).

The WGEEP had recommended 64% of Western Ghats to be declared as an ecologically sensitive area. It had suggested three levels of categorization where regulatory measures for protection would be imposed and had recommended the establishment of the Western Ghats Ecology Authority for management of the Ghats.

The 10-member Working Group, headed by Planning Commission member Kasturirangan, has environmental experts and other professionals as its members.

“The Western Ghats is a biological treasure trove that is endangered, and it needs to be protected and regenerated, indeed celebrated for its enormous wealth of endemic species and natural beauty”, the report says.

Natarajan said that the recommendations would be looked into urgently so that action can be taken to address these challenges.

Kasturirangan said, “The message of this report is serious, alarming and urgent. It is imperative that we protect, manage and regenerate the lands now remaining in the Western Ghats as biologically rich, diverse, natural landscapes”.

OPINION : -

Were the Kerala floods caused only due to nature’s fury? -  NOT ALONE - ALSO MAN MADE !!!

I.
Besides nature’s fury, the situation in Kerala is also a man-made problem. There is encroachment of river beds and along the dams. Kerala has become a hotbed of illegal quarrying. The problem has aggravated because the Kerala government outrightly rejected the Madhav Gadgil report regarding Western Ghats. Gadgil had warned the government that illegal mining and deforestation, in the name of development and tourism, had led to massive encroachments on river side and lake sides. There was an urgent need for corrective action. There is political lobbying against implementation of the Madhav Gadgil report in Kerala.

II.
Ecological exploitation of Western Ghats led to Kerala floods. But the worst is yet to come
Political lobbying and opposition from all six states along the ecologically sensitive zone forced the Centre to rethink implementation of Gadgil report.

III.
Reducing risks in southern India would mean prioritising conservation of the Western Ghats, which has been neglected unfortunately.

IV.
The recent floods have brought conservation of the Western Ghats back into focus. States along the Western Ghats have succumbed to vested interests and allowed mining, quarrying, unsustainable farming practices and real estate development along the hills ignoring sustainable development and protection of the ecology.

This policy has invariably weakened one of India's oldest hill ranges making it vulnerable to natural disasters like floods and landslides.

The Western Ghats runs along peninsular India from Gujarat to the tip of southern India, it cuts across Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

V.
The region claims 1,500 and 500 endemic species of flora and fauna, respectively. The hills have also sustained numerous indigenous tribes for centuries and did not have large-scale human settlements until the British razed deciduous and evergreen forests to make way for less sustainable monoculture of rapid-growing teak and eucalyptus plantations, and cash crops such as coffee and tea.

Plantations and industries established by the British were bolstered after independence. Additionally, a network of dams and infrastructure for mining was developed and consolidated with little regard for the environment.

However, at the turn of the 21st century, the government intervened and attempted to reverse these policies and put conservation at the forefront. The Forest Rights Act, 2006, for example, once again made the indigenous tribes — once termed encroachers of forests — key stakeholders in the management of forests and its produce.

Similarly, the government introduced the Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations in 2006 and passed the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010, which created a body to scrutinise the environmental impact of projects before granting environmental clearance and a tribunal to expedite and dispose of cases pertaining to environmental issues, respectively.

However, former minister of environment Jairam Ramesh's meeting with civil society groups working to protect the Western Ghats in 2010 and the formation of the Western Ghats Ecology Panel or Gadgil Committee, led by Pune-based scientist Madhav Gadgil, brought hope that the area could be protected.

In its report submitted to the central government on August 31, 2011, the committee defined Western Ghats as the mountainous region encompassing 1.29 lakh square km, stretching 1,490 kms from Tapi Valley in the north to Kanyakumari in south, with a maximum width of 210 km in Tamil Nadu and minimum of 48 km in Maharashtra.

It proposed designating the entire zone as ecologically sensitive area (ESA). It identified smaller grids within the ESA as ecologically sensitive zones (ESZ) — I, II or III — and proposed regulations based on their existing condition and nature of threat within.

VI.
The committee also recommended stringent measures to prohibit degradation of land and proposed ways to reclaim the Western Ghats. The recommendations include:

1) Complete ban on cultivation of genetically modified crops in the entire area

2) Phasing out use of plastic in the entire region within three years

3) Prohibited creation of new Special Economic Zones or hill stations in the ESA

4) Complete ban on conversion of public lands to private lands, and on diversion of forest land for non-forest purposes in ESZ I and II

5) Prohibiting new mining operations in ESZ I and II area

6) Ending proliferation of dams, thermal power plants and large-scale wind power projects in ESZ I

7) No new railway lines or major roads in ESZ I and II areas

8) Regulation of tourism

9) Phase-out of all chemical pesticides within five to eight years in ESZ I and ESZ II

10) Last and most importantly, the committee proposed a Western Ghats Ecology Authority to regulate these activities throughout the area

Unfortunately, political lobbying and opposition from all six states forced the government to rethink its implementation. The Gadgil report was deliberately withheld by the government from public despite RTI applications seeking a summary of the report.

This highlights the influence of the mining and real estate lobby at all levels of governance. It was only after the intervention of the Central Information Commissioner and the Delhi High Court that the document made public.

However, by the time the Gadgil panel report was made public, Jayanthi Natarajan, the then environment minister constituted a high-level working group under Kasturirangan to review the Gadgil report.

The new committee was primarily formed owning to the opposition from vested interests and states governments.

The Kasturirangan committee report, submitted to the central government in April 2013, said that of the nearly 1,750 responses it received, 81 per cent were not in favour of the implementation of the Gadgil recommendations.

Unfortunately, citizens who supported the Gadgil report were denied the opportunity to respond as the government refused to make the findings public. Only government agencies and private entities with business interests in the Western Ghats were considered 'stakeholders' in the region.

All states, however, opposed the Gadgil report, Kerala for example, had objected to the proposed ban on sand mining and quarrying, restrictions on transport infrastructure and wind energy projects, embargos on hydroelectric projects, and inter-basin transfer of river waters. It also objected to the complete ban on new polluting industries. Karnataka mobilised farmers to protest the recommendation that involved changing agricultural practice saying it would be detrimental to the livelihood of lakhs of farmers.

VII.
The Kasturirangan report broadened the definition of Western Ghats and included a total of 1,64,280 square km in it. Owing to backlash from states with respect to ESA in the Gadgil report, the Kasturirangan report distinguished the Western Ghats into cultural landscape and natural landscape.

It said nearly 60 per cent of the Western Ghats was cultural landscape, where human settlements, agriculture and plantations existed. The remaining was natural landscape, of which the biologically rich area was only 37 per cent or about 60,000 sq km. It was only this part that the committee said needed to be classified as ESA. The Gadgil report, on the other hand, recommended classifying 64 per cent of the area under ESA.

The Kasturirangan report recommended a ban on mining, quarrying and sand mining, banned new thermal power projects, but allowed hydro power projects with restrictions, allowed building and construction projects for areas up to 20,000 sq m.

While the report recommended a few regulations, it diluted numerous provisions recommended in the Gadgil report, including diverting forests for constructions and real estate development.

Despite being heavily diluted, concerned states opposed even the Kasturirangan report and a final demarcation of ESA is pending due to delay and the constant ping pong between states and the Centre. Kerala has submitted its review and comments to the Centre with a proposal to reduce the area of ESA from 13,108 sq km recommended in the Kasturirangan report to 9,993.7 sq km.

Karnataka, with an area of 20,668 sq km notified as ESA, the largest among all six states, has refused to accept the findings of the report. In its correspondence to the Centre on August 16, 2018, Dr Sandeep Dave, additional chief secretary, forest, ecology stated that Karnataka disagrees with the findings of Kasturirangan report and has stated that the state will cooperate if the environment ministry sets up a committee to look into the concerns of the state. The irony is that Karnataka's response came during the height of the floods in Kodagu and other areas along the Western Ghats.

Karnataka's acceptance of Kasturirangan report might jeopardise the state's plan to divert water from the west flowing Netravati and Sharavati rivers towards the east to provide water to far-flung districts of Kolar, Chikkaballapur, Bangalore Rural and Urban. These two projects fall well within the ESA envisioned in the Kasturirangan report and will result in loss of vast tracts of forest as the infrastructure involves setting up power lines, canals and roads in the Western Ghats.

Similarly, Maharashtra objected to provisions in the Gadgil committee report that prohibited setting up of new SEZ and hill stations. It sought to further reduce ESA recommended in the Kasturirangan report to protect the interests of Lavasa Corporation Limited, which is in the midst of establishing a controversial hill station in phases in Pune's Mulshi Taluk.

In addition to this, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have stated that they have laws and regulations in place to protect the Western Ghats. Unfortunately, despite regulations a report released by the French Institute, Puducherry has reported that the district of Kodagu has lost 40 per cent of its tree cover since 1967.

The crux of the matter is that the states in the south, particularly Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, are against an overarching Western Ghats Ecology Authority that will overlook implementation of recommendations and other environmental laws. This would invariably mean that states will lose their autonomy in managing the Western Ghats.

It is unfortunate that the issue has been politicised and that there has been no conclusive end to creating a policy governing the Western Ghats. Concerned states and the Centre must prioritise conservation of the entire region and the Western Ghats must be treated as a contiguous landmass that is crucial to sustaining biodiversity and its people.

Governments' seem to ignore the utility of the hills and its influence on rivers and lives of people in the plains of peninsular India. Almost all rivers in peninsular India originate in the Western Ghats and hence any policy with respect to the hills will have consequences for the whole of southern India.

Additionally, deforestation and change in landscape along the Western Ghats has made the region susceptible to natural calamities. The recent floods in Karnataka and Kerala highlight the growing trend. It's not just floods that are a concern, but the region is also susceptible to droughts, parts of Karnataka, including Kodagu, were declared drought affected for nearly a decade until rains flooded the district this year.

Therefore, any policy with respect to the Western Ghats must have a robust Disaster Risk Reduction mechanism and this only means prioritising conservation, protecting forests and incentivising sustainable farming practises.

"Solutions for conservation are in place but the political will to endorse and implement the same is lacking."

JAIHIND

VANDEMATHARAM