The Union Environment and Forests Ministry (MoEF) last week issued a fresh draft notification marking the ecologically sensitive zones (ESZs) in the Western Ghats that supersedes the earlier draft notification of March 10, 2014 of the UPA government. This draft notification came, when the ministry should have been issuing the final notification demarcating the ESZs in the Western Ghats, resulting in a delay in ensuring the protection of the Western Ghats. As per the March 2014 draft notification, the final notification should have been issued within 545 days from that date. Since this deadline could not be met, the government at the Centre issued the draft notification extending the deadline by two months.
The MoEF has clarified that while the new draft notification does not change the provisions laid out in the earlier draft, it definitely clears the air of any apprehensions and concerns that the inhabitants of the Western Ghats and those in the concerned States may have regarding the ESZs. Essentially, the MoEF says that all the points made in the 2014 draft notification continue to be effective, and that the final notification, when it comes expectedly in two months from now, will in no manner affect the 50 million people living in the area or their agricultural and plantation activities.
This draft notification was necessitated, reasons MoEF, as the ministry is awaiting the reports from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu before issuing the final notification. The four other States that come in the Western Ghats corridor – Gujarat, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala – have already submitted their reports following physical verification of the areas and the views of all the six States will be incorporated in the final notification.
While bureaucratic red tape may be ascribed to the postponement of issuing the final notification, this surely leads to the question of: just how serious is the Central government on declaring the ESZs in the Western Ghats? There have been too many postponements in finalizing the ESZs for the Western Ghats, and this is yet another delay.
The Union Environment and Forests Minister Prakash Javadekar asserted that his ministry’s focus is to conserve the biodiversity of the Western Ghats, while ‘providing adequate opportunities for livelihood security of the local people in the broad paradigm of ecologically sensitive area, which is not just about regulation of development, but is intimately linked to positive promotion of environment-friendly and socially inclusive development’. It ended up being a rather long-winded statement that says nothing new other than dishing out the usual spiel. That is what most politicians are good at and that is perhaps why the ESZs in the Western Ghats are still awaiting protection, because the politicians are good at providing excuses for postponements, when they should be doing their job.
The conservation of the Western Ghats, that span the States of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, is immensely important for the area is an ecological hotspot, often described as ‘one of the eight hottest hotspots’ and is a UNESCO recognized World Heritage Site. Home to tigers and various other animals, including the endangered species of the long-tailed macaque, and a large number of endemic species especially of birds, the Western Ghats are in urgent need of protection.
The process of demarcating ESZs in the Western Ghats started five years ago. The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel headed by Madhav Gadgil had been appointed in 2010 and submitted its report in 2011. When the report was cheered by environmentalists and criticized by others, the government set up the Kasturirangan Committee who then made its recommendations, attempting to strike a balance between environment conservation and development. The States that have the Western Ghats within their boundaries were then asked to physically verify the report and make their recommendations. This is the report awaited from two of the States.
The demarcation of the ESZs will boost environmental protection in Goa as well, as much of the State’s entire eastern region is made up of the Sahyadri range of mountains. The protection of these mountains is of immense importance to maintain the ecological balance of the State and any delay in doing so will not be of benefit to Goa.
