Eco-Sensitive Zones and Long Debate between Environment Conservation and Economic Development

Madhav Gadgil report on Western Ghats

The commission is formally known as Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP). It was an environmental research commission is named after its chairman Madhav Gadgil. 

Summary of Gadgil Commission Report is as follows:

• Designated the entire Western Ghats as an Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA): It recommended to assign three levels of Ecological Sensitivity to different regions of Western Ghats. The panel classified the extensive region of 64% of the Western Ghats, spanning over six States, 44 districts and 142 taluks, into Ecologically Sensitive Zones, called ESZ 1, ESZ 2 and ESZ 3. 
• ESZ-1 of the Ghats was given high priority: almost all developmental activities like mining, construction of thermal power plants, dams etc were suggested to stop along with the decommissioning of similar projects that have completed their shelf life. 
• Advocates a graded or layered approach of conservation:  with regulatory as well as promotional measures appropriately fine-tuned to local ecological and social contexts within the broad framework of ESZ1, ESZ2 and ESZ3. 
• Suggested a better way of governance of the environment: It proposed a bottom to top approach instead of a top to bottom approach, basically, the decentralization and more powers to local authorities.
• Suggested the need to regulate developmental activities: stopping creation of  new hill stations, changing the land use from farmland to non-farm land and the stoppage of diversions of rivers in order to protect the ecology of the region. 
• Constitution of a Western Ghats Ecology Authority (WGEA), as a statutory authority under the Ministry of Environment and Forests, with the powers under Section 3 of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.

Kasturirangan report:

 The Kasturirangan committee was constituted to examine the WGEEP report or Gadgil Report.

Officially it is known as  – high-level working group (HLWG) – it denotes the 10 member committee, headed by Kasturirangan.

Summary of recommendations are as follows:

• Opined that the “blanket prescription” approach of the Gadgil committee would be harmful to the economy.
• The report categorized areas on the basis of their ecological sensitivity.
• It classified 60% of the Western Ghats as a cultural landscape with human settlements, agriculture and plantations. Remaining area was termed as natural landscape, with37% “biologically rich” area
• Instead of the total area of Western Ghats, only 37% (close to  60,000 sq. km.) of the total area will be brought under ESA under the Kasturirangan report.
• A complete ban on mining, quarrying and sand mining in ESA.
• Distinguished between cultural (58% occupied in the Western Ghats by it like human settlements, agricultural fields and plantations) and natural landscape (90% of it should come under ESA according to the committee).
• Current mining areas in the ESA should be phased out within the next five years, or at the time of expiry of mining lease, whichever is earlier.
• No thermal power be allowed and hydropower projects are allowed only after detailed study.
• Red industries, i.e. which are highly polluting, are strictly banned in ESAbareas.
• The Kasturirangan report on the Western Ghats has made several pro-farmer recommendations, including the exclusion of inhabited regions and plantations from the purview of ecologically sensitive areas (ESAs).
• The Kasturirangan report had said 123 villages fall under the ESA purview.
•  It also stated that the UNESCO Heritage tag is an opportunity to build global and domestic recognition of the enormous natural wealth that exists in the Western Ghats. The 39 sites are located across the Western Ghats and distributed across the states (Kerala 19), Karnataka (10), Tamil Nadu (6) and Maharashtra (4). 
• The state of Karnataka has the highest percentage of the ESA- 46.50 per cent.

Opposition of the states: Moves of Kerala and Karnataka

• The Gadgil Committee report prioritized the Environment and recommended measures keeping it at the centre.
• Whereas the Kasturirangan  committee tried to balance the recommendations with development, simultaneously with safeguards. 
• However, both the reports have evoked sharp reactions from the stakeholders

Karnataka’s position: 

• The Karnataka government has repeatedly rejected the implementation of the Kasturirangan report. 
• The state government believes that implementation of the report will halt the developmental activities in the region. 
• CM Bommai said that Karnataka has the distinction of being one of the states with extensive forest cover and the government has taken care to protect the biodiversity of Western Ghats.
• Kasturirangan report has been prepared based on the satellite images, but the ground reality is different. So the Karnataka government and the people living in the region are opposed to implementation of the Kasturirangan report. 
• In Karnataka, the government has pointed out that the implementation of the report would impact 1,576 villages spread across 20,668 sq km of Western Ghats region in the state.
• The union government since 2014 has issued several draft notifications to the Karnataka government to finalise the eco-sensitive areas in the Western Ghats but the government has been firm in rejecting the implementation of the report.

Moves by Kerala

• Kerala appointed the Oommen V Oommen committee to review the Kasturirangan panel’s recommendations since the latter had not physically visited the Western Ghats region in Kerala before demarcating 9,993.7 square kilometres as ESA.
• Later, the State constituted another panel under P H Kurian for a more scientific appraisal of the Kasturirangan report. 
• The Kurian committee found that the ESA would be confined to 92 villages spread over 8,656.4 square kilometres. Kerala had submitted the report to the Centre in 2018.
• Kerala has urged the Central Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change to define ‘non-core’ areas in the Western Ghats, where relaxation in Western Ghats environmental protection regulations is applicable
• It asked the Centre to demarcate the Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) without unsettling the present population living in the region.
• Also demand for excluding 1,337.24 square kilometres from the ESA.

Effect on the economic development of the communities

• It is claimed that declaring Western Ghats as an ecologically sensitive zone would adversely affect the livelihood of people in the region. 
• Considering the changes in climate (evident from recurring floods, droughts, landslides, increasing temperature, etc), which would affect the livelihood of all people (irrespective of poor or rich) and hurt the nation’s economy. 
• It is prudent to conserve the fragile ecosystems that cost less compared to the situation prone to calamities (with changes in the climate) than spending money /resources for restoration / rejuvenation.