Environmental Clearance Is Not Conservation

Let’s play environmental Wordle. Here: conservation means clearance, and cut trees mean new forests. In a year when all major environmental laws are being changed—for biodiversity, forests, and wildlife—some new environmental insights have come to light.

The Environment Ministry has a mandate to conserve the environment and India’s forests, and protect us from climate change. Logically, this means the ministry has to safeguard natural ecosystems, prevent the cutting of trees, and save species. Yet the ministry has made recent policy moves that are the antithesis to this mandate.

Faster Clearance Over Rigorous Appraisal

In a recent memorandum, the Environment Ministry has proposed ranking states with stars. It’s not for the number of trees planted, or tigers saved, or climate adaptation – but for how fast states can process environmental clearances. This is a relict of the idea that ‘environment will not stand in the way of development’, but also suggests that getting the project passed quickly is more important than an appraisal of the project.

Recently, the idea that a bruised environment such as cut forests can quickly be regenerated is one that is favoured by administrators.

In a recent comment, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav remarked that even plantations have an ecological value equal to a forest. Interestingly, most plantations are considered as forests only in the reports of the Forest Survey of India. Tea, coffee, coconut plantations do not have provisions of the Forest (Conservation) Act applied to them. They can be razed at any time. And new saplings, planted in lieu of forests cut down, take decades to grow.

Now, more plantations are being pushed. A serious fiscal commitment has been made for oil palm, with the government earlier suggesting North East India and Andaman and Nicobar islands (both heavily forested areas) are suitable for oil palm cultivation.

An analysis by Legal Initiative for Forests and Environment of Budget 2022 finds that the allocations for wildlife and environment organisations like Wildlife Institute of India, Central Zoo Authority, GB Pant Himalayan Institute of Environment and Development, Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, National Biodiversity Authority and Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education have been cut.

‘Power Play’ With Habitat

In another move that suggests a surrendering of its mandate, the Environment Ministry joined hands with the Power Ministry to tell the Supreme Court that high tension powerlines can’t be taken underground to safeguard the last habitat of the world’s last known viable breeding population of Great Indian Bustards in Thar desert (the birds die on collision with wires).

The GIB is the state bird of Rajasthan and also the Government of India’s mascot for the United Nations-led Convention on Migratory Species – the bird migrates between India and Pakistan. The GIB is a bird of savanna and desert areas, areas that are under threat from planned infrastructure like solar farms that are larger than towns. Savanna habitats store as much carbon as forests—carbon here is stored in the soil—but only if they are managed correctly as natural ecosystems. The alternatives to huge solar farms are planning rooftop solar units, or finding the will and technology to reroute transmission lines or take them underground.

The budget also includes the announcement of the Ken-Betwa river interlinking project in Madhya Pradesh which will link the Ken river to Betwa for providing more water.

It involves drowning 100 square kilometres of the Panna Tiger Reserve and countless trees, and the hydrology of the project, in terms of the amount of surplus or deficit water, has never really been made public.

The Environment Ministry appears to be bending to the will of powerlines, construction, and railways. In a recently proposed amendment to the Forest Conservation Act, the ministry asked for a right of way for trains in forests, rather than a right of way for animals). One is hard-pressed to find other ministries, or the government as a whole, bending to preserve nature or the environment.

What We Can Do Better

Instead of platitudes, the cause of the environment would be better served if we attempted the following.

Firstly, we should attempt to make innovation centres that honestly try to address conservation and developmental challenges. The centres should tackle, for example, how to take powerlines underground, how to avoid human-wildlife conflict at sites with industrial or human activity, and how to lower carbon intensity and restore ecosystems sector-wise, the last being a Glasgow Pact goal. It is interesting that the budget this year proposes all of Rs 4.75 crore for research and development for conservation.

Secondly, we must study disease in wild ecosystems more seriously. Each year, birds die mysteriously in India. This year, pelicans have died in Andhra Pradesh possibly because of a nematode (worm) infestation. As parents die, chicks are left unattended. In Western India, migratory Demoiselle cranes, lovingly fed by local people in Rajasthan, have died of suspected bird flu. The importance of understanding pathology and what conditions cause the spread of disease cannot be overstated.

Thirdly, best practices and learnings must be disseminated on a war footing.

The Indian spring is now rolling in. Birds are singing, flowers are blooming. As the days get sunnier and life slides back to normal after the third wave, it is important for us all to feel in control. Yet, control can only come from knowledge and preparedness. As we prepare for more pandemics, we need climate action, a habitable environment, and a sense that in a democracy, science is leading the way.

The work of a Ministry is to administer, to oversee, but it is also to lead through learning. As we go back to life as usual, we deserve no less than this benchmark.

Neha Sinha is a conservation biologist. She is the author of ‘Wild and Wilful - Tales of 15 iconic Indian species’ (HarperCollins India).

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BloombergQuint or its editorial team.