T. R. Shankar Raman
The Hindu, July 3, 2014
“One of the hardest things in politics,” U.S. President
Barack Obama said in a recent interview, “is getting a democracy to deal
with something now where the pay-off is long term or the price of
inaction is decades away.” Obama’s words are pertinent not only to the
U.S.; they are also relevant to the other great democracy and its
spanking new government on the other side of the planet: India.
The
science whose central concern is the long term and leaving a healthy
environment for future generations is ecology. And within ecology, on a
planetary scale, it is the science of climate change. So when India’s
new government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi renamed the Ministry
of Environment and Forests (MoEF) appending ‘and Climate Change’, it was
a timely move. It signalled that even as the government pursues its
stated policy of industrial and infrastructural expansion for economic
growth, it would place tackling climate change firmly on its agenda,
along with the protection of environment, forests, and wildlife.
But a series of media reports belie this interpretation. According to
these reports, the MoEF, in its new avatar, plans to redefine what an
inviolate forest is so that more forests can be opened for mining. It
proposes to dilute environmental norms and procedures to bypass existing
legal requirements for large infrastructure and defence projects. The
government announced plans to increase the height of the Sardar Sarovar
dam, raising concerns over the rehabilitation of 2,50,000 people, even
as a ‘leaked’ Intelligence Bureau report attacked NGOs for working on
‘people-centric’ issues. Meanwhile, the MoEF has been silent on other
pressing needs: releasing the long overdue India State of Forest Report
2013, acting to save critically endangered species such as the Great
Indian Bustard (now down to less than 300 individual birds in the wild),
or implementing proactive measures to combat climate change. Within
hours of taking charge as Minister of State for Environment, Forests and
Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar said with unsettling brevity in a TV
interview: “... India needs a window for growth and emissions and other
things.” To his credit, Mr. Javadekar has promised to ensure that
environmental protection and developmental activities will go together.
While it is too early to assess promise against practice, this is as
good a time as any to recount five lessons from ecology on why
environmental protection should concern India’s new government and
people.
Thinking long term
Obama’s words point
to lesson one: ecology takes the long view. Development projects
promoted for short-term gains may have unaccounted long-term costs. The
previous United Progressive Alliance government allowed the conversion
or loss of over 7,00,000 hectares of forest — an area the size of Sikkim
— for development projects and non-forest uses. Natural forests of
diverse native tree species function as watersheds, wildlife habitats,
and sources of livelihood for tribal, farming, and fishing communities,
contributing to long-term human well-being in ways not captured by
indices such as annual GDP growth.
The science of
restoration ecology attests that such diverse natural forests and the
living soils they spring from, once destroyed, are difficult and costly
or infeasible to bring back, and appreciable recovery may still take
decades to centuries. This is not adequately factored into the
estimation of net present value (NPV) of forests that tries to
approximate economic losses over a 20-year period, by which time the
losses are ‘recovered’ in compensatory afforestation sites. A project
developer pays out the NPV — at current rates, a maximum of Rs 10.43
lakh per hectare for very dense forests in the most biologically rich
regions such as the Western Ghats — and flattens football fields of
forests for the price of a mid-range SUV. Furthermore, compensatory
afforestation, if carried out at all, frequently involves raising
plantations of one or few alien tree species such as eucalyptus and
wattles. Such artificial forests are no substitute for the more diverse
natural forests of mixed native species, including centuries-old trees.
This is why, as the Modi government worries over its 100-day report
card, ecologists will be concerned about its 100-year fallout.
Lesson
two is that ecology is a science of connections. Pluck the hornbills
out of their forest home, and forest trees whose seeds the birds
disperse begin to decline. Strip the oceans of sharks and predatory fish
with industrial fishing and entire ecosystems and livelihoods of
artisanal fishers unravel in what ecologists call a trophic cascade. So,
the wholesale construction of 300 large dams in the Himalaya as
proposed by the government would not just generate power, but have other
negative consequences radiating down the chains and webs of life,
including to people downstream. When these are taken into account,
implementing fewer and smaller projects or alternatives appears more
attractive.
The third lesson, the mandala of
ecology, is that ecology closes the loop. Nature recycles, without
externalities, wasting little. If the government applied this to
everything from recycling municipal waste to curtailing pollution by
industries, it could generate jobs and induce growth without leaving
behind irredeemable wastes.
Fourth, ecological
processes transcend political boundaries. We pump CO and other
greenhouse gases into the common pool of our atmosphere anywhere and
affect people and the earth’s fabric of life everywhere. To conserve
tigers and elephants in protected reserves, we need to retain connecting
corridors and forests, some spanning state or international boundaries.
Development and infrastructure projects can be designed and implemented
such that they do not further disrupt fragmented landscapes, but
instead help retain remnant forests or reconnect vital linkages.
The science of home
Finally,
ecology teaches us that humans are not external to nature. Land and
nature are not commodities that can be bought or sold recklessly or
reduced to a packaged spectacle for tourists to gawk at. They form the
community we belong to: we are part of nature, it is home. In the debate
over ecology versus economy, we must remind ourselves that both words
originate from the greek word oikos, meaning home. The science of our
home environment (ecology) must inform the management of our home
resources (economy). What is often forgotten in the debate falsely
caricatured as environment versus development is that for almost every
destructive project, there are often alternatives and means of
implementation that cause less harm to environment and local
communities, and can provide overall long-term benefits. For instance,
roads can be routed to avoid wildlife sanctuaries and provide better
connection to peripheral villages, thus helping both people and
wildlife. Decentralised village power generation systems that use
biomass, solar power, and other renewable sources can help reduce
reliance on mega power projects plagued by corruption and requiring long
power lines that suffer transmission losses and cause forest
fragmentation. There are already many promising examples of ecologically
sensitive development. If ecologists, engineers, and economists
synergise their efforts, and the government chooses to exercise its
electoral mandate to take the long view, there can be many more. The
integration of ecological considerations into economic development is
vital and valuable if, in the pursuit of profit, we are to ensure the
long-term well-being of people and planet.
(T. R. Shankar Raman is a scientist with the Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore.)
