Eco-sensitive areas: NGT puts ball in MoEF court

Meena Menon
NEW DELHI, 
The Hindu, September 25, 2014 

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Wednesday put the onus of deciding eco-sensitive areas (ESA) in the Western Ghats on the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and said it would pass judgment in the case on Thursday.

Justice Swatanter Kumar of the NGT pointed out that the latest affidavit filed by the MoEF on Monday had opened up the issue of eco-sensitive areas. He said that the MoEF should take the responsibility for the ESAs and ensure no project came up in the Western Ghats till the ESA was finalised.

The MoEF in its affidavit filed by Secretary Ashok Lavasa said that the ESA as stated in the draft notification [based on the Kasturirangan report] dated March 10, 2014 forms the basis for demarcation of ESAs by physical verification by the State governments of the Western Ghats region.

Such proposals of States received after physical verification would be examined by the Ministry before taking a view on further appropriate action, including issuing a fresh draft notification if required, to seek objections from the public on the proposals received from state governments. So far, only Kerala has submitted its ESA and other States have time till December 15, 2014 to submit proposals.

When counsel for the MoEF said the basis of the ESA was the Kasturirangan report, the NGT asked if areas in excess of the Kasturirangan report were included in the final notification on ESA (as indicated in the MoEF’s latest affidavit) and there were projects happening in those areas, what was the Ministry going to do? Therefore, it indicated that the Ministry should clearly notify the ESA, but did not specify which report it should follow. The NGT asked the Ministry to expedite the demarcation of ESAs and go Statewise instead of waiting for all States to come up with their ESAs.

State’s concern

K.K. Venugopal, counsel for the Kerala government, wanted a clarification on what was the basis of the ESA, to which Justice Kumar said the MoEF should decide this. He said the NGT was not going to interfere in the Ministry’s working.

Mr. Venugopal said Kerala had done everything that was needed and it was concerned whether a new ESA notification would impinge on the State’s ability to carry out projects. However, the MoEF counsel said that Kerala had narrowed down the ESA and it was less than what was recommended in the Kasturirangan report and it would have to be examined.

 

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Environment Ministry dumps Gadgil report on Western Ghats

Meena Menon
NEW DELHI,  
The Hindu, August 27, 2014 

After being directed to take a clear stand, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) on Wednesday informed the National Green Tribunal (NGT) that it was “not processing” Madhav Gadgil’s Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) report for any further action.

In an affidavit filed in response to a petition by the Goa Foundation, the Ministry said all future activity would be based on the report of the high-level working group (HLWG) headed by K. Kasturirangan, the then member of the Planning Commission. The HLWG report was a subsequent report to the WGEEP report and the Ministry was examining and further processing the HLWG report, the affidavit said.

The affidavit comes in response to an August 25 NGT order where the Ministry was asked to explain its position vis-à-vis the Gadgil report.

The affidavit said the Ministry had constituted the HLWG on August 17, 2012 to examine the WGEEP report in a holistic and multidisciplinary fashion keeping in view the comments received from State governments concerned, Central ministries and stakeholders. The HLWG submitted its report on April 15, 2013. The Ministry issued a direction under Section 5 of the Environment Protection Act on November 13, 2013 ordering immediate protection to the Western Ghats and maintaining its environmental integrity. A draft notification was published on March 10, 2014, declaring ecologically sensitive areas in the Western Ghats to which objections had been invited.

Raj Panjwani, counsel for the Goa Foundation, said the area which was declared ecologically sensitive came down from 1.29 lakh sq km to 56,825 sq km in the Kasturirangan report. He contended that the area which was left out also needed protection. The tribunal asked him to file objections to the draft notification delineating the eco-sensitive zones as per the Kasturirangan report. Mr. Panjwani said he had no objection to file the same. He said the concern was a large area was left out which needed protection.

Counsel for the Ministry said the government was open to considering extension of areas to be declared eco-sensitive and sought time to get back on whether this was possible. The next hearing will be held on September 9.

An Environment Ministry official later said the Gadgil report was not jettisoned and it was the basis for the Kasturirangan report.

The NGT on Monday asked the Ministry to clarify its stand on the Gadgil report which was opposed by most of the seven State governments since it restricted development in much of the Western Ghats region and had declared about 1.29 lakh hectares eco-sensitive. The NGT headed by Justice Swatanter Kumar had hauled up the Ministry for not taking a clear stand on the fate of the Gadgil report. 

 

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Western Ghats: fresh round of consultations recommended

Bangalore,  
The Hindu, May 4, 2014

Calling for “reconciliation” between the two fairly divergent and much-debated reports on the Western Ghats — the first by a panel headed by ecologist Madhav Gadgil and second by a committee led by Planning Commission member K. Kasturirangan — scientist R. Sukumar has said another round of consultations should pave the way to resolving the issue.

Talk held

Neither report had been accepted by Karnataka or Kerala, he said while speaking on ‘Western Ghats: confusion over conservation?’ here on Saturday.

Prof. Sukumar, who is a member of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel headed by Prof. Gadgil, said that a fresh round of consultations “is the responsibility” of the Union and State governments. The talk was organised by the Indian Institute of Public Administration (Karnataka regional branch).

The Kasturirangan committee could have “refined” or “modified” the Gadgil report but instead “threw out our report and came up with an entirely new one”.

The major difference in the two reports was on the extent of ecologically sensitive area (ESA) that each recommended, Prof. Sukumar said.

While the Gadgil report sees the entire Western Ghats as ESA (under three levels of protection), the Kasturirangan report suggests 37 per cent of the total area be brought under ESA.

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Panel to work out plans to meet Ghats report fallout

Girish Menon
Thiruvananthapuram,  
The Hindu, March 4, 2014 

The Congress-Government Coordination Committee that will meet here on Tuesday is expected to work out a strategy to tackle the possible fallout of the K. Kasturirangan report on the conservation of Western Ghats that has identified 123 villages in the State as ecologically sensitive areas (ESAs).

Senior party leaders are expecting some sort of action from the Union government, at least to the extent of accepting the Oommen V. Oommen panel report that had recommended exemption from the ESA provisions for an area over 3,000 sq miles, including populated areas and rubber plantations. Congress leaders said they would be happy if the Union government were to issue orders to achieve this objective, as it would give the party much-wanted advantage in the campaign for the Lok Sabha polls.

If the Centre does issue the promised course correction, the Congress leadership will have to work its way out of the problems created by the report, and recapture its space among the settler segments of the electorate. If the amendments do not come through, then the leadership will find itself in a political bind that might not be easy to untie.

Communal imbalance

The Congress leadership spent a major part of the past three years trying to correct the communal imbalance in a coalition that had a pre-dominant minority tilt. The correction was achieved with the induction of Ramesh Chennithala as Home Minister and V.M. Sudheeran as the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president.

It is an irony that the party should find itself at odds with the settler community and the Catholic Church, both of whom have been steadfast supporters of the Congress and the United Democratic Front, that too at a time when the coalition leaders believed that they were on a good political wicket.

Party leaders here are inclined to blame the Centre for its slow reaction to the political impact of the Kasturirangan report. “The Chief Minister had, in his memorandum to the Prime Minister in the last week of January, highlighted the urgency of accepting Kerala’s demand for changes. The response of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests appears to be ambiguous,” a senior Congress leader said. The Congress leaders might find it difficult to keep down criticism against Union Minister for Environment and Forests M. Veerappa Moily’s actions, sources said.

Party sources said a specific agenda had not been fixed for the party-Government Coordination Committee meeting. The committee’s meeting on January 17 had kept aside several issues for in-depth discussions at a later date. These included the Congress’s stand on the proposed Aranmula airport and code of conduct for ministers. The party leadership would be under pressure for time to discuss these matters.

 

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ESA draft in a day or two: Oommen

T. Nandakumar
Thiruvananthapuram,  
The Hindu, March 1, 2014 

The Central Government is expected to issue a draft notification excluding about 2,500 sq km of human settlements, plantations and agricultural land from the Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) earmarked by the High Level Working Group (HLWG) for conservation of the Western Ghats headed by K. Kasturirangan, according to Oommen V. Oommen, chairman of a three-member panel set up by the state to study the impact of the HLWG report.

Prof. Oommen, who represented Kerala at an official discussion convened by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) in New Delhi on Thursday, said he had received an assurance from MoEF officials that the draft notification on implementation of the HLWG report would be issued in a day or two. He said the official delegation from Kerala had submitted land-use records and other documents to convince the MoEF officials of the need to take stakeholders into confidence while implementing the report.

Talking to The Hindu at the venue of the National Science Day celebrations here on Friday, he said the exemption of 2,500 sq km from the ESA regulations, including quarrying, mining, Red category industries, thermal power plants and construction of townships and buildings, would help remove the apprehensions of the people and ensure their involvement in the implementation of the HLWG report. “As beneficiaries of the Western Ghats conservation, it is the people who matter.”

Prof. Oommen said an expert committee comprising officials from the Kerala State Remote Sensing and Environment Centre (KSRSEC), Centre for Earth Science Studies and the Kerala State Biodiversity Board had validated the field reports and maps submitted by panchayat-level committees set up to verify the extent of ESAs in Kerala following widespread opposition to the HLWG’s demarcation based on satellite data.

“The expert committee’s assessment of the land use maps revealed that 2,500 sq km demarcated by the HLWG comprises settlements, farms and plantations. We have urged the MoEF to declassify this area as ESA in view of the mounting apprehensions of the public,” Prof. Oommen said.

The Kasturirangan committee had earmarked 123 villages spread over 13,108 sq km in Kerala as ESA, a figure including 12,477 sq km of natural landscape. Records produced by the Forest Department show the extent of the forest cover to be 11,309 sq km, including 9,108 sq km of reserve forest, 1,837 sq km of Environmentally Fragile Land (EFL) and 364 sq km of proposed reserve forest, while the maps available with the KSRSEC show the forest cover to be 9,997 sq km.

Prof. Oommen said the state had offered to take up the conservation of almost 1,000 sq km outside the reserve forest area. The figure represents the difference between the KSREC data and the reserve forest area shown in the Forest Department map.

 

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‘Ban on fresh mining, industries in Western Ghats still in effect’

Nitin Sethi
New Delhi,  
The Hindu, January 29, 2014 

Contradicting the statements made by M. Veerappa Moily, the Union Environment and Forests Ministry informed the National Green Tribunal on Tuesday that orders banning fresh industrial and mining activities in the Western Ghats continued to stand.

The Centre had not withdrawn approval for the Kasturirangan panel report or subsequent orders implementing it, the Ministry said.

Mr. Moily, a day after he took over as Environment Minister, said the Kasturirangan report — on restricting and banning industrial projects and mining in the Western Ghats — would be implemented only after consultation with State Chief Ministers.

He was widely reported in the media as stating that he would write to the Chief Ministers asking for their views and then take a decision.

The petitioners, Goa Foundation, in an ongoing case before the tribunal, referred to the news reports through its lawyers Raj Panjwani and Rahul Chowdhury to demand a clarification from the government.

As it emerged at the tribunal hearing on Tuesday, the Ministry had not actually reversed or withdrawn the orders passed under the Environment Protection Act, 1986 for implementation of the Kasturirangan report. These orders passed when Jayanthi Natarajan was the Environment and Forests Minister.

The issue threatens to snowball into a controversy in Kerala, where the State government in January announced that all mining quarries in the Western Ghats zone and below the size of five hectares could operate without environmental clearance.

Sources in the Environment Ministry said these quarries could add up to nearly 1,000.

During Ms. Natarajan’s tenure, the Ministry accepted the Kasturirangan report and began the process of declaring 60,000 square kilometres of Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Areas, where industrial and mining activity is either restricted or banned. On November 13, the Ministry passed orders under the EPA restricting any future project of mining, heavily polluting industries, thermal power plants, buildings and construction projects above 20,000 square metres and townships above 50 hectare lands or a 1,50,000-square-metre built- up area.

The Ministry ordered that any project proposals in the designated Western Ghats area received after 17 April 2013 for environmental clearances at either State or Central government level would not be entertained. But when Mr. Moily took over he indicated a go-slow on the controversial subject.

In sharp contrast, the Environment Ministry counsel informed the NGT on Tuesday that the November 13 orders stood valid.

The court recorded it in its orders while asking the Kerala government to explain its decision to allow mining in the ghats without environmental clearance.

In its written order the tribunal recorded, “Learned counsel appearing for the Ministry of Environment and Forests submits that the order dated 13th November, 2013 and the directions issued therein continue to remain in force.”

The matter is now posted for February 13.

 

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