“The scheme’s shortcomings are obvious. No amount of money can be a substitute for the land required for our forests, and for our biodiversity and wildlife to thrive. Yet the government is trying to make it easy for entrepreneurs and industrialists to acquire forest land by permitting them to offer, in exchange, money (in the form of green credits), instead of land for land as was the case so far,” said the former civil servants under the banner Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG), a group that ensures the upholding of the Constitution

The CCG added that, when entrepreneurs can easily obtain forest land, it does not take much imagination to realise that the extent of land legally classified as forests will steadily shrink until there is virtually nothing left. “A new set of Green Credit invaders may ask for diversion of some of our densest and best-protected forests for commercial purposes like mining, industry, and infrastructure,” the CCG said in the open letter.

The Union environment ministry issued a notification last month saying corporations and other private entities can take up plantations on degraded land, including open forest and scrubland, wasteland, and catchment areas, under the administrative control of states to help generate green credits. The credits can be traded and used as a leadership indicator under corporate social responsibility.

State forest departments are required to identify all sparsely covered forest lands within their jurisdiction to be offered to private agencies/investors for funding to support plantations. The forest department has to complete afforestation within two years after receiving money from investors.

CCG said the government seems to have issued the rules in the belief that plantations absorb more carbon than natural scrublands. “This is not true. Plantations are usually fast-growing monocultures and it is a scientifically proven fact that they are poor at carbon sequestration when compared to natural ecosystems. Compensatory afforestation plantations already undertaken in our country are known to have dubious success rates.”

GCC underlined the importance of recognising that green credits as a concept is anachronistic. It added the idea has been seen as a tool for monetising the natural environment and handing it over to corporates for exploitation.

“To allow transfer of pristine forest lands to corporates, in exchange for green credits earned by them, by getting them to fund the forest department to plant degraded forest lands, is shocking indeed. More so, because the ecological values of these lands can be restored by the forest department itself, with the funds already at its disposal. This is a transaction weighted heavily in favour of Big Capital,” the CCG said.

In July 2023, CCG wrote another open letter critiquing the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, which allows the diversion of forests for defence/security infrastructure.

Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy led (climate and ecosystems) Debadityo Sinha last month said the rules are unscientific and completely ignore the ecological aspects of forests. “Referring to open forests, scrubland, and catchment areas as ‘degraded’ land parcels is vague… incentivising industrial-scale plantations in such areas will irreversibly alter soil quality, replace local biodiversity, and might be disastrous for local ecosystem services.”

The entire text of the communication may be read here:

The post Over 90 former civil servants have strongly opposed “Green Credit Rules” making corporate access to forests easy appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The question is whether the criticism of this religious practice, however questionable it may be, is selective outrage. Animal protection organisations will of course have a clear point to oppose it but when we look at environmental impact, do we care about many other things that severely affect the environment and ecological balance in activities that do not garner the outrage that is specifically reserved for some religious practices only. In this case, it is the practice of animal slaughter. True, sacrificing animals for religious purposes bby the entire community seems unnecessary and the environmental impact of the same is worth a debate. So let us also get into a debate about how mass felling of trees  affects air quality, building roads along the coast affecting marine life and reclaiming land, to name a few, have such deleterious impact on our environment and why it is also important to speak about them.

Even talks about environment protection have religious overtones to it in today’s discourse. As rightly pointed out by a 2018 article in The Print. If you tell Hindus to not burn polluting firecrackers on Diwali, you will be told to go tell Muslims to not slaughter goats on Bakrid or Eid al-Adha. If you complain about all-night loudspeaker jagrans, you will be asked how many times you have spoken against Muslims using loudspeakers for azaan, the daily prayer. Every year thousands of Ganesh idols made out of Plaster of Paris (PoP) and synthetic colours are immersed in the sea, causing serious damage to marine life and water pollution as well. Clearly, one cares about the environment only when it is convenient to do so and when it does not affect one’s own religious practice and tradition.

Animal sacrifice

Animal sacrifice or killing goats by halal during Bakra Eid in large numbers across the community is known to lead to tons of food wastage. Apart from this, the animal waste, or the parts of the animals that are not cooked for consumption is gathered in large quantities during this festival making it difficult for the local bodies to deal with such a huge amount of animal waste generated within just a day.

A 2020 article stated that in Hyderabad, during Bakra Eid, 4,725 metric tonnes of animal waste was generated and for collecting the same, the Municipal Corporation had to commission several waste collection vehicles. The collateral damage to this evidently damages the environment in many ways.

If these animals are slaughtered on the roads, and the place is not cleaned after, it means that there is blood on the streets and the slaughter as an after effect is emanating a foul smell in the area which will certainly not be desirable for any resident, regardless of their religious identity.

Animal protection NGOs advocate for vegetarianism and point towards the harms caused by the meat industry. However, during Bakri Id this meat eating is happening at once all around the world by a large population of a vast Muslim community so the impact of the same, one can only imagine, since nobody has put this in numbers yet.  According to PETA, “Raising animals for food is one of the biggest causes of water pollution in the industrialised world. The bacteria, pesticides and antibiotics that are concentrated in animal flesh are also found in their faeces, and these chemicals can have catastrophic effects on the ecosystems surrounding large farms.”

It further states, “Animals raised for food also produce toxic gasses such as ammonia and methane along with their excrement.” While these arguments are aimed at meat eating entirely, they can certainly be applied to Bakra Id as well.

Tree felling

The cutting of thousands of trees in Aarey forest of Mumbai in 2019 to make way for the Metro car shed had led to a huge uproar among citizens. The Mumbai metro Rail Corporation fell 2,000 trees in the Aarey forest. It is no surprise that the Air Quality Index of the city has been at an all time high for the past few years. People will bicker about it but no one will attribute it to mass felling of trees carried out in complete disregard towards the Air quality of the city and how it would affect the levels of oxygen in the air giving way to respiratory disorders among the population. While hundreds landed up on the streets in protests, many were seen defending the move in the name of “development”.

Furthermore, in December last year, the Bombay High Court permitted the National High Speed Rail Corporation to cut around 20,000 mangrove trees for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet train project. The corporation came seeking permission from the court since by the court’s mandate mangroves cannot be destroyed unless allowed by the court. The plea was opposed by ‘Bombay Environmental Action Group’, an NGO, on the ground that no study was undertaken about the survival rate of saplings to be planted as a compensatory measure and the Environmental Impact Assessment report for felling trees has not been provided.

A 40-year-old tree can sequester 21.7 kgs of carbon in a year. Felling of 2141 trees means an additional 46,609.5 kgs of carbon load over the residents. The city has less than 13% green cover, whereas given the density of population in the city it would need more than 35% green cover.

Coastal Road in Mumbai

The massive coastal road project the construction of which is in progress in full vigour had met with a lot of opposition from the fisherfolk and the environmentalists alike. The former for their loss of livelihood and the latter raised serious concerns over the threat to marine life. Vanashakti, an environmental NGO came out with a biodiversity report in March 2019, which was a result of research efforts with two independent marine experts. The report stated that sea snails, crabs, oysters, corals, sponges, octopus, sea fans, snappers, mussels, shrimps and rays are found in the stretch between Worli Dairy and the start of the Bandra-Worli sea link and some of them are Schedule 1 species under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.

“This is one of the most biodiverse shores in Mumbai. The scale of loss is unimaginable,” said marine enthusiast Shaunak Modi while speaking to Hindustan Times. Dumping non-oceanic red mud during reclamation could potentially suffocate fragile species known to live in this intertidal area, stated the report.

Why does our love for the environment get awakened only when it comes to religious practices and not when a government cuts thousands of trees in the heart of the city, quite stealthily, drastically affecting the air quality of the city? That’s a question that must be raised again and again because selective activism over environmental concerns is not helping the environment in any way.

Related:

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Bakrid and the forced controversy around animal sacrifice

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A sea of golden-yellow copper pod blooms filled some roads while others, seemingly bare, had fig trees sprouting through concrete walls. I particularly made it a point to visit parts of Mumbai’s coastline, each of which was bustling with intertidal activity. As I peered eagerly among rocks laced with barnacles, oysters, and sea snails, I chanced upon a tidepool that was home to many tiny sea anemones.

A sea anemone (genus Anthopleura) in a tidal pool in one of Mumbai’s shores

Mumbaikars contribute to citizen science

Mumbai’s citizen scientists bore witness to all of this and much more during the global City Nature Challenge 2023, which spanned from April 28th to May 1st. A little over 600 species of wildlife were observed in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region during this duration. Citizen science or community science is a participatory form of science that engages members of the public in increasing scientific knowledge and is widely used in efforts to safeguard wild spaces in cities. The City Nature Challenge is a way to get people living in towns and cities across the globe to document their local wildlife on their mobile phones and upload this information on iNaturalist—an open-source citizen science app. The app’s validated observations become ‘research grade,’ enabling scientists to use the data in their research.

A Peepul tree (Ficus religiosa) stands tall in Bandra, Mumbai

Taking time out of her busy weekend, Nupur Sawant, a resident of Mulund West participated in the City Nature Challenge for the first time. She observed nature in her neighborhood in Mulund and at the Bhandup Pumping Station, which is not only a sewage treatment plant but also one of Mumbai’s many bird watching haunts. Amidst the biodiverse mangroves and mudflats, Nupur documented birds such as white-eared bulbuls, juvenile flamingoes and whiskered terns. Meanwhile, another first-timer Tabassum Musakunni looked for wildlife around Andheri East, Juhu, Sion and Byculla and observed 56 species—trees, squirrels and birds amongst these.

Gauri Joshi, a Vile Parle resident, played a crucial role in raising awareness about the City Nature Challenge in Mumbai. She is not only a lecturer at Ramniranjan Jhunjhunwala College but also a Nature Interpreter at the NaturalisT Foundation, a Chinchpokli-based environmental conservation organization. Over the weekend, Gauri coordinated a nature-watching activity at Deer Park in Powai, which was free to join.

A red dwarf-honey bee (Apis florea) visits mangrove flowers (Avicennia marina) at Bandstand, Mumbai

Pradip Patade, of Mumbai-based Coastal Conservation Foundation, spent the weekend doing what he often does: observing marine life along Mumbai’s coastline. For him, this is a routine activity, and one that he spends several hours on each time. However, he notes that this particular weekend was not ideal for observing intertidal life, due to the mid-tide which failed to fully expose the intertidal zone. An intertidal zone, one that falls between the high tide and low tide lines, becomes easy to access when not submerged in sea water and magnanimously reveals our ocean life like sea stars, sponges, hermit crabs and even corals. Undeterred, Pradip instead explored the mangrove patches of Bandstand and the mudflats of Sewri. His exploration led him to documenting a mangrove flatworm, belonging to the genus Meixneria, a rare sighting. Pradip has identified this species to be Meixneria furva, but he cautions that the record awaits verification by experts. This documentation not only enriches the current scientific knowledge of this particular flatworm but also helps spotlight the underappreciated invertebrates of Mumbai.

A mangrove flatworm in Sewri documented during the City Nature Challenge. | Photo by Pradip Patade

Human-nature relationships in the big city

This year’s edition of the City Nature Challenge helped me foster a deeper connection with my neighbourhood. I was able to document most of the trees lining a busy street near my home, as well as observe some marine life a couple of kilometers away. An observation that stood out the most for me was of an old woman crouched over Bandra’s rocky shore, carefully harvesting oysters. She too shares a deep connection with the ocean and its creatures, but for her, this bond is essential for her survival. Currently, the Mumbai Coastal Road Project threatens the way she and other artisanal fishers connect and care for the coast.

A report recently released by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences states that the Mumbai Coastal Road Project has caused a 50% decrease in the incomes and daily catch of fisherfolk. The study, which was commissioned by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, found that fishers who caught fish by hand, mostly women, were the worst affected by this large infrastructure project. Besides women, the project further impacts the livelihoods of other marginalized fishers including migrants and Muslims.

As residents of Mumbai, we may face the challenge of reconnecting with nature amidst unplanned development, which has led to shrinking of commons and the displacement of traditionally nature-dependent communities. However, citizen science may offer us a means to seek out nature, observe and hopefully activate our citizenry to raise our voices against mindless development projects that threaten both nature and culture.

A fisherwoman harvests oysters from rocks at Bandstand, Mumbai

The post A weekend of wonder: highlights from Mumbai’s City Nature Challenge 2023 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Twelve-year-old Ridhima Pandey was hailed as one of the youngest environmental activists, when in 2019 she represented India in the protest against the lax attitude of governments towards climate change at the United Nations, along with Greta Thunberg. Ridhima is said to have been moved by the devastation that resulted during the Kedarnath floods of 2013. The floods, like most environmental disasters, was yet another warning of what climate change can do. 

Ridhima has now penned a comprehensive letter, seeking the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, to ensure that children do not have to face an environmental crisis in the future. Ridhima, who lives in Uttarakhand, wrote and shared her letter to the PM on social media. She has asked the PM to “kindly help us by making sure that an oxygen cylinder doesn’t become an essential part of the life of children, which we have to carry on our shoulders everywhere in the future.”

“I am here because I want all the global leaders to do something to stop climate change because if it’s not going to be stopped it’s going to harm our future,” she had said at the Climate Action Summit, adding “So, if we want to stop global warming we have to do something now.” On the International Day for Clean Air and Blue Skies, Ridhima Pandey has once again brought the focus back in her letter to the PM, demanding clean air for all.

My name is Ridhima Pandey. I am a 12-year old student living in Haridwar, Uttarakhand. On International Day for Clean Air and Blue Skies, I have written to our Prime Minister demanding clean Air for all. pic.twitter.com/j0SsHj6v6R

— Ridhima pandey (@ridhimapandey7) September 7, 2020

She has highlighted that “air pollution in many densely populated cities like Delhi, Varanasi, Agra, Mumbai, Chennai and others is very high, making it hazardous for the people living there, causing severe health issues.”

She states that she has also “read about many research studies suggesting a link between air pollution and Covid 19 related incidences and mortalities,” and found it “very worrying.”

“Every year, in many parts of India, the air becomes much polluted and it becomes very difficult to breathe after October. I worry that if a 12-year-old like me finds it hard to breathe, what it must be like for children younger to me living in cities like Delhi and others. The air pollution in Delhi becomes so hazardous that people are not even able to breathe properly – you feel choked and suffocated. I am saying this because I witnessed this situation last year in Delhi on Children’s Day,” says Ridhima.

She asserts that she is “worried that if nothing is done about this problem soon, then in the coming years we would have to carry an oxygen cylinder with us to breathe clean air and survive. How would the common man afford this? Once our teacher asked us about our worst nightmare. I told her that mine was coming to school with an oxygen cylinder because the air was becoming so polluted. This nightmare is still my biggest worry because polluted air is one of the biggest problems in our country today.”

She reminded the Prime Minister that he had “accepted Climate Change as a reality,” and thus appealed to him “‘International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies’ on behalf of all the children of India, I would like to make a request to you. Please think about our future.”

This is her letter to the PM:

 

According to the India Today report, Ridhima had moved with her family from Nainital to Haridwar six years ago, and discovered a different set of challenges there such as those threatening the river Ganga in Haridwar. In 2017, she filed a case against the Indian government at the National Green Tribunal for failing to take action against climate change.

In 2019 at the UN she was a part of the group of 16 children from across the world who presented a complaint to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. As reported by India Today, and other news media globally, it was “an eye-opener for the world” and brought back discussions on climate change. According to an IndiaSpend report, at the United Nations (UN) emergency climate summit, 16 children, including Ridhima Pandey, said they would petition the UN against five big carbon polluters in the world–Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany and Turkey–for violating their rights as children by failing to adequately reduce emissions.

“It is our planet, and it is our duty to save it,” she says in this video message.

মোৰ ভতিজী পৰিবেশ ৰক্ষাৰ যুঁজাৰু in @UNICEFIndia
Ridhima Pandey. pic.twitter.com/GLG33yB3M7

— SailendraPandey PRO 2 PS, GoA. M AP CBFC GoI. (@spsailendra) September 6, 2020

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The post My worst nightmare is coming to school with an oxygen cylinder: Ridhima Pandey to PM appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Arvind Kejriwal blamed the Punjab farmers, while BJP and Congress blamed Arvind Kejriwal, for all that was happening in Delhi, where the air quality is ‘good enough’ to send you to some ‘asthma cure’ centers.

Netas are ‘protesting’ in the streets. Some students’ organisations and other groups, too, are ‘protesting’ that ‘Delhi must be given ‘clean air’ (as if you can buy it from Reliance’s Big Bazar).

Watching the protesting people, I realised how hypocriticalour politicians as well as the publicare. The question we must ask today is whether Delhi’s environmental crisis is because of the farmers burning stubble? Or are farmers being used as a soft target, ignoring the vast construction activities, vehicular pollution and above all, despite all pretensions, our ‘festivals’, which we glamorise so much. Modern day, commercialised Diwali and other festivals have become the biggest threat to our environment, and, actually, a disaster for our future, if we donot change the mode to celebrate them. There was a time when crackers were burst only on the Diwali day but now the trend has been extended to the Dusshera,Chhuth and other sundry festivals as well as marriage parties, India- Pakistan matches etc.

I am here, in the Eastern Uttar Pradesh, and every year I come to this place, particularly during the festivities of Diwali, to protect myself from the torture that we face in Delhi but here too crackers were burst. Noise pollution was already there, thanks to the temples but on Chhutth day, we saw crackers being burst. Next morning, we saw smog all over but we don’t care. We are hell bent on pleasing our gods, who cannot do anything, but will only help the brahmanical interests.

While flying from Chennai to Gorakhpur, I came via Delhi. I can say that the smog was not limited to the Delhi sky. It had actually spread across the other parts of Northern India, and various satellite images now confirm that. It is painful to see how India’s smaller towns, too, are now being choked.

And it will continue as long as our political class, and people at large,do not act. We will destroy our environment, and no God will be able to help India if the people do not act. That is why, I remember Periyar, who was the man who had the courage to speak up against the evils of religion. There were many other reformers, who spoke against these evils, which are among the main reasons for the continuous destruction of our environment. Can we not imagine how much North India was engulfed in darkness on the Diwali day! But once you raise this question, the deliberate thing will be – what about Christmas and Eid? I tell them all that no other festival matches Diwali, in its current form, in the destruction of nature because bursting of crackers is considered to be an essential ‘religious’ activity. No political leader of today can appeal to the people not to burst crackers, but just greet each other and light diyas. Why cannot the government act against the crackers factories? But it will not, because it will allow things to come from the source and penalise the poor workers.

Our festivals are related to crop harvesting, and I have mentioned it many times, but given the state of nature today, we need to have a serious look at the way we celebrate them. On Holi, we burn so much of wood all over the country. Can anyone imagine burning of wood at a time when it will not be available, even for burning dead bodies. That apart, we destroy our environment.

Chhath has just finished. This festival is called the festival of ‘nature’, but the fact is, these are celebrations of male supremacy. Right from Karwa Chauth to Bhai Dooj and now Chhath, they all are part of our male dominated brahmanical system, but none of the politicians will ever speak against them. None of our ‘revolutionaries’ will speak. Now, Chhath has been cleverly ‘nationalised’ through TV channels, and rivers and banks are all filled with hordes of people. The next day, you find only garbage on these banks. Photographs appear, of women worshiping the sun in the highly polluted Yamuna river. I am amazed to see the ‘faith’ that makes these women, including young girls, to give ‘ardhya’ to the sun, standing in the hugely toxic water of Yamuna. I am not impressedby their ‘faith’, but can only pity their ignorance. I am shocked that political leaders and government did not advise people not to go to these dangerously polluted areas in the name of faith. It should have stopped them, but then, it will not because our politicians remain highly hypocritical.

India is destroying its natural resources in the name of faith. Watch our festivals of Durga Puja, Ganesh Puja, and the amount of garbage that is left over after the ceremony. After the festivities are over, we immerse all the idols in rivers and seas. Has anybody asked why this cannot stop? How will we keep our water bodies clean and safe, with such massive levels of rubbish being thrown into them?

It is not the issue of north or south. It is the issue of our cultural corruption. The struggle to protect our environment is not just a government job. In fact, politicians and governments do not have the courage to speak bluntly, as they are in the habit of using these ‘religious’ events to further their political agenda. Once the politicians have discovered the benefits of our ignorance, they will not make a move to remove it, but our constitutional bodies must work. Our Environment Ministry must act, we must have a river protection department, which must stop people from further polluting them. Faith cannot be an excuse to destroy our environment. Do not blame the farmers of Punjab for the ills of Delhi, have the courage to completely ban crackers and immersion of idols in various water bodies of the country. Reduce vehicular traffic and stop all those ‘developmental’ activities which are being undertaken at the cost of Nature. No developmental work should be allowed, unless an impartial environmental assessment study is done which approves it. Of course, we know how this is done these days. Modiji is developing a new plan to ‘develop’ Delhi. The historical buildings might become ‘history’. So, further digging and polluting of the city will continue. A green Delhi has been converted into a cemented zone, which will choke it further.

It is time we all understand the dangers of our ignorance and superstitions, which are now threatening our environment. Our ‘developmental’ module is also helping the corrupt and the cronies and does not deal with the issue of protecting the earth. Can they protect our nature, who want to ‘exploit’ it? We need to set our priorities right, only then we will be able to protect our right to breathe fresh air. Otherwise, the situation is only going to worsen in future.

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The post Who is Responsible for the Current Climate Crisis in Delhi? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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She first made this statement in an interview with Mirror Now. Sabrang India decided to dig further and asked her specifically about the vote. That’s when Dr Shashirekha Suresh Kumar dropped the bomb saying, “They didn’t ask us any specific questions they just said vote for or against and very honestly certain Marathi words were not understood by me, we were sitting in a line and those who understood said we should raise our hands and we raised our hands.”

This is shocking given the flak the experts were facing, especially on social media, for supporting the environmentally disastrous decision. In fact, National Society of Friends of Trees, an environmental group, of which Dr. Shashirekha Suresh Kumar is a part has distanced it self from her decision to vote in favour of the cutting of trees. Their entire press release may be read here.

The BMC Tree Authority has 18 members of which 13 are corporators and five are independent domain experts. When the vote took place on August 29, Congress Party members walked out, Shiv Sena opposed, while the BJP and NCP members supported the felling of trees. Two experts were absent.

Dr. Shashirekha Suresh Kumar who is a botanist teaching at Mithibai College, reiterated that all the experts made was an observation NOT recommendation that there was a need to balance development with ecology. She stated that the tree authority meeting was chaotic, rushed and the independent experts were not made aware of the issue that was on hand when they were asked to vote. Dr. Shashirekha Suresh Kumar says she has also complained in writing to the BMC.

She said that in the meeting itself the experts were not clearly communicated to about the details of the issue was on hand, “We understood that a discussion on the Metro Car shed was taking place not specifically on the trees being cut, I am shocked that it is being reported that we support cutting all the trees.” She further stated that there was not enough time or arrangements made to conduct a tree census or for the experts to advise which trees or the number of trees that needed to be cut. “We were appointed on May 19th 2019 there was only 3 visit, how can we do a census in that?” she stated adding that all the Tree Authority did was viewings.
 

The post BMC Tree Authority expert denies approving indiscriminate cutting of trees in Aarey appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image Courtesy: EPA

The Amazon rainforests are still burning. International news organisation Reuters reported that there is an 83 percent increase from last year- the highest on record since 2013. Distressing pictures and videos of the region on fire and covered in smokes have caught the attention of social media users across the world. The fire is large and subsuming that it can be seen from the space too.

Brazil declared a state of emergency over the rising number of fires in the region. So far, just in this year, almost 73,000 fires have been detected in Brazil by its space research center, National Institute for Space Research (INPE).  Starting in the Amazonian rainforests, the fires have impacted populated areas in the north, such as the states of Rondônia and Acre, blocking sunlight and enveloping the region in smoke. The smoke has wafted thousands of miles to the Atlantic coast and São Paulo, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

Between August 18 and August 23, as many as 8,00,000 hectares of the unique Chiquitano forest were burned in Bolivia. This forest cover is more than what is usually destroyed over a period of two years. As per some experts, it will take at least two centuries to repair the ecological damage done by the fires and as many as 500 species are at the risk of getting burnt. This forest is known to be the largest healthy tropical dry forest in the world. Not only is the forest home to indigenous people, but also home to iconic wildlife such as jaguars, giant armadillos and tapirs. Photographs have emerged that show that many of these animals have been burnt to death in the recent fires.
 
The region that has come under the impact of the fire comprises of farmlands and towns as well, and thousands of people have been evacuated and many other affected by the smoke. While basic supplies like food and water are being sent to the region, children are being kept home from school in many district where the condition of air pollution is becoming worse.

While the media has focussed on Brazil, the situation of cities such as Bolivia is deteriorating.

In Bolivia, significantly, the fire has broken out just a month after Bolivian President Evo Morales announced a new “supreme decree” aimed at increasing beef production for export. Twenty-one civil society organisations are calling for the repeal of this decree, arguing that it has helped cause the fires and violates Bolivia’s environmental laws. Government officials say that fire setting is a normal activity at this time of year and isn’t linked to the decree.

Morales has repeatedly refused international help saying it’s the country’s internal matter and has been able to send only three helicopters to supposedly tackle the raging fires. Though he argues that the fires are dying out in some areas, they continue to wreak havoc in other areas and have now reached Bolivia’s largest city, Santa Cruz de la Sierra. Many believe that the fires could have been put out much sooner with international help.

On the other hand, in case of Brazil, international news organisations such as The Guardian have placed the responsibility of the fires squarely on the government. An opinion piece published in Guardian says that the fires have, “human activity” at their root. The piece says that the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his “extremist” Environment Minister, Ricardo Salles, have not “merely permitted these devastating fires, but have encouraged and fuelled them.”

The same piece notes that among the President’s many extremist views is “climate denialism as stubborn and extreme as any prominent world figure, if not more so.” The speed and aggression with which the eight month old Brazilian government has carried on the task of destroying the Amazon rainforest, one of humanity’s most cherished possessions in its fight against climate change, has surprised his most virulent critics as well. It is alleged that all this is so that the agriculture industry can exploit the long preserved rainforests. The destruction of the forests is inevitably linked with the contempt for the indigenous communities who have long fought to preserve these forests and stand at a grave risk to be displaced as an aftermath of this man-made disaster.

Reportedly, Bolsonaro’s choice for his Environment Minister, Ricardo Salles even exemplifies the “radical and even violent anti-environmentalism fueling these fires.” Previously found guilty of indulging in administrative impropriety to support mining companies, was selected by Bolsonaro to serve his cabinet.

While that is the situation in the Amazon, things are grim in India too. The number of forest fires shot up from 4225 to 14,107 in the period from November 2018 to February 2019 as per the Real Time Forest Alert System of the Forest Survey of India (FSI).

The Forest Alert System is part of the Large Forest Fire Monitoring Programme that was launched by the FSI on January 16, 2019 using near real time data from the SNPP-VIIRS satellite.

In February 2019, the parliamentary standing committee on science and technology, environment and forests criticised the forest departments of the five states for ineffective utilisation of the forest fire prevention funds in its report Status of Forests in India.

While India loses Rs. 1,176 crore a year to forest fires, a mere Rs. 45-50 crore is allocated per annum under the Forest Fire prevention and Management Fund, which remains unspent.

Nearly 24 per cent of the meagre forest fire prevention funds were not released and thus, remained unspent in the last two financial years, shows the data provided by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) in January 2019 in the Lok Sabha. Out of Rs 50 crore allocated during each year — 2017-18 and 2018-19 — Rs 35 crore and Rs 38 crore were released respectively.

In fact, while forest fires increased by 125 per cent between 2015 and 2017, the Centre has constantly reduced its spending on averting them since 2015-16. The amount of money released has decreased from Rs 43.85 crore in 2015 to Rs 34.56 crore in 2017, revealed the India State of Forest Report, 2017. 

These fires should be treated as disasters so that disaster management authorities can play a major role in preventing them. The National Forest Commission of 2006 too suggested that all fires that burn an area larger than 20 sq km, should be declared a state disaster.

The new Real Time Forest Alert System of India, that lists potential fire spots across the country, must be taken seriously by the state forest departments. In fact, FSI, which is in charge of the system, had issued as many as 2905 fire alerts to the Karnataka forest department in the last week and most of them were in the Bandipur Tiger Reserve which faced forest fire in February, 2019. But these were not taken up seriously by the government.

The state forest departments have undoubtedly an important role in dealing with this disaster and must refer to the most comprehensive report on “Forest Fires and its Effect” presented to Parliament in 2016 for the action plan and strategies to curtail forest fires as advised by the parliamentary standing committee on science and technology, environment and forests recently.

As in the case of Brazil and Bolivia, India too elected a government that is hostile and apathetic to climate change and indigenous people, for a second term in June 2019. Not only has the Indian government expedited the process of displacement of indigenous communities, it has also significantly diluted environmental protection laws.

With leaders such as these at the helm of policy making at a time when the world is seriously juggling with issues of climate change and disasters, one is compelled to emphasise the need for a global movement to protect the environment and indigenous communities.

Related Articles:
Floods displacing millions partly due to reckless development, inefficient water management
Why India, With Plentiful Rains & Rivers, Is On List Of World’s Most Water-Stressed Countries
SC directs states to file compliance affidavits in Forest Rights case
 

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East Kidwai Nagar concept art

The matter regarding the newly constructed East Kidwai Nagar government housing complex and the redevelopment of seven housing colonies in South Delhi (Nauroji Nagar, Netaji Nagar, Sarojini Nagar, Thyagraj Nagar, Kasturba Nagar, Srinivaspuri and Mohammadpur) is pending before the Delhi High Court. In a city where residents suffer from the effects of year-round air pollution, large-scale deforestation and tree felling, and a water crisis, and where social housing is in such short supply, the decisions on these projects seem more critical than pre-election assurances.

Government-backed projects
The East Kidwai Nagar (EKN) project is a gated office-cum-housing complex located between Sarojini Nagar and South Extension. It was designed during the time of the Congress government in 2007 and construction started in 2014. While the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) calls this its flagship project, it has been stalled by the court for it faulty design and incomplete impact assessments on traffic, water and dust pollution. The National Green Tribunal fined the project for non-compliance of legal safeguards. Since August last year, the Delhi high court has held up handing over the possession of flats due to unresolved issues.

If the EKN project covering 85 acres of public land exemplifies several wrongs of urban planning, the proposed “redevelopment” of the seven government housing colonies (7GRPA) to turn them into prime commercial property and housing is land grab. The area involved is 571 acres. The ministry has contracted the construction of three of the seven colonies: Netaji, Nauroji and Sarojini Nagar, to NBCC despite its poor delivery of the EKN project. The contract is full of generous, open-ended clauses that allow NBCC to generate windfall profits while the environmental and social costs of the project are externalised to the public.

Violations of court orders
These construction projects backed by the government show no intent to follow the rule book. The 7GRPA was declared by MoHUA as one project in July 2016, to maximise the land use provisions of the Delhi Master Plan. However, it pursued seven separate environmental approvals to avoid declaring its total cumulative impacts on public infrastructure and the ecology. It is due to this deliberate ploy that the NBCC earned the government’s approval to build a 100% commercial world trade centre in Nauroji Nagar, a residential area as per the MPD.

In a case hearing in October 2018, the Delhi high court allowed NBCC to proceed “in accordance with law” and seek fresh approval for six of the seven projects, while it continues to hear the matter related to Nauroji Nagar, whose construction it stayed. The projects have sought fresh environmental approvals for a second time between November 2018 and March this year. This time too, the project proponents seeking approvals have not disclosed the integrated nature of this project in their revised proposals. The projects have failed to declare their cumulative impacts in Form 1 of their applications seeking approval.

The environment ministry’s Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) for infrastructure has given a go ahead to the Netaji and Sarojini Nagar sites, based on “new” environment impact assessments (EIAs) that use old and incorrect data that are under question in the high court. These are all violations of the provisions of the EIA notification, 2006. The issues related to water availability, the need for additional government housing and the additional load on traffic that were raised by the Delhi high court back in June 2018 remain sidelined in the new studies.

The court ordered no work to be carried out in all the seven sites. Yet, NBCC has continued to demolish houses in the said colonies. Dumping demolition waste has destroyed standing trees in several sites and the management of these areas has suffered since residents have been made to leave. Erstwhile residents have shared pictures of dead or dying animals and of fallen trees in these empty colonies. These have been brought to the notice of the police and NBCC . Contempt petitions have been filed in court, which are yet to be heard.

Politics in place of regulation
Although trees have been felled and damaged by these project operations, the people of Delhi concerned with this loss of ecology have no local institutions to turn to.

Two crucial regulatory bodies that could have studied the impacts of these projects on Delhi are the State Environmental Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) and the Delhi Tree Authority. While the first is mandated to support the local government to take decisions on infrastructure projects based on their impact assessments, the second is empowered to undertake critical studies to assess impacts, carry out tree censuses and oversee efforts to compensate the loss of trees in the city.

In SEIAA has been non-operational for more than a year. These projects should have been placed before the Delhi SEIAA, which includes members of the Delhi government. But due to its absence, the 7GPRA was vetted by the EAC under the Central government. Since the 7GPRA is essentially a project of the MoHUA, in effect the Centre has approved its own projects. The EAC has pushed these projects twice; once before the court case and again after the October order, where they recommended approval to the projects “subject to the outcome of the pending case in the Delhi High Court”.

The Tree Authority is to be set up under the Delhi Preservation of Tree Act (DPTA) of 1994. Since it has been missing for the last few years, Delhi’s ecology is basically without any regulatory oversight. While the AAP government in Delhi has continually complained about the lack of full control over the governance of Delhi, in these matters where it can set up safeguard mechanisms to regulate high impact projects, it is yet to do so.

Issues at stake
Both EKN and 7GPRA are at a crucial stage of arguments. The courts will examine specific violations and problems of these projects and will hear the government on why it seeks to regularise these projects with legal violations, poor urban planning and serious environmental consequences.

Even as the court questions the fundamental assumptions behind these projects, “redevelopment” is being pursued by the Central government on a nationwide scale across many cities. In Delhi, more such projects are proposed in Aya Nagar, Mayapuri and Lodhi Colony. The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has recently put out a draft Transit Oriented Development (TOD) policy and regulations that also facilitate large-scale commercialisation and privatisation of public land. The elected Delhi government is proposing a massive tree transplantation policy without acknowledging the need to hold back the felling of its green public infrastructure.

The EKN and 7GPRA projects are useful case studies to understand what elected governments do between elections.
—
*Researchers at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. A version of this article was first published in The Wire

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“With elections just a few weeks away, we felt it was important for all citizens groups as well as environmentally conscious citizens to come together and ask our leaders to reflect on the impact of their developmental projects like the metro car shed in Aarey and the coastal road. We want them to think about the impact of development not just on the environment, but also on the traditional habitats and livelihoods of indigenous people,” says Amrita Bhattacharya, one of the organisers.

“The ministers all say, ‘Save the Environment, Plant more Trees’. But you can’t replace an entire forest with six inch saplings! We are blessed with green forest cover in Mumbai and Thane and we must strive to protect it,” explains Cassandra Nazareth who came to South Mumbai all the way for Borivali. “Don’t get me wrong, even I want development. The metro will make my life easy. But the environmental factor has to be taken into account so that development is sustainable,” she elaborates.

The citizens held hands and stood side-by-side in a human chain. Some were even holding colourful placards. They began gathering by 4:30 on Saturday evening, but shortly after 5 pm policemen from the Marine Drive police station arrived and demanded that the crowd disperse. PI Rajesh Shinde said, “These people had asked for permission, but it was denied. So now they should leave peacefully.” But Amrita Bhattacharya said that no permission was sought in the first place as this was not a protest or a demonstration, but just a gathering of like-minded individuals. “We don’t need permission to gather and discuss our views peacefully,” she insisted.
When asked the grounds for asking people to disperse, Subhash Khanvilkar, ACP Colaba said, “The election code of conduct is in place and we cannot permit a gathering of more than five people.” But the citizens stood their ground. “In a democracy, people have a voice and the right to dissent. We have the right to voice our concerns and we are doing so in a peaceful and civil manner,” said Vineeta, a writer who refused to leave when the police asked her to do so.

The citizens continued to stand peacefully holding hands till about 6:30 in the evening and then dispersed as quietly as they arrived, ensuring that they leave no litter behind.
 

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