Predators of wildlife get bolder

Prerna Singh Bindra

We all want the Indian economy to roar, but that roar will die out if its foundations are weak. Growth needs to be inclusive, and ecologically sustainable. These concerns should not be mere words but reflect in official policy and action therein

The times are not good for our wildlife. There are the obvious threats — the one that stirs emotions and inspires outrage. The humongous tragedy of elephants and other animals, slaughtered by the day by trains speeding through forests, is one such. There has been a rise in tiger poaching (we lost three in a row to poisoning in Orang, Assam). Other ‘hotspots’ where tiger deaths have peaked include Nagarahole, Bandhavgarh and the Rajaji-Corbett landscape. Two Great Indian Bustards were shot by poachers in broad daylight in their ‘best protected’ habitat. Leopards are being battered across their range. And pangolins, a species few people are even aware of, are in the news for massacre for their scales, used in traditional Chinese medicine.

There have been other assaults, the importance of which seems to have escaped public conscience, much less  have inspired an outcry, but whose long-term impacts are far graver as they weaken the policy framework that protects our wilds, pulling away, as it were, the forest ‘carpet’, beneath the tiger’s feet.

Many may recall the National Investment Board proposed by Union Minister for Finance P Chidambaram, envisaged to ensure that big projects — with investments exceeding Rs1,000 crore — sail through, dismantling our regulatory systems for green clearances. There was much opposition to its ‘superpowers’, which would brush aside environmental and social concerns, and even democratic tenets, in the quest for growth. This included a feisty letter to the Prime Minister by Union Minster for Environment & Forests Jayanthi Natarajan, who questioned the board’s hasty formation and purpose. She expressed grave concerns about its constitutional breach, the consequences to governance, responsibility to the legislature, and questioned the domain knowledge of such a board, as matters related to environment and forest require nuanced decision-making which has far reaching consequences.

Ms Natarajan had pointed out that the Cabinet note on the NIB gave industrialists the right to appeal against decisions of her Ministry, but that it “does not contemplate that ordinary citizens, NGOs may be aggrieved and should also have right of appeal”. She called this concept “unacceptable”. The NIB was given a quiet burial. But what we have instead is its equally dangerous, renamed, re-packaged avatar, the Cabinet Committee on Investments, which appears to have sailed through with little opposition or concern, even from the Ministries most impacted: Environment & Forests and Tribal Affairs.

A new Standing Committee, constituted under the CCI, is empowered to identify projects with investments of over Rs1,000 crore and other significant projects, to check and limit the regulatory process involved and ensure speedy approvals. The order, dated January 2, states that the CCI will have the power not only to prescribe time limits for approvals and monitor the progress of identified projects through the clearance process, but  also review the process followed by departments/Ministries; and take decisions regarding clearance of a specific project, if deemed necessary.

If one reads this correctly, the CCI will review the current system of green regulatory process and have the powers to overrule the Environment Ministry if it refuses any project on the basis of environment, forest or wildlife concerns. It even allows for the CCI to take decisions regarding any clearance, if it is ‘unduly delayed’. This, when over 95 per cent of the proposed projects romp through the green ministry.

There is also an ongoing effort to reduce the projects that need to come to the Centre for clearance. A committee has been set up under Planning Commission member K Kasturirangan to review the kind of projects that can be dealt with at the State levels, and hence dispense with the need for approval by the Union Ministry. It is reported that the PMO and several states have been pushing for such a ‘reform’ in a bid to make the clearance process simpler for the industry and infrastructure projects. It’s easier, apparently, to get the nod at the State level. Given that most projects get the nod at (For every three projects rejected by the Environment Ministry’s statutory bodies, 97 are cleared, according to a recent article in Tehelka) at the centre too, one shudders to think of the implications for this one.

Under pressure from the National Highways Authority of India, the Environment Ministry has also taken a call, and, reportedly, filed an application in the Supreme Court to modify its order of 2011 (that was upheld and endorsed by the apex Court in the Lafarge case) which required projects involving forest land to have forest clearance before they applied for environment clearance.

The Ministry now wants to delink these two clearances. The problem with easing this clause is that project developers will present a fait accompli to the Ministry, citing huge investments made on the basis of environment clearance in those parts of the road (or any other linear project which may tear into prime wild habitats) which are on non-forest land. Essentially, we might have a highway that is built, with considerable expenditure, on both sides of a pristine forest or even a sanctuary, before the project is presented for forest clearance at the Ministry’s door. The developer then argues that immense investment has already been made and that a forest clearance cannot be inhibiting a project at such an advanced stage. There are no prizes for guessing which way the wind will blow.

What is the message that India is sending? That social, environment and forest concerns are a nuisance, an impediment? That a country which prides itself as a pioneer in conservation leadership is now backtracking on its commitment? That it is not just overlooking vital ecological concerns of far-reaching consequences, but even the basic tenets of democracy to ease the way for big investment?

How can we overlook the huge social unrest and the pain of the displaced in our haste for our growth dream? Nor can we commit to saving our wildlife, then push for policies that weaken the regulatory framework that protects their habitat. Tigers, elephants, bustards, cranes, dugongs, dolphins, snow leopards will not survive if we decimate, degrade, destroy the forests, grasslands, wetlands, rivers, mountains and seas — that also sustain us.

We all want the Indian economy to roar, but that roar will fade if its foundations are weak. Growth, especially for a democracy like ours, needs to be inclusive, and ecologically sustainable. These concerns should not be mere words but reflect in policy and deed.

(The columnist is senior consultant, WCS India, and founder-director of 'Bagh'. She is also a member of the National Board for Wildlife)

Source: http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/item/53592-predators-of-wildlife-get-bolder.html

Who needs a CCI?

Kanchi Kohli

One of the most controversial proposals debated in the last quarter of 2012 was the setting up of a National Investment Board (NIB) for India. The idea, mooted by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram  in mid-September, was about establishing an empowered body to clear large infrastructure projects of over `1,000 crore which were delayed due to lack of decisions within the government machinery. This proposal, emanating from the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, was subsequently circulated in the form of a draft cabinet note to various ministries.

The Finance Minister’s  logic behind the NIB seemed to be based on the notion that for a range of reasons including land acquisition, environmental and forest clearances, several large and economically important projects were delayed and were thereby hampering the economic growth of the country.

A Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI), similar to an NIB, is now in the pipeline. It will accord single window approval to mega projects over Rs 1,000 crores if timelines are not adhered to. It is claimed that all the concerns of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) were responded to.

But earlier Jayanthi Natarajan, the Union Minister of Environment and Forests (MoEF), had objected  to the setting up of such a body.  In a very strongly worded letter to the Prime Minister on 8 October 2012, Natarajan had opposed any move like an NIB which would allow bypassing of approvals administered by the MoEF. Apart from emphasising the importance of environment and forest clearances, the letter raised pertinent questions on basic parliamentary functioning and procedure. For instance, if any decision of the MoEF is overruled by such a body, who will answer for this in Parliament?

Natarajan emphasised that domain knowledge is important to decide whether a project is environmentally feasible or not or if forest land can be given for mining, industry or related infrastructure. The environment minister also raised a critical question on the overriding of a minister’s authority and substituting it by another one. The letter said, “When the Minister of a Ministry, acting upon the expert advice of officers, takes a decision, there is absolutely no justification for an NIB to assume his/her authority, nor will the NIB, have the competence to do so.”

The letter also went on to say that there is a distinct conflict of interest between the objective of a body promoting investment (like a Cabinet Committee on Investments) and the MoEF’s mandate which is to “protect the integrity of the environment, to ensure that our forests and wildlife, and by extension, forest dwellers are protected.” This is despite the fact that “hard decisions” have to be taken to balance environment and development.

There is much more in this letter which asserts that it is critical for the process of environment and forest clearances to be duly followed and upheld. But the letter also refuted that delays are due to granting of green clearances. Natarajan’s letter emphatically stated that there has not been any hindrance in granting clearances to projects by the ministry but many of them have not taken off or been commissioned. Therefore the problem is “not regulatory, but implementational.”

Following this letter the MoEF issued a press release which stated that in the last 32 years since the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, till 2012, a total area of 11,44,861 hectares of forest land has been diverted. It also revealed glorious figures that from 13 July 2011 to 12 July 2012 the ministry has accorded environmental clearance under the EIA Notification 2006, to 209 projects in the sectors of industry (steel and cement), thermal power, river valley and hydro-electric, coal and non-coal mining and National Highways. It was the MoEF’s way of establishing that the processes within the ministry are not roadblocks to economic growth.

The letter attempted to knock a nail in the idea of a body to fast track investments by stating that nuanced decisions around environment and forest clearances are required to  “balance the interest of different stakeholders, conservation, local people’s livelihoods and economic growth.” “When decisions discount these interests”,  says the letter, “it leads to disputes and intervention by the courts and appellate authorities”  which is not good for building investor confidence.

But the irony also lies in the fact that while the MoEF in its letter recognised the problems of such decisions, there are approvals granted by the MoEF to high impact projects based on poor assessments.

Projects like POSCO and Vedanta in Odisha; mining and industrial projects by the Jindals in Chhattisgarh; ports and thermal power plants by the Adani group in Gujarat have all got their approvals from the MoEF. Widespread litigation, local unrest, showcause notices highlighting violations and destruction as well as recommendations from the MoEF’s own committees has not influenced the push to approve these projects or condone the illegalities.

It is important to emphasise that the decision to grant forest clearance to the Mahan coal block in Madhya Pradesh came a month after the environment minister’s letter to the PM. This, when the MoEF’s own Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) had recommended against this project. There is also news that the K. Roy Paul committee on POSCO has submitted its report following the order of the National Green Tribunal to review the project and forest clearance rejection. Vedanta’s bauxite mining in Niyamgiri is on the verge of being decided upon in the Supreme Court.

What is the future of India’s ecological spaces and the social implications of decisions taken far  from the site of upheaval? It is pertinent to emphasise the contents of Jayanthi Natarajan’s letter to the PM to reiterate the reasons the MoEF was set up in the first place so that the environmental imperative stands ground.  But it is also critical to state that the procedures for environment and forest clearances were not envisaged and designed to ascertain trade-offs.

It was to take decisions on  projects based on the nature and extent of environmental and social impacts and not  rely on logic  based on aspects of national security and economic growth.  Doing this defies the very spirit of these laws.

If the MoEF does not speak for the environment and local communities which ministry will?                                  

kanchikohli@gmail.com

Source: http://www.civilsocietyonline.com/pages/Details.aspx?239