No ghats no glory

Bengaluru: The attack on officials of the Ministry of  Environment and Forests (MoEF) who were inspecting an Ecological Sensitive Zone (ESZ) in Kerala has sounded a warning bell in the state, home to the longest stretch of the Western Ghats in the country.

While the Union government recently declared that about 37 per cent of the  Western Ghats will be declared ecologically sensitive based on the Kasturingan report, there has been an organised campaign against this by local politicians and land owners who are afraid it could hurt their interests.

The propaganda is clearly working as local villagers attacked MoEF officials and burnt their vehicle in Kannanur in Kerala when they arrived there to inspect one such area of the ghat.
But Karnataka Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (wildlife), G.S. Prabhu asserts there is no going back on ESZ cover in the ghats whatever the opposition.

“No legal land owners or people  doing agriculture around the ghats will be affected. The sections which will be included in the ESZ  are already listed under protected areas. So there is no question of  people’s rights being affected. We will not give in to opposition in the larger interest of saving the Western Ghats,” he declares.

APCCF and head of the state’s  Eco-tourism Board, Vinay Luthra recalls that the Kasturirangan report has categorised close to 40 per cent of the ghats in Karnataka as natural forest and about 60 per cent as ‘cultural areas.’ “We are listing the exact locations of the ghats which will come under ESZ on the directions of the MoEF. Once the report is prepared the zone will become a reality,” Luthra adds.

Better conservation measures needed for cultural landscapes

Dr T.V. Ramachandra

The High-Level Working Group (HLWG) Report considers 60,000 sqkm or 37% of Western Ghats, having very high and high biological richness and low fragmentation and low population density, as natural landscapes, and recommends such areas as Ecologically Sensitive Areas and the remaining 60% as cultural landscapes, which are human dominated landscapes of settlements, agriculture and plantations.

As the prescribed ESA covers mostly areas that already enjoy relatively high degree of protection, there is a pronounced need for conservation activities in the cultural landscapes.

Graded approaches need to be adopted for cultural landscape (as suggested by Pronab Sen committee, Environment Protection Act 2006, and as per the stipulations laid down by MoEF order dated 4 March 2010 to the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel) towards executing this mission.

Non-consideration of the proposed cultural landscape under the ESA would lead to the neglect of such areas. Our studies in central Western Ghats show a decline of evergreen forests from 65% (1970s) to 32.5% (2012). Implementation of HLWG report would certainly threaten the sustainability of natural resources.

—The writer is scientist, Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc