Kerala's green promise
The state's tryst with the environment and environmentalism is a chequered history of many a struggle.
There is an interesting connect between the United States of America and Kerala. Instead of landing up accidentally on the American coast, had Christopher Columbus actually found the real India, like Vasco Da Gama Gama who landed on the Kerala coast, what would have happened is probably material for a fictitious retelling of the world's history. But this fiction apart, something as worse just happened. Trump walked the Americans out of the last hanging rope for the earth's survival - the Paris Climate Deal of 2015, leaving the earth and its nations shocked at this sabotage of a global commitment to save it for the future.
Island of Hope
So, on another World Environmental Day, we have very little to celebrate, and yet we do so, owing to those small islands of hope popping up like mushrooms on a rainy season, holding on to the dead rotting barks of wood, protecting those little ants and spiders from the welcome, but harsh, heavy rains. Kerala in all its dichotomy is one such Island... Kerala's tryst with the environment and environmentalism is a chequered history of many a struggle, that need an epic with a hundred chapters to be written, for posterity. It's never been easy for the environmentalists. Nevertheless, the impact of the movement is slowly but steadily showing up. Today, for the first time in Indian history, we have an elected Government that has clearly made some striding commitments to protect the environment, against a clamour for infrastructure and a largely inferiority complex driven inappropriate idea of "development".
Within a few months of it being elected, it wound up a highly controversial private greenfield airport project that was planned on watery green paddy fields on the banks of the river Pamba. The State's support to the Aranmula Airport Project was pulled off, and it instead invested in reviving farming in the area, making a loud statement that what's important for the state is water and food security. Today we have an Aranmula brand of rice from the same fields. The Methran Kayal project, an eco-tourism proposal on another paddy land in Kuttanad, which could have started off a fresh bout of destructive development across the rice bowl was also shelved.
These, along with the broader issues of paddy and wetland protection, water security and food security, organic farming, effective laws for protection of the laterite and granite hills of the state, retraction of some illegal orders that threatened to open up the hill and forest areas for further destruction, an effective sustainable zero waste management system, all became part of the first People's Green Development Manifesto that a group of environmentalists, scientists and social activists put forward last year before the state went to the elections. This must have been the first of its kind in the country.
Haritha Kerala Mission
Some things moved. The elected government in its first year launched a flagship, Haritha Kerala Mission with major focus on integrating Zero Waste, Water Conservation and Organic Farming into its decentralised planning programmes. Interestingly, in a campaign mode, we are seeing forgone rivers like Varattar being revived, rejuvenation plans for thousands of water sources across the state, lakhs of trees being planned, decentralised zero waste management projects and govt thrust on organic farming and marketing leading to eco-shops to be opened across the state. While many of these initiatives are yet to take its full course, there seems to be a commitment from the government to these ideas. Some of its ministers are also on a campaign drive, as they clearly see that a government, bureaucracy or even the political parties put together would not be able to make their missions a success. It has to be the people and a lot of volunteerism. This remains a challenge.
Green Protocol
Another first for a state is the "Green Protocol" spearheaded by the Suchitwa Mission, for the conduct of events in Kerala, where a concerted drive to avoid the use of throw-away plastics and even other toxic materials, is today a norm. The schools have also just reopened and the education department, the mother of all departments, because that's where children grow up to citizens, is welcoming them with a green protocol for schools. It's a rare attempt to bring up a green citizenry in the state.
Obviously, the success of this largely depends on the teacher community. They were always the change makers, and that is enshrined in the history of Kerala, especially its literacy and environmental movements. Hope they rise up to the occasion. Agriculture and food devoid of pesticides, an effort to stop the rampant use of hazardous pesticides and make food at least safe, if not entirely organic, has also started in earnest and should see results, only if we as citizens also start producing and demanding organic food. Kerala also became the first state in India to demand a stop of genetically modified crops, and that resolution came from the full house of the Kerala Legislative Assembly.
Reject At Your Own Peril
As one of the architects of the Green Development Manifesto, I would also have to say that this is not enough. Some of those critical but controversial issues need deft scientific and democratic approaches. We are also a state that played politics and rejected our most important lifeline - the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) Report, also called the Madhav Gadgil Report. Sahyan, the great mountains that define our climate and life, is under threat, and if not the WGEEP, let's at least have our own eco-centric efforts, habitat policies, and this government needs to set up a sincere mission on it. So are issues such as the half-a-century old industrial pollution in the Eloor-Edayar Industrial area, or the 4000 odd quarries that are literally flattening the state, and creating irreversible change to our landscape, life and livelihood.
While there is hope, it hinges on the sincerity of the state to engage. As a citizen, that's where our roles are also placed. Participate and engage. When climate change is a primary global concern, and when the most powerful polluting nation walks out of a climate deal with such conceit, this little island of hope, Kerala, surprisingly even has an official pilot programme to develop carbon-neutral panchayats, a first in India. And this in itself is a powerful political statement for these times. Let's hope for the possibility of a future.
(The writer is the programme director of the Thiruvananthapuram-based NGO, Thanal)