The according of World Heritage Site (WHS) status to the Western Ghats will make the going tougher for the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). On one hand, the Indian government will be under obligation to maintain the ecological diversity and sanctity of the Ghats. And on the other, it will remain under pressure to dilute the recommendations of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) which has called for drastic measures to maintain the biodiversity of the region.
With the last date for filing comments on the WGEEP report just round the corner (July 5), the campaign for its acceptance and implementation will now gather steam.
Professor Madhav Gadgil, who headed the 14-member panel which submitted its analysis in August last, has been lobbying hard for the report’s implementation. The eminent ecologist, who had initially campaigned for the report to be made public, was dropped from the National Advisory Council last week.
Undaunted, Gadgil has now gone ahead by following up on the WGEEP report and circulating a list of “action points” in conservation circles. Gadgil argues that the WGEEP proposals “are being wrongly portrayed as ‘conservation by imposition’ as if the panel prescribed rigid boundaries for Ecologically Sensitive Zones, and the panel has (apparently) given a set of inflexible restrictive prescriptions to be followed for development initiatives in these zones.”
“Quite to the contrary, the WGEEP has clearly stated that what is proposed are only provisional boundaries and provisional guidelines, both to serve as a basis of an informed deliberation through an inclusive process reaching down to all gram sabhas/ward sabhas throughout the Western Ghats. The report suggests that an excellent precedent exists whereby the Goa government placed the database prepared by Goa Regional Plan 2021 before all gram sabhas for correction of any errors as well as suggestions,” argues Gadgil.
Even as pressure is mounting on the MoEF to accept the recommendations of the WGEEP, the ministry has been resorting to stonewalling tactics. First, it sought a 40-day window for the public to file their suggestions and comments on the report. The ministry has also added a rider. The link to the report on its website takes the visitor through a flat disclaimer, “The WGEEP report has not been formally accepted by the Ministry and that the report is still being analysed and considered by the Ministry (sic).”
Then, on June 27, it told the Bombay High Court that the Centre would need four more months to decide on the report’s recommendations as the Western Ghats issue involved six states: Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Most detractors of the government have believed that since the panel had explicitly warned against throwing the Ghats open to developmental and industrial activities, the six states affected by the report were pleading with the Centre to dilute the recommendations.
The WHS status will now make the situation more difficult for the MoEF to wriggle out of. On the face of it, there is nothing binding on the Indian government to not throw open the Ghats to developmental and mining activities. That is, if it is not serious about retaining the status. After all, the UNESCO tag is only an obligation.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which assesses proposals for sites of natural significance, had earlier this year asked UNESCO to defer granting the WHS tag to the Western Ghats. It had indirectly called for the implementation of the WGEEP report for the proposal to be passed. In other words, it had virtually endorsed the recommendations of the Gadgil panel.
Equations on the ground have changed. Earlier, it looked as though the WHS status would be granted only if India implemented the WGEEP report. Now the situation has been turned on its head: if India wants to retain the UNESCO tag for the Western Ghats, it will have to willy-nilly implement the WGEEP report. Certainly, to an extent.
