“The elephants in Uttarakhand may soon lose their home, the Shivalik Elephant Reserve” read the newspaper headline which I glanced during my morning coffee where I wondered how several of these strongholds are being weighed disproportionately against the expanding development. This was something subject to my usual sarcastic laughter which has been the case over some time now, given the state of environment in our country. This forested area of around 5000 sq. km has been de-notified by the Uttarakhand State Wildlife Board, a statutory body under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 that governs matters concerning wildlife at the state level. What would eventually happen to these elephant populations, how do the laws or rules framed in these respects anyhow help? These were some of the questions that diverted my attention to understand more about this less explored subject of wildlife policy or laws in general.
At the outset, laws or legislations as they are legally termed, are a set of principles or rules that are expected to be followed and practiced by abiding citizens of a nation. The laws are shaped with a broad understanding of the concerned subject with a major shortcoming in their poor implementation on ground. These have to be framed taking into consideration the needs of several stakeholders involved. However, subjects like forests, biodiversity, environment and ecosystem services which play a significant role in the ecological security of a nation are less focused upon. Laws and policies pertaining to forests and biodiversity in this nation have dated back to the colonial rule of the nineteenth century. Several laws enacted by the colonial government like the Indian Forest Act (1878), National Forest Policy (1894), Land Acquisition Act (1870) among others have evolved overtime with the country becoming independent.
The Indian Forest Act of 1878 initiated by the colonial government was the first comprehensive document focusing on forests, its produce and the revenue duties levied on timber extracted from these forested lands. This was controlled by the then managers appointed by the Governor General Council of the British government. The main thrust of this law being the extraction and export of timber from forested habitats highlighted a commercial approach towards forests management. However, this law did bring certain positive reforms with the most important being increased attention to forests in general. Additionally, settlement of rights concerning indigenous communities native to the forests was an important aspect of this legislation (Section 6(c), IFA 1878). Yet, flora and fauna were treated only as a resource to be exploited, which was one of the major drawbacks of this law and its successor, the IFA (1927). The amended law which is still in practice needs a major overhaul as many of its sections are outdated and need vital reforms. Certain contentious amendments like the justified authoritarian rule of officials against forest-dwelling communities were put forth by the Central government in 2019 which had to be withdrawn later due to constant disagreement from the Tribal Affairs Ministry.
The focus of colonial laws was restricted to commercial forestry and elitist trophy hunting. The population of many animals hit an irrecoverable low, with the Asiatic Cheetah going extinct by 1947 and around 80,000 tigers hunted between 1875 and 1925 in India alone. (Rangarajan, 2001; Thapar, 2016). As a result, a much-needed law for the preservation of wildlife was brought forth as the Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972. This was conceptualized under the able leadership of the then Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi and contributions from early environmentalists and conservationists like M.K. Ranjitsinh, Salim Ali, K. Sankhala, M. Krishnen among several others. This law has been one of the revolutionary legislations incorporated in the Indian democracy addressing a vital subject of nature conservation (Ranjitsinh, 2017). The mandate of this legislation was demarcating forested areas like sanctuaries, national parks and reserved areas in order to provide inviolate spaces for wild animals with minimum human interference. However, hunting of these wild inhabitants was only regulated and not completely shunned, by placing restrictions on the number of animals being shot down.
Amendments to several clauses were brought about in the form of complete ban on hunting (WLPA, 1991; Thapar, 2015), setting up of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) (WLPA, 2002), concept of tiger reserves under the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) (WLPA, 2006), and reforms regarding wildlife crime and trade (WLPA, 2013). Among these essential reforms, the role of NBWL was thought to be of supreme importance where it is mandated to help promote wildlife conservation in the country. The NBWL specifically reviews wildlife related matters and development projects around protected areas.
However, of late, this board under the first term of the present NDA government had been subject to scrutiny by the Supreme Court and several environmentalists due to the under-representation of non-government members. In addition, between 2014 and 2019, NBWL granted around 682 projects out of the 687 through protected forests where only 5 projects were rejected or stopped with a clearance rate of 99.82%. The cumulative loss in pristine wildlife habitats due to demands by project proponents in even small patches of 5, 10 or 20 hectares is detrimental to the forest cover across the country. As a form of protest, the body has often been claimed as a clearance board instead of a regulatory authority by conservationists all across the country (Koshy, 2019b). The under-representation of scientists, ecologists and subject experts in the authority is of concern and needs immediate reforms.
Similar is the case with the Forest Conservation Act of 1980, where members under its Forest Advisory Committee are appointed without any transparent/clear guidelines. This situation seems grim with respect to the law whose jurisprudence rests on promoting forest land protection and regulate diversion of such land extended for non-forest purposes. Though, this legislation has been successful to an extent, the current pace of development in India and exceeding need for resources, has led to many of the provisions of this act becoming flexible. The cases of diversion of forest land in many protected areas for developmental activities has seen an increasing trend. The pilot river linking project that involves altering the natural hydrology of rivers and linking them using canals presents an obvious case that involves diverting the forest land. For example, the second phase of the Ken-Betwa river linking project involves submergence of around 400 hectares of core protected area of the Panna tiger reserve in Madhya Pradesh. This project has been cleared by the NBWL under WLPA as well as the FAC under the FCA in spite of Panna’s history of the local extinction of tigers (cecindia.nic.in; Bindra, 2017). This is in complete contrast to the mandate of both these statutory authorities. The project is important to meet water requirements for irrigation and to prevent crop failure in times of stress and droughts; it can be implemented using an alternate route but that would escalate the cost of canal construction (NWDA, 2017). How do you weigh such costs against protecting pristine wildlife habitats? Another flagship project, the bullet train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad is thought to inundate protected areas in Mumbai within Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary – a breeding ground for flamingoes – and an area close to Sanjay Gandhi National Park (NHSRCL, 2018; Koshy, 2019a). Small patches of land taken up for such projects is one of the most important issue at present and needs proper scrutiny based on empirical scientific evidence and even alternatives at place.
Image Credits: Sankarshan Rastogi
On similar lines, in their second term, the ruling NDA government recently proposed amendments to Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Rules under the Environment Protection Act of 1986. EIA is a mandatory process aimed at understanding the environmental impact of the developmental activities undertaken across the country. This is majorly to look at the effects of such activities like pollution, tree felling “before” the project is started. However, the current amendment draft advocates the pro-development attitude of the ruling regime against environment conservation. These amendments majorly allow post-facto clearances of the projects even though they started without an environmental clearance, violation of the law to be reported only by the project proponents and no project information in the public domain which in all has left no room for public scrutiny. The role of public hearings has been an important component to help stop many projects that were environmentally unsustainable (environmnetclearance.nic.in). All these proposed changes violate the very basic norms of these rules drafted in 1994 and last modified in 2006 under the then UPA government. In all, these amendments if accepted would cease the environmental accountability of industries and other development proponents with irking the climate breakdown issue.
Though the WLPA, EPA and FCA are considered as major reforms in management of forests and wildlife across India, they do not seem to be as effective today. Additionally, there lies asynchrony among all environmental legislations. For example, conflict arises where both WLPA and Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 are in disagreement over settlement of local community rights. Therefore, measures are needed to resolve conflicts among such environmental legislations. Considering recommendations from the scientific community regarding developmental activities and inculcating aspects of traditional knowledge could lead to effective results.
Overall, dilution of environmental laws and lack of proper implementation indicate the nonchalant attitude of the regime in power towards maintaining ecological security. Ironically, despite reformed laws, current environmental management does not seem to differ much from the colonial era where extractive use of natural resources was the norm. This shift in focus from colonial revenue generation to modern development hasn’t diminished the unsustainable use of forests. Hence, resolving the lacunas in the existing framework, amending the outdated provisions and inclusion of scientific practices is the need of the hour to conserve the remnant biodiversity of India.
Sankarshan Rastogi is a postgraduate student of Wildlife Biology and Conservation at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore. He is interested in wildlife policy and wishes to understand the effectiveness of advocacy and laws in biodiversity conservation. Besides this, he loves singing and writing Hindi-Urdu couplets.
Great article on the subject!