Environmental & Ecological Issue in India

Environmental & Ecological IssueBy Chandresh Dedhia – XMBA 54

Index

• History

• Causes

• Major Issues

• Forest and Conservation

• Forest Categories

• Legal Framework and Laws

• Environmental Issues and Judicial interventions

• Conclusion

July 22, 2012 Footer text here2

History

• Yajnavalkya Smriti, a historic Indian text on statecraft and jurisprudence, suggested to have been written before the 5th century AD

• It prohibited the cutting of trees and prescribed punishment for such acts.

• Kautalya's Arthashastra, written in Mauryan period, emphasised the need for forest administration.

• Ashoka went further, and his Pillar Edicts at Girnar(Gujarat) expressed his view about the welfare of environment and biodiversity.


STOCKHOLM CONFERENCE OF 1972

• The UN Resolution for establishing the United Nations Conference on HumanEnvironment of 1972, stated that there was a dire need for intensified Action at nationaland international level to limit, and where possible to eliminate, the impairment of thehuman environment.

• The Stockholm Declaration of 1972 has gone down in history as that global instrumentwhich for the first time formally brought international focus on to ‘SustainableDevelopment’, a vital concept that remains fundamental to contemporaryenvironmental regulation.


STOCKHOLM CONFERENCE OF 1972

• The meeting agreed upon a Declarationcontaining 26 principles concerning theenvironment and development; an ActionPlan with 109 recommendations, and aResolution.

• The Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi inher seminal speech in the conferencebrought forward the connection betweenecological management and povertyalleviation. It is to be noted that she wasthe only other speaker in the conferenceother than the hosting country primeminister.


THE RIO DECLARATION OF 1992

• The United Nations Conference on Environmentand Development (UNCED), also known as theRio Summit, Rio Conference, and Earth Summitwas a major United Nations conference held inRio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992.

• The Rio Declaration consisted of 27 principlesintended to guide future sustainabledevelopment around the world.

• Principle 16 emphasizes that nationalauthorities should endeavour to promote theinternalization of environmental costs and theuse of economic instruments, taking intoaccount the approach that the polluter should,in principle, bear the cost of pollution.

• This was the classic “polluter pays” principle.


PERIOD BETWEEN 1972-1992• The period between 1972 and 1992 witnessed a number of tragedies;

• The Bhopal gas leak in India (1984)

• Chernobyl blast resulting in radioactivity-related injuries in 21 countries spread in Europe (1986),

• The dioxin leak at Seveso in Italy (1986)

• The oil spill caused by the oil tanker Amoco Cadiz (1978), the Sandoz tragedy in which tons of toxicchemicals were washed into the Rhine river in Europe as a result of a fire at the Sandoz warehousein Switzerland.

• All these and other heart rendering accidents highlighted the dangers of unregulatedindustrialization as well as the fact that environmental pollution knows no national boundaries.

• So there was further centralisation of environmental regulations, and the Governments decided toadopt a number of environmental protection agreements, especially to control transboundaryenvironmental degradation.


Causes

• Some have cited economic development as the cause regarding the environmental issues.

• Others believe economic development is key to improving India's environmental management and preventing pollution of the country.

• It is also suggested that India's growing population is the primary cause of India's environmental degradation.

• Systematic studies challenge this theory.

• Empirical evidence from countries such as Japan, England and Singapore, each with population density similar or higher than India, yet each enjoying environmental quality vastly superior than India, suggests population density may not be the only factor affecting India's issues.


Major Issues• Growing Population

• Poverty

• Agriculture Growth

• Ground Water

• Developments and forests

• Degradation of land

• Reorientation of institutions

• Reduction in genetic diversity

• Urbanization

• Air Pollution

• Water Pollution

• Solid waste Pollution

• Soil Pollution

• Noise Pollution

• Greenhouse Gas Emission


Growing Population


• A population of over thousands of millions is growing at 1.51% every year.

• It puts considerable pressure on its natural resources and reduces the gains of development. Hence, the greatest challenge before us is to limit the population growth.

• Although population control does automatically lead to development, yet the development leads to a decrease in population growth rates.

• This environmental degradation ultimately reduces agricultural yields and food availability, causes famines and diseases and death, thereby reducing the rate of population growth.

Poverty


• India has often been described a rich land with poorpeople.

• The poverty and environmental degradation have a nexusbetween them.

• The vast majority of our people are directly dependent onthe nature resources of the country for their basic needsof food, fuel shelter and fodder.

• About 40% of our people are still below the poverty line.• Environment degradation has adversely affected the poor

who depend upon the resources of their immediatesurroundings.

• Thus, the challenge of poverty and the challengeenvironment degradation are two facts of the samechallenge.

• The population growth is essentially a function of poverty.• Because, to the very poor, every child is an earner and

helper and global concerns have little relevance for him.

Agriculture Growth

• The people must be acquainted with the methodsto sustain and increase agricultural growth withdamaging the environment. High yieldingvarieties have caused soil salinity and damage tophysical structure of soil.

• The economic contribution of agriculture toIndia's GDP is steadily declining with the country'sbroad-based economic growth.

• Still, agriculture is demographically the broadesteconomic sector and plays a significant role in theoverall socio-economic fabric of India.


Ground Water


• It is essential of rationalizing the use of groundwater.• Factors like community wastes, industrial effluents and chemical fertilizers and pesticides

have polluted our surface water and affected quality of the groundwater.• It is essential to restore the water quality of our rivers and other water body as lakes is an

important challenge.• It so finding our suitable strategies for consecration of water, provision of safe drinking

water and keeping water bodies clean which are difficult challenges is essential.

Developments and forests

• Forests serve catchments for the rivers, with increasing demand of water, plan to harness the mighty river through large irrigation projects were made.

• These would submerge forests; displace local people, damage flora and fauna.

• Eg; the dams on the river Narmada, Bhagirathi and elsewhere have become areas of political and scientific debate.

• Forests in India have been shrinking for several centuries owing to pressures of agriculture and other uses.

• Vast areas that were once green, stand today as wastelands. These areas are to be brought back under vegetative cover.

• The tribal communities inhabiting forests respects the trees and birds and animal that gives them sustenance.

• We must recognize the role of these people in restoring and conserving forests.

• The modern knowledge and skills of the forest dept should be integrated with the traditional knowledge and experience of the local communities.

• The strategies for the joint management of forests should be evolved in a well planned way.


Reduction in genetic diversity

• At present most wild genetic stocks have been disappearing from nature.

• Wilding including the Asiatic Lion are facing problem of loss of genetic diversity.

• The protected areas network like sanctuaries, national parks, biosphere reserves are isolating populations. S

• so, they are decreasing changes of one group breeding with another. Remedial steps are to be taken to check decreasing genetic diversity.


Urbanization

• Nearly 27 per cent Indians live in urbanareas. Urbanization andindustrialization has given birth to agreat number of environmentalproblems that need urgent attention.

• Over 30 per cent of urban Indians livein slums. Out of India’s 3,245 townsand cities, only 21 have partial or fullsewerage and treatment facilities.

• Coping with rapid urbanization is amajor challenge.


Air Pollution

• Air pollution in India is a serious issue with the major sourcesbeing fuelwood and biomass burning, fuel adulteration, vehicleemission and traffic congestion.

• Air pollution is also the main cause of the Asian brown cloud,which is causing the monsoon to be delayed.

• India is the world's largest consumer of fuelwood, agriculturalwaste and biomass for energy purposes.

• Traditional fuel (fuelwood, crop residue and dung cake)dominates domestic energy use in rural India and accounts forabout 90% of the total

• Vehicle emissions are another source of air pollution. Vehicleemissions are worsened by fuel adulteration and poor fuelcombustion efficiencies from traffic congestion and low densityof quality, high speed road network per 1000 people.

• The Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act was passed in1981 to regulate air pollution and there have been somemeasurable improvements.

• However, the 2012 Environmental Performance Index rankedIndia as having the poorest relative air quality out of 132countries.


Water Pollution

• A 2007 study found that discharge of untreated sewage isthe single most important source of pollution in surfaceand ground water in India.

• There is a large gap between generation and treatment ofdomestic waste water in India.

• The problem is not only that India lacks sufficienttreatment capacity but also that the sewage treatmentplants that exist do not operate and are not maintained.

• In 2008, the water quality monitoring found almost allrivers with high levels of BOD.

• Rivers Yamuna, Ganga, Gomti, GhagharaRiver, Chambal, Mahi, Vardha are amongst the other mostcoliform polluted water bodies in India.

• Flooding during monsoons worsens India's water pollutionproblem, as it washes and moves solid waste andcontaminated soils into its rivers and wetlands.


Solid waste Pollution• Trash and garbage is a common sight in urban and rural areas

of India. It is a major source of pollution.

• In the country are produced every year 226.6 million tons andIndian cities alone generate more than 100 million tons ofsolid waste a year.

• Street corners are piled with trash. Public places andsidewalks are despoiled with filth and litter, rivers and canalsact as garbage dumps.

• In part, India's garbage crisis is from rising consumption.India's waste problem also points to a stunning failure ofgovernance.

• In 2000, India's Supreme Court directed all Indian cities toimplement a comprehensive waste-management programmethat would include household collection of segregated waste,recycling and composting.

• These directions have simply been ignored. No major cityruns a comprehensive programme of the kind envisioned bythe Supreme Court.


Soil Pollution• Soils in India can be classified into 8 categories: alluvial, black, red, laterite,

forest, arid & desert, saline & alkaline and peaty & organic soils.

• In March 2009, the issue of Uranium poisoning in Punjab attracted presscoverage.

• It was alleged to be caused by fly ash ponds of thermal power stations,which reportedly lead to severe birth defects in children in the Faridkot andBhatinda districts of Punjab.

• The news reports claimed the uranium levels were more than 60 times themaximum safe limit.

• In 2012, the Government of India confirmed that the ground water in Malwabelt of Punjab has uranium metal that is 50% above the trace limits set bythe United Nations' World Health Organization.

• Scientific studies, based on over 1000 samples from various samplingpoints, could not trace the source to fly ash and any sources from thermalpower plants or industry as originally alleged.

• The study also revealed that the uranium concentration in ground water ofMalwa district is not 60 times the WHO limits, but only 50% above the WHOlimit in 3 locations.

• This highest concentration found in samples was less than those foundnaturally in ground waters currently used for human purposes elsewhere,such as Finland.

• Research is underway to identify natural or other sources for the uranium.


Noise Pollution

• Noise pollution in India is quite a big problem due toexcessive usage of horns for no sensible reasonwhatsoever.

• If a person is to here horns of such high volumesthroughout the day then naturally as age advanceshearing will become difficult and will slowly lead todeafness.

• This too can be eradicated slowly but steadilythrough education.

• People need to understand that honking so muchand that too unnecessarily is harmful and not safe.

• The Supreme Court of India which is in New Delhigave a significant verdict on noise pollution in 2005.

• Unnecessary honking of vehicles makes for a highdecibel level of noise in cities.

• The use of loudspeakers for political purposes and forsermons by temples and mosques makes noisepollution in residential areas worse.

• In January 2010, Government of India publishednorms of permissible noise levels in urban and ruralareas.


Greenhouse Gas Emission

• Greenhouse gases are those that can absorb and emit infraredradiation, but not radiation in or near the visible spectrum. Inorder, the most abundant greenhouse gases in Earth'satmosphere are:

• Water vapor (H2O) ,Carbon dioxide (CO2)

• Methane (CH4) , Nitrous oxide (N2O)

• Ozone (O3) , CFCs

• India was the third largest emitter of carbon dioxide in 2009 at1.65 Gt per year, after China (6.9 Gt per year) and the UnitedStates (5.2 Gt per year).

• With 17 percent of world population, India contributed some 5percent of human-sourced carbon dioxide emission; compared toChina's 24 percent share.

• On per capita basis, India emitted about 1.4 tons of carbondioxide per person, in comparison to the United States’ 17 tonsper person, and a world average of 5.3 tons per person.


National Forest Programme

• As early as the 1960s, the internationalforestry community had identified policyplanning as a priority, recognizing theimportance of having sound policy to guideefforts to improve the forest sector'sperformance in countries and provide morestrategic orientation towards forestdevelopment.

• In the 1980s, in response to worldwideconcern over deforestation in the tropics, itinitiated the first set of internationallyconcerted action plans, including tropicalforest action plans (TFAPs), forestry sectormaster plans and forestry sector reviews.


• The lessons learned from TFAPs and other planning frameworks had significant impact on the subsequent international forest policy dialogue.

Forest and Conservation

• Prior to the 1980s, India deployed a bureaucratic method to estimate forest coverage.

• A land was notified as covered under Indian Forest Act, and then officials deemed this land area as recorded forest even if it was devoid of vegetation

• In the 1980s, space satellites were deployed for remote sensing of real forest cover.

• In 1985, India created the Ministry of Environment and Forests.

• This was followed by a National Forest Policy and the major government reforms of the early 1990s.

• Standards were introduced in 1980’s to classify India's forests into different Categories


Forest Categories

• Forest Cover: defined as all lands, more than one hectarein area, with a tree canopy density of more than 10percent. (They may or may not be statutorily notified asforest area).

• Very Dense Forest: All lands, with a forest cover withcanopy density of 70 percent and above

• Moderately Dense Forest: All lands, with a forest coverwith canopy density of 40–70 percent

• Open Forest: All lands, with forest cover with canopydensity of ten to forty percent

• Mangrove Cover: Mangrove forest is salt tolerant forestecosystem found mainly in tropical and sub-tropicalcoastal and/or inter-tidal regions. Mangrove cover is thearea covered under mangrove vegetation as interpreteddigitally from remote sensing data. It is a part of forestcover and also classified into three classes viz. very dense,moderately dense and open.


Forest Categories

• Non Forest Land: defined as lands without anyforest cover

• Scrub Cover: All lands, generally in and aroundforest areas, having bushes and or poor treegrowth, chiefly small or stunted trees withcanopy density less than 10 percent

• Tree Cover: Land with tree patches (blocks andlinear) outside the recorded forest areaexclusive of forest cover and less than theminimum mapable area of one hectare

• Trees Outside Forests: Trees growing outsideRecorded Forest Areas


Legal Framework and laws


• The Forest Acts of 1865 and 1878 were pieces of colonial legislation.

• Both the Acts restricted the access of the tribal communities to forest resources and gave exclusive ownership and control over the forests to the colonial masters. In 1927, The Forest Act was passed, repealing the Forest Acts of 1865 and 1878.

• The Forest Act of 1927 too vests the ownership and control over forest resources in the Government and not in the village communities.

• The rapid drift towards deforestation during the Second World War and the post-independence developmental Activities further aggravated environmental degradation. So, in 1952, the national policy laid down that one third of the total geographical area in India should be brought under tree cover.

Legal Framework and laws

• Pursuant to the Stockholm Conference in 1972, which adopted that natural resources, including forests, should be safeguarded, the subject of forests was deleted from the State list and included in the Concurrent List by the Constitutional (42nd Amendment) Act of 1976.

• In 1988, pursuant to IX World Forestry Conference, the Indian Government amended the Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980 and also formulated a 22 Vedas literally means ‘knowledge’.

• They are the first records of the ancient Indians on history, law, economics, religion, philosophy, ethics, environment, aesthetics and other subjects.

• There are yet other laws that deal with wildlife protection such as The Elephants’ Preservation Act of 1879; and The Wild Birds and Animals Protection Act of 1912.


Environmental Issues and Judicial interventions

• The Tehri Dam Project.

• The Narmada Valley Project


The Tehri Dam Project.

• The rivers Bhagirathi and Bhilangana rise in the Garhwal Himalayas inUttaranchal and flow south to the plains as the Ganga.

• A three billion dollar clay core, rock fill dam is being constructed at theconfluence of the Bhagirathi and Bhilangana, close to the Garhwaltown of Tehri.

• It would submerge nearly 100 villages, including Tehri, a historicalcapital. As many as 85,600 families will be relocated as a result.

• The completed dam will displace many people and submerge severaltowns, among them the town of Tehri; the region is vulnerable toearthquakes and the dam may be structurally incapable ofwithstanding them.

• Of particular concern were the 1,70,000 inhabitants of the downstreams Hindu holy towns of Hardwar and Rishikesh



• The Tehri project was unsuccessfully challenged in theSupreme Court in a writ petition filed by the TehriBandh Virodhi Sangarash Samiti (TBVSS) in 1985.

• In April 1987 the Indian National Trust for Art andCultural Heritage (INTACH), a n ‘intervener’ in thispetition and a leading non-Governmental organizationin the field of conservation, sponsored an independentassessment of the economic feasibility of the dam.


• In addition, in 1986, the Soviet Union agreed to help fund the project with loans atextremely concessional terms.

• As a part of the agreement with the Indian Government, Soviet experts conducted a reviewof the proposed project and made several ominous findings, the most frightening of whichwas that the high seismicity of the Tehri area had not been adequately taken intoconsideration by Indian planners.


• The Supreme Court dismissed thepetition in 1990 after a very limitedenquiry.

• Although the EnvironmentalAppraisal Committee hadunanimously concluded that theTehri project should not beapproved, the Central Governmentrelied instead on an opinion of theDepartment of Mines to convinceitself and the court that the projectwas sound.


The Narmada Valley Project

• The Narmada River springs from a holy pool amidst Hindutemples on the Amarkantak plateau in the forested Shahdoldistrict of Madhya Pradesh, and then winds westwards along a1,300-ki1ometre course to drain into the Arabian sea.

• The Narmada is one of India’s most sacred rivers.

• Although the Narmada Valley Project was conceived in 1946, finalplanning and work on it commenced only after the NarmadaWater Disputes Tribunal passed its final orders in 1978.

• This Tribunal was established in 1969 under India’s InterstateWater Disputes Act of 1956 to resolve the dispute on river watersharing among the riparian States of Madhya Pradesh, Gujaratand Maharashtra.

• The tribunal also laid down conditions regarding resettlement andrehabilitation of the people to be displaced by the submergence-the ‘oustees.’



• The Narmada Valley Project, if andwhen completed, will rank as thelargest irrigation project ever plannedand implemented as a single unitanywhere in the world.

• By the year 2040, the projectauthorities hope to complete 31 majordams (11 on the Narmada and 20 on itstributaries), 135 medium dams and3000 minor dams.


• Out of the 31 major dams, the ones most controversial are the Sardar Sarovar Project(SSP) in Gujarat and the Narmada (Indira) Sagar Project (NSP) in Madhya Pradesh.

• The NSP, which has the largest submergence zone and will create biggest artificialreservoir in India, is years behind the SSP in construction.

• The SSP is intended to bring drinking water to Kutch and other drought-riddenregions of Gujarat.


• The dam will impound water in a 455 foot high reservoir that will submerge 37,000 hectaresof land in the three States of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

• It will also divert 9.5 million acre feet (MAF) of water into a canal and irrigation system.

• The canal is the biggest in the world-450 kilometer long.



• The Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal (NWDT) established specific conditions regarding the resettlement and rehabilitation of the people that would be displaced by the creation of the SardarSarovar dam.

• The language of the Tribunal award clearly States that all ‘Project Affected Families’ would be re-established as communities with access to water, education, and health (Clause 1V(1" on a ‘land-for-land basis’

• On 5 June 1995 the Supreme Court granted a stay, citing the questionable rehabilitation process. Construction was suspended at a height of 81.5 meters.

• After four years of investigations and mounds of further litigation, the Supreme Court surprised many by issuing an interim order on 18 February 1999, which permitted the resumption of construction on the dam up to a height of 85 metres.

• One of the major reasons the Court allowed work to resume was based on an affidavit provided by the States of Maharashtra and Gujarat that all oustees had been fully rehabilitated and indicating that arrangements had been made for those to be displaced by the increase of 3.5 metres in dam height.



• In order to fully expose the incorrect Government claims, the NBA (Narmada Bachao Andolan ) and a host of other concerned groups representing oustees, women, dalits, tribals, farmers and other downtrodden people, organized marches and sit ins throughout India, aimed particularly at dam sites and Government buildings.

• Their purpose was to force the Government to admit its untruths concerning the availability of land for the displaced.

• The campaigns conducted by citizen groups are having some positive outcomes.

• In March, 1999 the Government of Maharashtra admitted that there was not land to sufficiently rehabilitate the families who would be submerged by the court sanctioned five meter rise in dam height.

• Remember that Maharashtra authorities had made earlier claims in the Supreme Court that there was land available for project-affected families.

• Authorities have admitted that the number of displaced families they had cited in the affidavit submitted to the court was based on numbers of a survey conducted in 1983-1984.

• This figure represented only one tenth of the Actual number of displacees


Conclusion

• India must pursue rural development and animal husbandry policies to address local communities need to find affordable cattle fodder and grazing.

• To avoid destruction of local forest cover, fodder must reach these communities on reliable roads and other infrastructure, in all seasons year round.

• The Forest Rights Bill is likely to be harmful to forest conservation and ecological security. The Forest Rights Bill became a law since 2007.

• The government should work closely with mining companies. Revenue generated from lease of mines must be pooled into a dedicated fund to conserve and improve the quality of forests in the region where the mines are located.

• Power to declare ecologically sensitive areas must be with each Indian state.

• The mandate of State Forest Corporations and government owned monopolies must be changed.

• Government should reform regulations and laws that ban felling of trees and transit of wood within India. Sustainable agro-forestry and farm forestry must be encouraged through financial and regulatory reforms, particularly on privately owned lands.


Thank you

Date post:	12-Nov-2014
Category:	Environment
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