In people's man Gadgil, Western Ghats found a valiant defender

Bengaluru: Madhav Gadgil, the ecologist who lived the life of science at grassroots even as he chaired state and national-level organisations, was known in Karnataka for his work to protect the Western Ghats.

Though he headed Indian Institute of Science and was a member of eminent bodies like British Ecological Society, US National Academy of Sciences and the Prime Minister's Scientific Advisory Council, it was Gadgil's work on the Western Ghats that kept him as part of a never-ending news cycle in peninsular India.

While his work brought recognition to the Nilgiris with the creation of the first biosphere reserve of India in 1986, his efforts to save the Western Ghats did not succeed As the chair of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), Gadgil led the task of examining the status of the Western Ghats and recommending measures to protect it.

Retired forest officer A N Yellappa Reddy remembered the emphasis Gadgil placed on biodiversity. "Very early on, he was very clear about the need to protect biodiversity. He would take time to convince everyone about the need for biodiversity register and the need to involve communities. We did have our differences when his recommendations seemed theoretical. However, the thing with Gadgil was that he always found a way to make things work," he said.

In his autobiography, 'A Walk up the Hill', Gadgil records the uphill tasks he faced from the get-go in trying to protect Western Ghats. "WGEEP had to function under adverse circumstances. The Ministry of Environment and Forests refused to share the database of the Central Pollution Control Board's Zoning Atlas for Siting of Industries.. Nor could we access the spatial database on protected areas," he states, listing the details of non-cooperation from the state governments.

The panel, however, takes it up as a challenge to develop its own database by using satellite data of 32 m X 32 m resolution. Recognising the heterogeneity of the ghats, the panel suggested three levels of eco sensitive zones: high (ESZ1), moderate (ESZ2) and low (ESZ3). The report called for location-specific decision making by local communities at gram panchayat level.

Standing tall

Harini Nagendra, Professor at Azim Premji University, for whom Gadgil was a PhD advisor, described him as a man with exceptional communication skills. "Be it a farmer or a bureaucrat, a pastoralist or a scientist, he climbed the barriers and disarmed their suspicions," she said.

She said it was Gadgil's ability to transcend the disciplines that impressed people who worked with him. "Be it ecology, remote sensing, theoretical sciences or economics, he could handle all the subjects and once with an inter-disciplinery approach where learning never stopped. The last time I spoke to him, he talked about using AI-based tools to translate education material into simple Marathi," she said.

Writer and environmentalist Nagesh Hegde said the villagers of Gadgil worked with him for years and never took him as anything but just another villager. "Up to 1995, he worked with villagers on biodiversity and ecology. He had a field station in Sirsi and lived like just another villager. His work was instrumental in preventing the construction of a big dam for Bedti river. He also recognised the importance of Aghanashini estuary very early on," he said.

Ghats remain vulnerable

In his autobiography, Gadgil explains how a disinformation campaign by those in the vested interests not only defeated the WGEEP report but also violated the constitutional rights of people by undermining the gram sabhas.

Both the Centre and the state governments refused to act on WGEEP's "clear-cut" recommendation to distribute regional-language versions of the report at local level and extensive consultation with gram prior to deciding on the report. On the other hand, the state bureaucracy and political leadership pushed "projects favouring constructional and commercial lobbies".

Instead, a "disinformation campaign" made people believe that conservation measures will impose restrictions. "Since the report was not available in public, it was easy to mislead people," Gadgil states.

The final blow to the WGEEP Report was delivered by by the K Kasturirangan-led High Level Working Group (HLWG). "The HLWG took the disinformation campaign against WGEEP to another level. HLWG claimed that the WGEEP's database was very crude at a resolution of 9 km x 9 km... In fact, WGEEP used satellite data at a resolution of 32 m x 32 m," he said.

In the years since the report got ignored, the Ghats have seen repeated incidents of landslides and floods, leading to loss of life and damage to property. The governments have continued to push more development projects, with at least three new power plants proposed in Karnataka.