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Take steps to protect Western Ghats

Last Updated 20 September 2020, 21:09 IST

The Karnataka government had, some time ago, come out with a proposal to pump water from river Sharavathi in Shivamogga district to meet the consumptive requirements of Bengaluru over 300 km away. This was seen as another deadly blow on the already fragile Western Ghats. Fortunately, it was not pursued in the light of opposition. It is illogical to expect green districts to make huge ecological sacrifices to satisfy the unquenchable thirst of a city that has exhibited total callousness towards water conservation and reuse, lake restoration, and rainwater harvesting. Shivamogga is already on the brink of an environmental disaster with an Indian Institute of Science (IISc) study indicating that the vegetation cover has decreased from 96% in 1973 to 86% in 2018 and forest area from 44% to 34%. The rampant change in land use saw the area under plantation increase from 9% to 30% and the built-up area from 0.63% to 2.3%. According to the study, 650 villages in the western parts of the district are highly sensitive and even small changes can have an adverse impact on the environment. Thus, it is imperative that the government drops the Sharavathi project officially and explores other options to meet Bengaluru’s needs.

The Western Ghats, a Unesco World Heritage Site, which is one of the eight hot-spots of biological diversity in world, hosts a large proportion of the country’s flora and fauna and largely impacts climatic conditions and rainfall patterns in the peninsula. Both the Gadgil and Kasturirangan reports which recommended declaring a part of the ghats as an ecologically sensitive zone have been gathering dust due to several misconceptions, mainly fuelled by politicians. While one Bishop in Kerala described the reports as “ecological terrorism” aimed at throwing out farmers from their homes, the real beneficiaries are mining units and luxury resorts that possess large tracts of land in forest areas.

While there are no two views on protecting the Western Ghats, there is also a need to strike a balance between safeguarding the forests and the right to livelihood of the local people. The people of the ghats have for long questioned why they should be the sole custodians of the environment while their counterparts in urban areas are free to strip forests and fell trees for infrastructure and other projects so that they can lead a comfortable life. There is also a growing demand that the local population should decide what is good for them, instead of being dictated by environmentalists. While they do have a point and their right to the livelihood needs to be respected, a large-scale commercial activity that is detrimental to the environment and to the local people themselves should be prohibited. The Western Ghats do not belong to this generation alone and it is everyone’s duty to preserve it for posterity.

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(Published 20 September 2020, 20:52 IST)

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