The Green Goblin: Burying Hesaraghatta in concrete

This week, the State Board for Wildlife rejected a proposal by the Karnataka Forest Department to conserve 5,010 acres of grasslands in Hesaraghatta as a “Greater Hesaraghatta Grassland Conservation Reserve.” Their reason? According to newspaper reports, it is because of commercial pressure. Setting aside thousands of acres for conservation is impossible because it is too valuable a space. Given the high price of land, and the scarcity of large patches of land, Hesaraghatta’s grasslands are being eagerly eyed by real estate developers. A strange reason for a wildlife board to reject a proposal for conservation!

Many readers may know the grasslands of Hesaraghatta lake as a picnic spot. Others may have heard of it as a treasure for birdlife. These grasslands host at least 235 species of birds, 100 species of butterflies, and many hundreds of varieties of insects. A rare smooth coated otter was spotted here recently, and many species of wildlife take refuge in this large area, which is Bengaluru’s last remaining grassland. The grassland and lake are important for recharge of ground water in the Arkavathy basin. If the entire area were to be opened up for construction, it would have disastrous consequences for the city’s water security.

Local residents and influential Bengaluru researchers and conservationists have struggled to protect this area for years. The proposal put forward by the Forest Department was, in fact, developed by this group. As they strive to protect the lake and its surroundings, the area is also sought after by other kinds of visitors, with very different intents. Newspaper reports indicate that vast quantities of sand and mud have been extracted to make cement and bricks, so much so that sections of the lake-bed have started to collapse. The place has also become a tourism spot of another kind – for weekend parties, which leave broken alcohol bottles strewn across the grassland.

How is it possible that so valuable a space, essential for hundreds of species of birds, insects and rare wildlife, and essential for the water security of Bengaluru, is viewed only as potential real estate? This blindness is not unique to the case of Hesaraghatta. Across India, we think of places like Hesaraghatta as ‘wastelands’, to be put to productive economic use. Why not convert it into an amusement park, a film city or any of the other economic uses that have been proposed?

‘Wasteland’ is an actual technical term, used by government to classify land. It is used in a way that is very similar to the way we say, ‘waste fellow’, colloquially -- a common epithet, used to describe someone we may despise or consider useless. Wasteland has a long history of usage, all the way back to the 17th century. The term comes from John Locke, a British philosopher whose vision of property rights is influential across former British colonies, from Kenya and India to the US. Locke believed that all land that was not used for maximum economic benefit was ‘waste’. His ideas were used by British occupiers across India to seize lands from local communities, with the excuse that it was lying ‘waste’, i.e., not being used to its maximum economic capacity by private entrepreneurs.

If you read the Government Wasteland Atlas of India, you would be very surprised. Wastelands include all kinds of productive, high-value ecological areas such as forests, marshy areas, grasslands, and riverine and coastal sandy beaches – a 17th century British legacy that makes us blind to their real value in an era of climate change.

A number of research studies have shown the importance of preserving Hesaraghatta for biodiversity and the ecological health of Bengaluru. The Forest Department’s research wing, EMPRI, produced a report in 2015 that said the grasslands were an essential preservation zone for the water security of Bengaluru. But it seems the government is bent on rejecting its own advice!

Unless we recognise the value of this ‘wasteland’, it will soon be buried in concrete.