Don't politicise effort to save flora and fauna
Karnataka’s forest minister Eshwar Khandre may have won a small battle in the big war for conservation when he halted the transfer of 401.57 hectares of forest in Ballari district to Kudremukh Iron Ore Company (KIOC) for mining.
Heeding environmentalists’ protests, he struck down the approval given by Union steel and Heavy Industries minister H D Kumaraswamy a week ago and saved 99,330 trees from the axe, saying the denudation would lead to soil erosion and flooding. He also cited that KIOC was a repeat offender and had polluted the Bhadra river with open-cast mining.
The Devadari forest in Sandur is home to the endangered four-horned antelope, besides sloth bears and other wildlife species, and lies a few kilometres from the Daroji and Gudekote sloth bear sanctuaries. This swathe of forest—with a rich biodiversity of teak, sandalwood, honne and other indigenous plants—has attracted mining interests for over a decade.
The Sandur case has been a Centre-state dispute since 2016. Faced with the Centre’s proposal for mining in the forest areas of the Swamimalai ore block, Karnataka’s forest officials decided against granting a lease. The decision was taken on the back of a 2014 report that said mining would change local weather patterns and lead to ecosystem imbalance, with disastrous consequences for the water system, flora and fauna.
Ballari district had already been ravaged by illegal mining carried out by the Reddy brothers in the late 1990s and 2000s. The proposal went back and forth until 2020, when the B S Yediyurappa-led BJP government set aside the forest department report and greenlighted the lease to KIOC; the central forest and environment ministry approved the project in 2022.
As a state opposition leader, Kumaraswamy had himself opposed mining in the Swamimalai block, but is now the voice of the Centre.
It is in everyone’s best interests that the issue does not escalate into a political power show. Almost always, it is the poor and dispossessed who pay the price for erroneous government decisions; Joshimath is one prime example. Building roads through mountains, ore mining and sand mining are activities that wreak havoc on forests and rivers.
As we battle heatwaves, floods and other climatic extremes, we hope our governments will act responsibly with a vision that benefits future generations.