CHENNAI: The final draft notification issued by the Union environment ministry on July 31 on declaration of ecologically sensitive areas (ESA) in the Western Ghats shows that some of the states, including Tamil Nadu, have proposed to include more reserve forest areas in the ESA than ‘highly vulnerable’ non-forest private land holdings as suggested by the Kasturirangan report. The plan by the state governments to leave private lands — where extensive human settlements have come up over the years — off the hook may lead to change in land-use pattern in the already fragmented hilly regions in the future and may trigger more Wayanad-like disasters, some experts said.
Incidentally, the July 31 notification came just a day after the deadly Kerala landslides that left more than 400 people dead. Six states —Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, Gujarat and Maharashtra — covered under the notification have been dilly-dallying over the declaration of ecologically sensitive areas in the Western Ghats for the past 13 years.
A High-Level Working Group (HLWG) led by K Kasturirangan, which submitted its report to the Union environment ministry in April 2013, has recommended notification of 6,914 sq km area of Tamil Nadu in Western Ghats, including 135 villages of the state, as ecologically sensitive areas. But, according to sources, the state may have left out 50 villages with substantial human settlements from being designated as ESA and instead included reserve forests in the ESA category to comply with the land mandate.
Panel-recommended Tirunelveli, Kanniyakumari villages not listed
The suspected error, intentional or unintentional, was made in 2013 as seen in the first draft notification dated November 13, 2013, issued by the ministry and continues to reflect in all the six draft notifications issued till date.
The Kasturirangan report clearly said that the demarcation unit of ESA must be village. As per the sixth draft notification, while all the other five states have explicitly listed out the names of the villages that are to be designated as ESA, Tamil Nadu has allegedly omitted several village names and included just the reserve forest areas.
Advocate Ritwick Dutta, who specialises in environmental law, told TNIE that reserve forest areas are already protected under the Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980. Mining, quarrying, and red-category industries are already prohibited in reserve forests. “If only reserve forests are shown as ESA and villages are left out, then the whole purpose of notifying ESA in Western Ghats will be defeated. Private plantations, villages, and other private patta lands are the ones that should be included in ESA as unregulated development is happening mostly in these areas.” The HLWG had recommended 30 villages and 1,483 sq.km of ESA in Coimbatore district, but in the latest draft notification, the names of only eight villages are listed. The extent of ESA, however, has been shown to be 1,483 sq.km by including more reserve forest areas in the ESA. Also, some villages are included multiple times.
For instance, Valparai town panchayat is repeated five times. Similarly, in Kanyakumari and Tirunelveli districts, more than half of the villages recommended by the Kasturirangan panel are not listed.
Another problem is some of the villages located inside the reserve forest or on forest borders are delineated and they are mostly not considered to be a part of the reserve forest area, though geographically they are part of the same land mass. For instance, Thengumarahada and Hallimoyar in the Nilgiris are two big villages on the eastern slopes reserve forest area of Kotagiri block.
While Thengumarahada is an assigned land, Hallimoyar was in existence even before the area was declared as a reserve forest area. Sources said some private players have purchased huge tracts of land in Hallimoyar village. In the draft ESA notification, names of both the villages are missing. “Slowly, in the years to come, unregulated development may happen and legally it can’t be challenged as they are not a part of ESA. There are several such examples across the Western Ghats taluks,” a Nilgiris-based conservationist said.
When contacted, a senior Tamil Nadu official told TNIE that the Kasturirangan report doesn’t bar the state governments from including reserve forest areas as ESA. “The report was prepared based on satellite remote sensing data and modelling. Some discrepancies were found with regard to village boundaries during the ground truthing exercise, and revisions were made. The government has already submitted the final ESA proposal to the Union environment ministry. We have agreed for 6,914 sq.km of ESA as recommended by the HLWG.”
Meanwhile, the Union ministry has formed a central committee headed by former Director General of Forests Sanjay Kumar to scrutinise the ESA proposals of the six states.
One of the committee members said, “As of now, proposals of Goa, Gujarat and Maharashtra are in advanced stages of finalisation. We will be submitting the report to the ministry by next month.