Kerala floods: Man-made or nature's fury? -TV Jayan

-The Hindu Business Line

The rejection of the the Gadgil panel report, by all the six States along the Western Ghats, has proved to be a costly error

The floods of catastrophic dimensions that ravaged Kerala recently have brought into sharp focus the all-round ecological destruction caused by human interference in the State’s hilly terrains.

The fact that there were 12 major landslides and hundreds of minor ones within a fortnight in the mountainous districts of the State underscores how fragile the land has become over the decades. Idukki and Wayanad districts, which fall on the Western Ghats, have been completely cut off by the floods, as the roads connecting them with other parts of the State lie in total disrepair.

Questions from the tragedy

Needless to say, a spate of torrential downpours — that carried on continuously for a few days —precipitated the deluge, which was the severest that the Kerala has witnessed since 1924. The calamity so far has claimed over 300 precious lives, but the death toll could have been much higher had it not been for the swift and coordinated action by the authorities, civil society and the public, which has won them laurels. The overflowing rivers and the opening of 30-odd filled-to-the-brim dams, equally contributed to the flooding of the plains.

The tragedy also revived the discussion around the need to protect the fragile ecosystem of the Western Ghats, the 1600-km-long mountain range, regarded as the one of the eight ‘hottest’ biodiversity hotspots in the world. Kerala accounts for nearly 18 per cent of the biodiversity-rich Western Ghats. About eight years ago, the then UPA government constituted a 14-member Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), under the chairmanship of noted ecologist Madhav Gadgil, to look into measures required to arrest the widespread ecological devastation that the fragile Western Ghats were facing from human activities.

The panel worked tirelessly on it for a year and a half, consulting experts and people’s representatives at all levels, including panchayats, and submitted its report in August 2011 — only to be rejected by then Union Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan. The Minister also refused to meet Gadgil, a globally renowned ecological scientist known for his work on the Western Ghats. A year later, the UPA government appointed a new committee under the chairmanship of K Kasturirangan, former chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation, to “examine” the WGEEP report as it was not acceptable to any of the six Western Ghat States — Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Goa, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

The Gadgil Committee divided the Western Ghats into three ecologically sensitive zones — highest (ESZ1), high (ESZ2) and moderate sensitivity (ESZ3), in addition to the Protected Areas, which are managed under regulations prescribed under pertinent acts such as the Wildlife Protection Act. It suggested that ESZ1 and ESZ2 would be largely ‘no-gone’ zones for mining, polluting industries as well as large-scale development activities, including new railway lines. It also objected to new dams, thermal power stations or massive windmill farms or new townships in ESZ1.

The panel, however, said the local communities and gram sabhas will have a larger say in deciding on matters relating to the ecology of these regions. It also called for stricter regulation on tourism, phasing out of plastics, chemical fertilisers and a ban on diversion of forest land into non-forest applications and conversion of public lands into private lands.

Please click here to read more.