In 2018, many people thought that the floods and landslides in Kerala that caused huge financial losses and manifold human tragedies marked a once-in-a-century calamity. But again, in 2019, a repeat of the shocking trail of intense floods, landslides, financial losses and manifold human tragedies has not just left the same set of people stunned but also made them realise that it is unwise to continue business as usual, and that we must think afresh of the options before us.

Body:

The Western Ghats is a biological treasure trove that is endangered, and it needs to be “protected and regenerated, indeed celebrated for its enormous wealth of endemic species and natural beauty”.

Democratic devolution and Western Ghats:

• Decentralized water management plans to be developed at least for the next 20 years. Water resource management plans with suitable watershed measures, afforestation, eco-restoration of catchments, rainwater recharging and harvesting, recycling and reuse should be built into the plans.
• Basin level management plans: These water management plans should integrate into basin level management plans. The objective is to reduce the dependence on rivers and external sources and to improve recharge.
• Encourage use of organic manures: Self-help groups/ local entrepreneurs should be supported to set up units for the manufacture of organic farming material such as good quality organic manure, oil cakes, and bio-fertilizers so that good quality manure can be assured on time and reduces ground water pollution
• Agro-biodiversity conservation with local participation: A participatory plant breeding and crop improvement programme needs to be launched at the Panchayat level with farmers, including women, to restore traditional varieties and develop good varieties suitable for each locality. Conserving locally adaptive varieties may also become extremely relevant in the context of climate change
• Legislations: Joint Forest Management (JFM), Extension of Panchayat Raj to Scheduled Areas (PESA), Protection of Plant Variety and Farmers’ Rights Act (PPVRFA), Biological Diversity Act (BDA) and the Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Rights over the Forest) Act (FRA) have conferred substantial rights over natural resources to local communities and governments should devolve the powers as mentioned in these acts.
• Environmental Impact Assessment: For mining within the Western Ghats, cumulative EIAs must be made mandatory rather than entertaining EIAs for individual leases in the same areas.
• Sustainable energy generation: Micro and mini hydel projects in eco sensitive areas in the Ghats should be designed more to meet local power demand and not to feed to the grids as power lines are needed to evacuate power from these plants
• Transportation: All future proposals for railway lines and roads should undergo a thorough environmental and wildlife impact assessment. There should be a subcommittee (comprising all relevant stakeholders and local communities and tribes) to assess the environmental and ecological impacts of constructing any transport infrastructure through rich forests, wildlife habitats and wildlife corridors.

Way forward:

• It is necessary to use this vast experience and existing policies to formulate and implement appropriate policies, including transfer of financial powers, and institutions to promote sustainable and participatory forestry under the emerging programmes and mechanisms.
• We should assert that conservation prescriptions should not be merely regulatory, but include positive incentives such as conservation service charges.
• We must hand over economic activities like quarrying to agencies like the Kudumbasree groups that are accountable to local communities.
• We must take full advantage of powers and responsibilities conferred on citizens under provisions such as the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution, and the Biological Diversity Act, 2002.
• We, the sovereign people, are the real rulers of India and must engage ourselves more actively in the governance of the country and lead it on to a path of people-friendly and nature-friendly development.

Case study: Kerala – A leader in devolution:

• Kerala leads the country in democratic devolution.
• The Kerala High Court had ruled in favour of Plachimada Panchayat that cancelled Coca-Cola’s licence because the company polluted and depleted groundwater reserves, drying up wells and adversely impacting agriculture and livelihoods.
• While doing so, the panchayat invoked its constitutional rights, arguing that it had the duty to protect the well-being of its citizens and had the right to cancel — or refuse permission for — anything that affected its citizens adversely.
• The company’s counterargument was that the panchayat was subordinate to the State government, which had granted it the licence.
• The Kerala High Court rejected this contention, affirming that grass-roots institutions have the authority to decide on the course of development in their own locality.
• Furthermore, the Kerala legislature unanimously passed a law asking Coca-Cola to pay Plachimada Panchayat due compensation for losses inflicted on them.
• Kerala had also been at the forefront of the country’s Literacy Mission of the late 1980s; it pioneered Panchayat Level Resource Mapping involving neo-literates and followed it up with the People’s Planning campaign that attempted to involve every panchayat in the preparation of a Panchayat Development Report