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GS Paper: GS3-18.Conservation, Environmental Pollution and Degradation, Environmental Impact Assessment.

  • Specie in news: Spot-billed Pelicans

    A nematode infestation has led to mass mortality of spot-billed pelicans (Pelicanus philippensis) at Telineelapuram Important Bird Area (IBA) in Andhra Pradesh.

    Spot-billed Pelicans

    • The spot-billed pelican (Pelecanus philippensis) or grey pelican is a member of the pelican family.
    • It breeds in southern Asia from southern Iran across India east to Indonesia.
    • It is a bird of large inland and coastal waters, especially large lakes.
    • The breeding population of these pelican species is limited to India, Sri Lanka and Cambodia.
    • In the non-breeding season they are recorded in Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.

    Conservation status

    • IUCN status: Near Threatened
    • Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972: Schedule IV (Hunting prohibited but the penalty for any violation is less compared to the first two schedules)

     

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  • Towards low emissions growth

    Context

    While many developing countries made net-zero pledges at COP26 in Glasgow, they face enormous developmental challenges in their attempts to grow in a climate-constrained world.

    Developmental challenges for India

    • For India, the national context is shaped by high youth unemployment, millions more entering the workforce each year, and a country hungry for substantial investments in hard infrastructure to industrialise and urbanise.
    • Growth with low emission footprint: India’s economic growth in the last three decades, led by growth in the services sector, has come at a significantly lower emissions footprint.
    • But in the coming decades, India will have to move to an investment-led and manufacturing-intensive growth model to create job opportunities and create entirely new cities and infrastructure to accommodate and connect an increasingly urban population.
    •  All of this requires a lot of energy. Can India do all of this with a low emissions footprint?

    What could India do to pursue an industrialization pathway that is climate-compatible?

    • A coherent national transition strategy is important in a global context where industrialised countries are discussing the imposition of carbon border taxes while failing to provide developing countries the necessary carbon space to grow or the finance and technological assistance necessary to decarbonise.
    • What India needs is an overarching green industrialisation strategy that combines laws, policy instruments, and new or reformed implementing institutions to steer its decentralised economic activities to become climate-friendly and resilient.

    Issues with India’s domestic manufacturing of renewable technology components

    • India’s industrial policy efforts to increase the domestic manufacturing of renewable energy technology components have been affected by policy incoherence, poor management of economic rents, and contradictory policy objectives.
    • India managed to create just a third of jobs per megawatt that China has managed to in its efforts to promote solar PV and wind technologies.
    • China has created more jobs in manufacturing solar and wind components for exports than domestic deployment.
    • India could have retained some of those jobs if it were strategic in promoting these technologies.

    Opportunities in decarbonising transport and industry sector

    • Technologies needed to decarbonise the transport and industry sectors provide a significant opportunity for India.
    • However, India’s R&D investments in these emerging green technologies are non-existent.
    • PLI is a step in right direction: The production-linked incentives (PLIs) under ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ are a step in the right direction for localising clean energy manufacturing activities.
    • Focus on R&D: Aligning existing RD&D investments with the technologies needed for green industrialisation is crucial for realising quantum jumps in economic activities.
    • Encourage private entrepreneurship: India also needs to nurture private entrepreneurship and experimentation in clean energy technologies.
    • Besides China, Korea’s green growth strategy provide examples of how India could gain economic and employment rents from green industrialisation without implementing restrictive policies.

    Way forward

    • India should set its pace based on its ability to capitalise on the opportunities to create wealth through green industrialisation.
    • India should follow a path where it can negotiate carbon space to grow, buying time for the hard-to-abate sectors; push against counterproductive WTO trade litigations on decarbonisation technologies; all while making R&D investments in those technologies to ensure that it can gain economic value in the transition.

    Consider the question “What are the challenges India faces as it strives to reach the goal of net-zero emission by 2070. Suggest the strategy India should follow to maximise the developmental gains.”

    Conclusion

    The government should neither succumb to international pressure to decarbonise soon nor should it postpone its investment in decarbonisation technologies and lose its long-term competitiveness in a global low-carbon economy.

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  • A proposal for Indian Environmental Service

    The Supreme Court has asked the Government if it will create an Indian Environmental Service (IES) as recommended by a committee headed by former Cabinet secretary T.S.R Subramanian in 2014.

    Why is the IES debate back in the news?

    • The Supreme Court was responding to a petition whose counsel pointed out that the matters of environment required special expertise.
    • Currently, matters of environmental regulation rest on scientists of the Ministry of Environment and Forests as well as bureaucrats from the Indian Administrative Services (IAS).
    • The apex court expressed reluctance at getting into administrative matters of the Government but nevertheless asked the Centre if it expects to go about constituting such a mechanism.

    TSR Subramanian Committee Report on Environment

    • The Subramanian committee was set up in August 2014 to review the country’s green laws and the procedures followed by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC).
    • It suggested several amendments to align with the Government’s economic development agenda.
    • The report had suggested amendments to almost all green laws, including those relating to the environment, forest, wildlife and coastal zone clearances.
    • The committee suggested that another committee, with more expertise and time, be constituted to review the environmental laws.

    Key recommendations

    (a) Establishment of Environment Management Authorities

    • The report proposed an ‘Environmental Laws (Management) Act’ (ELMA), that envisioned full-time expert bodies to be constituted at the Central and State levels respectively:
    1. National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA)
    2. State Environmental Management Authority (SEMA)

    (b) Project clearances

    • These authorities evaluate project clearance (using technology and expertise), in a time bound manner, providing for single-window clearance.
    • It suggested a “fast track” procedure for “linear” projects (roads, railways and transmission lines), power and mining projects and for “projects of national importance.”
    • It also suggested an appellate mechanism against the decisions of NEMA/SEMA or MoEF&CC, in respect of project clearance, prescribing a three-month deadline to dispose appeals.

    (c) Expanding Environment Protection Act

    • The Air Act and the Water Act is to be subsumed within the EP Act.
    • The existing Central Pollution Control Board and the State PCBs, which monitor and regulate the conditions imposed on the industries to safeguard environment be integrated into NEMA and SEMA.

    (d) Evaluating Environmental Reconstruction Cost (ERC)

    • The report also recommends that an “ERC” should be assessed for each project on the basis of the damage caused by it to the environment and this should be added into the cost of the project.
    • This cost has to be recovered as a cess or duty from the project proponent during the life of the project.

    (e) Research and Development

    • It proposed the establishment of a National Environment Research institute “on the lines of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education”.
    • It would bring in the application of high-end technology in environment governance.

    (f) Establishment of Indian Environment Service (IES)

    • Finally, an Indian Environment Service should be established to recruit qualified and skilled human resource in the environment sector.

    How were the recommendations received?

    • The Centre never formally accepted this report and neither constituted a new committee as recommended by the Parliamentary Standing Committee.
    • The Parliamentary rejected the report on the grounds that it ended up diluting key aspects of environmental legislation designed to protect the environment.
    • However, many of these recommendations are implicitly making their way into the process of environmental regulation.

    Back2Basics: All Indi Services

    • The All India Services (AIS) comprises three civil services: the Indian Administrative Service, the Indian Police Service and the Indian Forest Service.
    • A unique feature of the AIS is that the members of these services are recruited by the centre (Union government in federal polity), but their services are placed under various State cadres.
    • They have the liability to serve both under the State and under the centre.
    • Officers of these three services comply to the All India Services Rules relating to pay, conduct, leave, various allowances etc.
    • The All India Services Act, 1951, provides for the creation of two more All India Services, namely, the Indian Engineering Service and the Indian Medical Service.

     

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  • Kerala gets its first-ever Scientific Bird Atlas

    The Kerala Bird Atlas (KBA), the first-of-its-kind State-level bird atlas in India, has created solid baseline data about the distribution and abundance of bird species across all major habitats, giving an impetus to futuristic studies.

    Kerala Bird Atlas (KBA)

    • The KBA has been prepared based on systematic surveys held twice over 60 days a year during the wet (July to September) and dry (January to March) seasons between 2015 and 2020.
    • It was conducted as a citizen science-driven exercise with the participation of over 1,000 volunteers of the birdwatching community.
    • The KBA accounts for nearly three lakh records of 361 species, including 94 very rare species, 103 rare species, 110 common species, 44 very common species, and 10 most abundant species.
    • It was found that the species count was higher during the dry season than in the wet season while species richness and evenness were higher in the northern and central districts than in the southern districts.

    Significance of KBA

    • The KBA offers authentic, consistent and comparable data through random sampling from the geographical terrain split.
    • It is arguably Asia’s largest bird atlas in terms of geographical extent, sampling effort and species coverage derived from the aggregation of 25,000 checklists.
    • The KBA is considered to be a valuable resource for testing various ecological hypotheses and suggesting science-backed conservation measures.

     

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  • Declaration on Forests and Land Use

    At COP-26 in Glasgow, countries got together to sign the Declaration on Forests and Land Use (or the Deforestation Declaration). However, India was among the few countries that did not sign the declaration.

    What is this Deforestation Declaration?

    • It was signed by 142 countries, which represented over 90 percent of forests across the world.
    • The declaration commits to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030 while delivering sustainable development and promoting an inclusive rural transformation.
    • The signatories committed $19 billion in private and public funds to this end.

    Why did India abstain from joining?

    • India had concerns about the linkage the declaration makes between deforestation, infrastructure development and trade.
    • Any commitment to the environment and climate change should not involve any reference to trade, cited India.
    • Analysts in India have linked the decision to a proposed amendment to the Forest Conservation Act 1980 that would ease the clearances presently required for acquiring forest land for new infrastructure projects.

    India abstained from many things

    • A look at India’s positions on some other recent critical pledges and decisions related to climate change reveals a clear pattern of objections or absence.
    • At CoP26, India was not part of the dialogue on Forests, Agriculture and Commodity Trade (FACT).
    • FACT, which is supported by 28 countries seeks to encourage “sustainable development and trade of agricultural commodities while protecting and managing sustainably forests and other critical ecosystems”.
    • India also voted against a recent draft resolution to allow for discussions related to climate change and its impact on international peace and security to be taken up at the UNSC.

    Why should India join this declaration?

    • Broadly speaking, all of India’s objections are based on procedural issues at multilateral fora.
    • Although justifiable on paper, these objections seem blind to the diverse ways in which climate change is linked to global trade, deforestation, agriculture, and international peace, among other issues.
    • For context, consider India’s palm oil trade. India is the largest importer of crude palm oil in the world.
    • Palm oil cultivation, covering roughly 16 million acres of land in Indonesia and Malaysia, has been the biggest driver of deforestation in the two countries.

     

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  • Species in news: Swamp Deer

    The population of the vulnerable eastern swamp deer, extinct elsewhere in South Asia, has dipped (from 907 in 2018 to 868 in 2020 ) in the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve.

    Swamp Deer

    • The swamp deer also called as barasingha is a deer species distributed in the Indian subcontinent.
    • Populations in northern and central India are fragmented, and two isolated populations occur in southwestern Nepal.
    • It has been locally extinct in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and its presence is uncertain in Bhutan.
    • In Assamese, barasingha is called dolhorina; dol meaning swamp.

    Note: Swamp deers do occur in the Kanha National Park of Madhya Pradesh, in two localities in Assam, and in only 6 localities in Uttar Pradesh.

    Conservation status

    • IUCN Red List: Endangered
    • CITES: Appendix I
    • Wildlife Protection Act of 1972: Schedule I

     

    Try this PYQ:

    Q. Consider the following fauna of India:

    1. Gharial
    2. Leatherback turtle
    3. Swamp deer

    Which of the above is/are endangered?

    (a) 1 and 2 only

    (b) 3 only

    (c) 1, 2 and 3

    (d) None

     

    [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”qbvqhaqmhv” question=”Please leave a feedback on this” opened=”1″]Post your answers here.[/wpdiscuz-feedback]

     

     

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  • Species in news: Miss Kerala

    A section of aquarists and ornamental fish breeders are surprised that the Denison barb (Miss Kerala), a native freshwater fish species commonly found in parts of Karnataka and Kerala, has been included in Schedule I of the Wild Life Protection Act, 1982 (amendment bill).

    Miss Kerala

    • Miss Kerala is also known as Denison barb, red-line torpedo barb and roseline shark.
    • Its scientific name is Sahyadria denisonii.
    • The fish is featured with red and black stripes on its body.
    • It is found in the States of Kerala and Karnataka.
    • It has been listed on the IUCN Redlist as Vulnerable, in 2010.
    • This species is known to inhabit fast-flowing hill streams and is often found in rocky pools with thick vegetation along river banks.

    Why included in Schedule I of WPA?

    • Ironically, its beauty is the biggest threat to its survival, as it is highly sought-after in the international aquarium trade, constituting 60 – 65% of the total live ornamental fish exported from India.
    • Its numbers are also decreasing owing to habitat degradation due to deforestation, mining, agriculture, urban expansion and hydro-electric projects.

     

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  • What are Smog Towers?

    Some researchers in New Delhi have observed paradoxical phenomena near the smog towers. The air closest to the tower should be cleanest, but the device recorded the opposite in several instances.

    What are Smog Towers?

    • Smog towers are structures designed to work as large-scale air purifiers. They are fitted with multiple layers of air filters and fans at the base to suck the air.
    • After the polluted air enters the smog tower, it is purified by multiple layers before being re-circulated into the atmosphere.

    Structure of the Delhi smog tower

    • The structure is 24 m high, about as much as an 8-storey building — an 18-metre concrete tower, topped by a 6-metre-high canopy. At its base are 40 fans, 10 on each side.
    • Each fan can discharge 25 cubic metres per second of air, adding up to 1,000 cubic metres per second for the tower as a whole. Inside the tower in two layers are 5,000 filters.
    • The filters and fans have been imported from the United States.

    How does it work?

    • The tower uses a ‘downdraft air cleaning system’ developed by the University of Minnesota.
    • Polluted air is sucked in at a height of 24 m, and filtered air is released at the bottom of the tower, at a height of about 10 m from the ground.
    • When the fans at the bottom of the tower operate, the negative pressure created sucks in air from the top.
    • The ‘macro’ layer in the filter traps particles of 10 microns and larger, while the ‘micro’ layer filters smaller particles of around 0.3 microns.
    • The downdraft method is different from the system used in China, where a tower uses an ‘updraft’ system — air is sucked in from near the ground, and is propelled upwards by heating and convection.
    • Filtered air is released at the top of the tower.

    Likely impact

    • Computational fluid dynamics modelling suggests the tower could have an impact on the air quality up to 1 km from the tower.
    • The actual impact will also determine how the tower functions under different weather conditions, and how levels of PM2.5 vary with the flow of air.

    Issues with smog towers

    • Many experts say that the smog towers are not a viable method to clean city’s air.
    • The government had talked about 80% pollution reduction at inlet and outlet of the tower but never mentioned about the effect of distance from the tower.
    • Instead of spending ₹40 crore on two towers, the government could have spent the funds on several other options such as replacing the small and polluting industrial boilers or chimneys etc.

     

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  • Species in news: Asiatic Lions in Kuno National Park

    Experts have argued that the introduction of African cheetahs to Kuno National Park could endanger the Asiatic lion which has also been identified for re-introduction.

    Do you know?

    Cheetahs had a more extensive distribution than lions — there are no records of lions occurring south of the Narmada River, but Asiatic cheetahs roamed most of India until they were hunted to extinction by 1947.

    About Asiatic Cheetah

    • Cheetah, the world’s fastest land animal was declared extinct in India in 1952.
    • The Asiatic cheetah is classified as a “critically endangered” species by the IUCN Red List, and is believed to survive only in Iran.
    • It was expected to be re-introduced into the country after the Supreme Court lifted curbs for its re-introduction.
    • From 400 in the 1990s, their numbers are estimated to have reached to 50-70 today, because of poaching, hunting of their main prey (gazelles) and encroachment on their habitat.

    Why reintroduce Cheetahs?

    • Reintroductions of large carnivores have increasingly been recognized as a strategy to conserve threatened species and restore ecosystem functions.
    • The cheetah is the only large carnivore that has been extirpated, mainly by over-hunting in India in historical times.
    • India now has the economic ability to consider restoring its lost natural heritage for ethical as well as ecological reasons.

    Why was the project halted?

    • The court was worried whether the African cheetahs would find the sanctuary a favorable climate as far as the abundance of prey is concerned.
    • Those who challenged the plan argued that the habitat of cheetahs needed to support a genetically viable population.

    Issues with cheetah re-introduction

    • Since 2018, dozens of lions have died from diseases, including canine distemper, opening up a frightening possibility of loss when confined to a single location.
    • Establishing an additional free-ranging wild lion population in Kuno is of paramount importance and roadblocks, if any, must be transparently addressed.
    • Clearly, the introduction of African cheetahs cannot take precedence over translocating Asiatic lions from Gujarat to Kuno National Park as ordered by none other than the apex court in 2013.
    • However, simultaneous re-introduction can create a conflict for prey between these two wild cats.

     

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  • Highlights of the India State of Forest Report, 2021

    The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has released the India State of Forest Report (ISFR) 2021.

    About India State of Forest Report

    • ISFR is an assessment of India’s forest and tree cover, published every two years by the Forest Survey of India under the MoEFCC.
    • The first survey was published in 1987, and ISFR 2021 is the 17th.
    • It compiles data computed through wall-to-wall mapping of India’s forest cover through remote sensing techniques.

    Why need ISFR?

    • It is used in planning and formulation of policies in forest management as well as forestry and agroforestry sectors.

    How are forests categorized?

    The Forest Survey of India has listed four categories of forests. They are:

    1. Very Dense Forest (with tree canopy density of 70 per cent or above)
    2. Moderately Dense Forest (tree canopy density of 40 per cent or above but less than 70 per cent)
    3. Open Forest (tree canopy density of 10 per cent or above but less than 40 per cent)
    4. Scrub (tree canopy density less than 10 per cent)

    Highlights of the ISFR, 2021

    [1] Forest cover is increasing

    • ISFR 2021 has found that the forest and tree cover in the country continues to increase with an additional cover of 1,540 square kilometres over the past two years.
    • India’s forest cover is now 7,13,789 square kilometres, 21.71% of the country’s geographical area, an increase from 21.67% in 2019.
    • Tree cover has increased by 721 sq km.
    • Bamboo forests have grown from 13,882 million culms (stems) in 2019 to 53,336 million culms in 2021.

    [2] State-wise gain/losses

    • The states that have shown the highest increase in forest cover are Telangana (3.07%), Andhra Pradesh (2.22%) and Odisha (1.04%).
    • The Northeast states account for 7.98% of total geographical area but 23.75% of total forest cover.
    • Five states in the Northeast – Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland have all shown loss in forest cover.
    • The report has attributed the decline in the NE states to a spate of natural calamities, particularly landslides and heavy rains, in the region as well as to anthropogenic activities.

    [3] Increase in Mangrove cover

    • Mangroves have shown an increase of 17 sq km. India’s total mangrove cover is now 4,992 sq km.

    [4] Increase in carbon stock

    • The total carbon stock in country’s forests is estimated at 7,204 million tonnes, an increase of 79.4 million tonnes since 2019.

    [5] Big cats population

    • ISFR 2021 has some new features. It has for the first time assessed forest cover in tiger reserves, tiger corridors and the Gir forest which houses the Asiatic lion.
    • The forest cover in tiger corridors has increased by 37.15 sq km (0.32%) between 2011-2021, but decreased by 22.6 sq km (0.04%) in tiger reserves.
    • Buxa, Anamalai and Indravati reserves have shown an increase in forest cover while the highest losses have been found in Kawal, Bhadra and the Sunderbans reserves.
    • Pakke Tiger Reserve in Arunachal Pradesh has the highest forest cover, at nearly 97%.

     [6] Impact of climate change

    • The report estimates that by 2030, 45-64% of forests in India will experience the effects of climate change and rising temperatures, and forests in all states will be highly vulnerable climate hot spots.
    • Ladakh (forest cover 0.1-0.2%) is likely to be the most affected.
    • India’s forests are already showing shifting trends of vegetation types, such as Sikkim which has shown a shift in its vegetation pattern for 124 endemic species.

    [7] Forest fires

    • The survey has found that 35.46 % of the forest cover is prone to forest fires.
    • Out of this, 2.81 % is extremely prone, 7.85% is very highly prone and 11.51 % is highly prone
    • The highest numbers of fires were detected in Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

    Concerns with the declining trends

    • It is worrying that a 1,582 sq km decline was in moderately dense forests, or “natural forests”.
    • This decline shows a degradation of forests in the country, say experts, with natural forests degrading to less dense open forests.
    • Also, scrub area has increased by 5,320 sq km – indicating the complete degradation of forests in these areas.

     

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