Zones of worry

Why in the News

The seventh draft notification for an Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) in the Kerala stretch of the Western Ghats proposes to bring 9,993.7 sq km across 131 villages under the regime. The Kerala government will reiterate a counter position confining the area to 8,590.69 sq km across 98 villages, excluding human habitations and agricultural land. The first draft, based on the report of the High Level Working Group, covered 123 revenue villages and was never finalised, and six further drafts have followed without settling the dispute. The window for filing objections to the seventh draft closed on 25 September. The disagreement is no longer about whether the Ghats need protection. It is about whether an ecologically sensitive line is drawn around ecology or around land use.

What does the Ecologically Sensitive Area regime restrict?

1. Purpose of the designation: Those framing the proposals state that the notification is intended to regulate activities that can damage fragile ecosystems, rather than to remove human presence from the landscape.
2. What the draft prohibits: Mining, quarrying and sand mining are barred in the notified areas.
3. What the draft leaves untouched: There are no restrictions on the repair, extension or renovation of existing residential houses, or on changes in ownership of land.
4. The basis of the classification: The zonation rests on ecological sensitivity, the approach proposed by the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel.

How far apart are the Centre’s draft and Kerala’s counter position?

1. The area proposed: The seventh draft, issued on 27 July, covers 9,993.7 sq km across 131 villages in Kerala.
2. The forest and non forest split: Of that area, 9,107 sq km is forest and 886.7 sq km is non forest.
3. The State’s figure: Kerala will press for 8,590.69 sq km across 98 villages, with the ecologically sensitive areas confined to forests and leased forest plantations.
4. The principle behind the State’s figure: Kerala argues that inhabited and cultivated landscapes should not be treated in the same manner as forests and other ecologically fragile areas. The demand reflects a position held by successive State governments across the political divide.

Why do high range residents read the notification as a threat to their land?

1. Origin of the settlements: The Grow More Food campaign of the erstwhile Travancore administration in the early 1940s encouraged migration into the high ranges. Families moved in to farm, and habitations turned large stretches of the mountains into agricultural landscapes.
2. Damage done by uncertainty rather than by rules: After 2013 people began cutting down trees for fear they would not be able to use their land later. Farmlands were abandoned and land prices fell.
3. Effects already visible: The Melukavu panchayat president in Kottayam says the issue has affected access to loans and land transactions, and has told on the marriage prospects of young people in the region.
4. The ecological rationale questioned: The president of the Rubber Producers’ Society at Edamaruku in Kottayam points out that the nearest forests lie about 30 km to the north and about 50 km to the south of the village proposed for inclusion.
5. The jurisdictional fear: The chairperson of the Kerala Independent Farmers Association argues that inclusion takes a holding out of the jurisdiction of the State Revenue department and places it with the Central regime, so residents would have to seek Central clearance for almost every activity. The proposal in that reading creates two categories of residents, those inside the ESAs and those outside.

How did the Gadgil report and the Kasturirangan review set the terms of the dispute?

1. The original proposal: The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel, chaired by Madhav Gadgil, proposed a comprehensive zonation of the Ghats based on ecological sensitivity.
2. How it was received in the high ranges: The report generated fears that agriculture and development would be restricted, and that existing settlements could eventually face displacement.
3. The review that followed: The Centre appointed a High Level Working Group chaired by K. Kasturirangan to review the Gadgil recommendations. Environmentalists hold that the group watered down the restrictions.
4. The first draft and the stalemate after it: The first draft notification, based on the High Level Working Group report, proposed 123 revenue villages in Kerala, mainly in Idukki and Wayanad. Protests prevented a final notification and six more drafts followed.
5. The State’s own committee: A committee appointed by the State government under Oommen V. Oommen recommended excluding inhabited areas, plantations and agricultural lands through physical verification and field surveys. It also proposed re fixing the ecologically sensitive areas using cadastral maps, which are plot level land records, approved by the Kerala State Biodiversity Board.

What have conservationists and the panel’s own members said in reply?

1. The fears called propaganda: The president of the Wayanad Prakruthi Samrakshana Samiti says apprehensions of restrictions on building houses and digging wells are baseless political propaganda pushed by vested interest groups.
2. Existing law already protects forests: The same view holds that a host of laws, including the Forest Act and the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, already protect forests, so classifying forest areas as ESAs adds nothing.
3. What the Gadgil report asked for: A member of the panel states that the report recommended a shift to organic farming and never opposed farming. It opposed the pollution of water resources through chemical pesticides, called for non polluting industries, and placed no restrictions on local infrastructure development.
4. Who was to decide: The panel’s approach was to give local communities a decisive role in determining how development should proceed in ecologically sensitive landscapes, in place of a blanket ban on local activity.
5. The latest draft already concedes ground: The chairman of the State appointed committee notes that the current draft has excluded farmlands and plantations from the ESAs, which leaves the objection directed at fragile rocky land the high range communities do not own.

How has the dispute reshaped mobilisation and politics in the high ranges?

1. Idukki as the epicentre: Fifty one villages in Idukki figure in the latest draft, and all the grama sabhas there have passed resolutions urging the Union and State governments to exclude their villages from the regime.
2. An organised church led agitation: The Idukki Diocese of the Syro Malabar Church has been at the forefront of the anti ESA agitation since 2013, and the High Range Samrakshana Samiti under its patronage has organised protests across the high ranges. The Church’s position is that human habitations and farmlands must be fully excluded.
3. The electoral consequence: In the 2014 Lok Sabha election the Samiti’s legal adviser, standing as an Independent backed by the Left Democratic Front (LDF), won the Idukki seat, long considered a Congress citadel.
4. The heritage listing drawn in: The State vice president of the All India Kisan Sabha, the farmers’ wing of the Communist Party of India, has demanded that the Western Ghats be removed from UNESCO World Heritage Site status, which requires more stringent conservation. The counter cited is that UNESCO guidelines themselves require exclusion of an area where a project disrupts the livelihood or daily life of the local population.

Can protection and settlement be mapped on the same hills?

1. The question conservationists are asking: For conservationists the central issue is whether human activity in the Western Ghats can continue without weakening ecological safeguards.
2. The question residents are asking: For residents the distinction between forest and settlement is critical, because their houses, farms and livelihoods are embedded in the same landscape that conservation policy seeks to protect.
3. The same hills read two ways: The same slopes are treated as a fragile ecological system requiring protection and as a lived landscape of farms, homes and communities built over generations. The disagreement has simmered through more than a decade of committees, consultations and draft notifications.

Conclusion

Seven drafts have narrowed the area and settled nothing. The Centre and the State are not arguing about protection; they are arguing about the unit the line is drawn on, and each successive draft has restated that disagreement rather than resolved it. With the objection window now shut, the decision point is whether the Centre finalises the notification on its own mapping or reopens the plot level verification the State’s committee asked for.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2016] Gadgil Committee Report’ and ‘Kasturirangan Committee Report’, sometimes seen in the news, are related to (a) constitutional reforms (b) Ganga Action Plan (c) linking of rivers (d) protection of Western Ghats Answer: (d)”