Environment:
The issues raised by environmental struggles remain much too important to be frittered away. This is why protest movements bear a responsibility greater than what their leaderships may realize. It is so far unclear what role these different processes had in defining the contours of the struggle, in particular the construction of local apathy. Sustaining protests over long periods is never easy. And each ‘failure’ only contributes to deepening the despondency among affected people. By no means do they support what is being done to them; just that they are sullen, resigned and apathetic.[i]

Some experts say that India is not changing and is stagnating. They say that the country was changing fast in the eighties and is not doing so now. Incidentally, in the eighties they argued the same way. India, they said then, was stagnating. Now it is true that the rate of change is slower in the nineties but the historical process of change is there and until recently, the economy was also growing fast. For example, it is no longer true that 74 per cent of the work force depends on agriculture. In fact, even in 1961, while 75.9 per cent of the work force was dependent on agriculture, only 73.5 per cent was dependent on crop production. This has now gone down to 54.3 per cent, according to the National Sample Survey’s 55th Round. However, people keep on saying two-thirds, sometimes three-fourths, of Indian population depend on agriculture. If forests are groomed and nurtured, the sector will lead the next agricultural revolution. While only 54 per cent workers are engaged in crops, those in livestock, dairying, poultry and so on has doubled from 2 per cent to 4 per cent of the work force. As people are better off, they eat more eggs, drink more milk and eat vegetable, fruit and cheese. As India grows faster, production of food - grains grows a little more than 2 per cent annually, edible oil, sugar, cotton and milk at around 5 per cent annually and poultry and fish at 6-7 per cent plus. This has happened in the nineties and by now this diversification of the food basket is well known. Also, that it takes place at all income levels. The same principles apply to forests and fish. Workers depending on ‘logging, forestry and fishing’ were 0.5 per cent of the work force in 1961 and is stuck at 0.6 per cent in 1999-’00. Workers in forestry have gone down, those in fishing have gone up and their combined total remains the same. Thereby hangs a tale. Demand for forestry products is going up, like everything else.[ii]

The Maharashtra Government (India) has reportedly given the rights to a lake - which hitherto was the community resource and a source of livelihood for the local population - to the soft drinks giant, Coca Cola, for running one of its several bottling plants in the country. This is an extension of `water wars' and a classic case of `environmental terrorism' where the State Government has unilaterally decided to privatise peoples' resources and hand them over to multinational corporations for private gain even though the State is a trustee and not an absolute owner of natural resources, which belong to the people. This is not an isolated case. Globalisation is allowing a handful of corporations such as Cargill and Vivendi to own and control public land and water through contract farming, privatisation and commodification of resources. Corporations such as Monsanto, Syngenta and Novartis are pirating and trying to own and control India’s biodiversity, food, medicinal plants and knowledge through patents and IPR claims such as the neem patents, basmati and other rice patents.[iii]

India has become the second country in the world to have a unique law for conservation of energy. The Energy Conservation Act, (Act 52 of 2001 ) has been notified in the Gazette of India as and it has come into force with immediate effect, except the penalty part of it which has been kept in abeyance till the time people concerned are acclimatised about economies and efficacy of conservation of power for a period of five years. The Act seeks to set up a Bureau of Energy Efficiency whose Governing Council will be headed by the Union Power Minister. It will work out stringent norms for conservation of energy in all forms wherein there will be no room, whatsoever, for sub-standard equipment. The Bureau will exercise the powers of the Centre for enforcement of efficient use of energy and its conservation.[iv]

A thriving illegal business in ozone depleting substances (ODS) into India from Nepal and Bangladesh as part of a wider international network is undermining India's efforts in phasing out its own production of these harmful chemicals. This was revealed by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a London-based international campaigning organisation committed to exposing environmental crime. The Montreal Protocol calls for elimination of the ODS by 2010, through development of chemical substitutes and alternative manufacturing processes. The main groups of chemicals covered by the protocol are CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbons), HCFCs (Hydrofluorocarbons), HBFCs (Hydrobromofluorocarbons), halons, carbon tetrachloride, methyl chloroform, bromochloromethane and methylbromide. Under the protocol, developing countries were required to freeze their CFC consumption by 1999, with a 50 per cent phase-out in production by 2005. But since the freeze, according to the EIA there has been a growing trend of smuggling the CFCs in the South Asian region.[v]

The Sunderban Biosphere Reserve, one of the 12 biosphere reserves in India, has been included by the Unesco, Paris, in its world network of biosphere reserves. This is the second biosphere reserve in the country to acquire the status after the Nilgiri reserve. The Sunderbans had been included in the World Heritage list in 1989. The Sunderbans fulfill all the three requirements of a biosphere reserve — conservation of the ecosystem, economic development and logistic support for environmental education and research, according to Dr Himadri Sekhar Debnath, scientist Botanical Survey of India. The Sunderban mangroves, the only tiger-inhabited mangrove reserve in the world, occupies an area of about 4266.6 sq km and constitutes 63 per cent of the total Indian mangrove diversity. Consisting of 81 plant species, it is also the largest mangrove diversity on globe.[vi]

Over the past decade, many cities in India have seen some fine community initiatives for managing urban waste. The Chennai-based Exnora, for example, has set up more than 3,000 such initiatives with residents taking responsibility for collecting garbage and in many places composting and locally selling it too. RISE and Waste-Wise in Bangalore, SEWA in Ahmedabad, the Advanced Locality Management in Mumbai, as well as several groups in Delhi have likewise cleaned up their localities. All this has happened at very low cost, and with a high rate of community participation. However it’s different story when the same area is handed over to a private operator, putting the community project into disarray? The handing over of three zones in Chennai to an international private operator to collect and dispose off the waste is an example. Promptly, waste bins which had disappeared from the streets as part of Exnora’s program, have reappeared. Waste is not segregated any more, since the company contractually landfills mixed waste, and access to the local rag picker to pick out recyclable plastics is denied.[vii]

The global challenge of food security has now become unprecedented. The world’s population is expected to reach 8 billion by 2025, when China alone is estimated to need 750 million tons of grain. This calls for the average yield of cereals to increase phenomenally to meet the projected demand for food. About 2500 years ago, the basic idea developed in China that the state had a duty to nourish its people. The Books of Rites, dating to around 500 BC, advises that a government accumulate three years’ worth of grain in good seasons in order that it can survive periods of famine. Adequate food was a matter of significant self-interest for the government, since that which served the people eventually supported the state.China has had a proactive good grain policy since then, and its commitment to self-sufficiency in food grew with the recurrent crop failures and food shortages that it confronted. Given that China faced a major famine as recently as the early 60s, food security is a major concern for both China’s leaders and its people. That China’s desire to be food self-sufficient is strong, and that it drives its national policy is understandable. China is the most populated country in the world, with only seven per cent of the world’s arable land and a fifth of the global population. Its food grain production rose from 90 million tons in 1960 to 395 million in 1999, making it the world’s largest producer and outpacing USA’s 333 MT that same year. Although only an eighth of China’s land is suitable for cultivation, it is among the world’s largest producers of rice, barley, sorghum, potato, peanuts, tea, fruits and vegetables, with farmers always having prided themselves that their cultivation practices result in high yields even with small land holdings.It is said that China must increase its yields by 60 per cent to meet its food requirements for a projected population of a billion and a half in 2025. This is possible, according to experts, only from enhancing biological yields and not from area expansion or greater irrigation. Water is becoming scarce and the scope to put more land under the plough is limited by urban spread and desertification. Hence biotechnology as the basis for food security is accepted Chinese strategy today.
In addition, China sees biotechnology’s potential in making the country a global competitor and an economic powerhouse. In this, the country has the support of Chinese working abroad with whom there is an enviable network of trans-Pacific contacts to bolster domestic research endeavours.. . .Biotechnology holds out the promise of food security, but can also pose scientific and social challenges to China’s leadership and its research community. [viii]

There is evidence that rising temperatures and huge loss of forest cover are making some regions in India (e.g. Orissa) malaria-prone. According to experts, the natural habitation of mosquitoes, particularly those causing cerebral malaria, has changed because of loss of forest cover. These mosquitoes survive on green leaves in the forests but are now invading human habitation, warn experts. They say mosquitoes breed and spread malarial parasites faster in high temperatures. Temperature data of the coastal region over the past two years reveal wide fluctuations. The Statesman 1 November 2001

The genetically modified (GM) cotton controversy has laid bare Indian Government's poor preparedness to face the onslaught of biotechnology in agriculture. Here the role of Department of Biotechnology (DBT), which has the mandate to introduce safe technology, assumes importance. India Agriculture Minister in a recent statement said that GM crops can do wonders but they should be introduced after proper testing to ensure there is no harmful effect on environment, biodiversity and human health. But the catch lies in "testing for safety" - who is conducting these tests and who is monitoring them? . . .Monitoring agencies seem content with only "agronomic performance" (increased yield) and not as much with the impact on the environment and health. The probability that a transgenic crop could release toxins which may harm other traditional varieties, cattle consuming the produce or may even trigger allergic reaction in humans, is given poor consideration. The DBT on its part has issued detailed guidelines for toxicity and allergenicity evaluation of transgenic plants (complete with diagrams of greenhouse to be used for production) without worrying much about monitoring and evaluation of these capacities. . . .Across the board, no technology is good or bad. It is for the country to decide which is adaptable and profitable to it before going in for mass scale production. The reason for a precautionary approach is because we may not have the means to undo potential harm to environment and health at a later stage, it is felt.[ix] The issue of illegal Bt cotton also provides some valuable lessons. It shows that many of Indian farmers would readily employ `improved' varieties of crops when given a choice, and that biotechnology clearly offers solutions to certain agricultural problems. Ironically, it also exposes the consequences of regulatory foot-dragging that sadly spawned this proliferation of `unapproved' seeds. The overall safety of using Bt genes to control pests with genetically-enhanced plants is not in question here as millions of acres of Bt crops are being grown worldwide without any problem to health or the environment. Understandably, the seeds have proved very popular among cotton farmers who have been suffering the havoc caused by the bollworm for almost a decade. They regard the seeds a godsend and are ready to take on any Government authority that wants to torch their bountiful crop. Paradoxically enough, this unforeseen development is indicative of how the tide has turned in favour of biotechnology in India and debunks the myths that Indian farmers are not willing to embrace this technology or pay more for improved seeds. It is also illustrative of the sluggish regulatory system and the lax enforcement of existing rules. This has also happened in Brazil. In a world where farmers have access to the latest information via television and Internet, they have shown themselves willing to adopt new technologies - no matter who sells it or where it comes from - to tackle old challenges. Governments have a valuable lesson to learn from this - they must reform the regulatory process to eliminate unnecessary delays and trim the red tape. It is inevitable that when farmers do not have access to new technologies via approved routes, we risk unscrupulous firms sneaking them in. . . .The illegal Bt cotton incident has ramifications for the development of biotechnology in India. It may have implications also on the investment and development of a whole range of new technologies, including medical biotechnologies. Lack of faith in the Indian regulatory system also engenders a grave risk that exports of Indian products using these new technologies could be banned and new non-tariff barriers created. India needs a sound, comprehensive regulatory system, but one that is also time- efficient in line with other countries. India just cannot afford to let the slogan of ``IT Today, BT Tomorrow'' be destroyed by an irresponsible act of one company.[x]

Ten years ago, when the debate about GATT, patents and ``intellectual property rights'' was at its height, opponents raised a storm of fear. It was said that farmers would not be allowed to reuse their own seeds, that the dreaded multinationals would enter their fields and take away their crops... No one would be safe, the depradations of globalisation would enter even into villages and fields. Now, ironically, Indian farmers have been facing the threat of having their fields invaded and their crops burnt for using the wrong seeds. Only the threat has come not from the multinationals, but from the Indian state. And they have faced such destruction not because of their desire to reuse their own seeds, but out of an urge to innovate, to use seeds that cost one-sixth the amount of the ones they ordinarily buy but produce a crop 50 per cent more productive as well as resistant to the dreaded pests which attack their crop. Gujarat farmers have been buying such seeds in the last year, probably out of ignorance of the fact that even after several years of field trials and no evidence of any harmful nature, the Government has still not cleared the new cotton variety for general use. As a result, last October an order was issued that the crops of Gujarati farmers in Gandhinagar district using a variety of cotton seed known a Navbharat 151 would be burnt on the grounds that it contained the forbidden genes. The spectre of farmers facing Government troops burning their crops is only the latest illustration of the fact that Indian agricultural policy is too often driven by the ideas and illusions of small groups of people who depict farmers as subsistence producers, as clinging to tradition, as ignorant and needing protection from rapacious multinational companies. . . .The apparent contradictions between the industrialising, science- loving Nehru and the traditionalistic Gandhi were resolved after Independence in a kind of division of labour. Something like the old pattern of the Vedas for the twice-born, Puranas for the masses was applied: steel mills and computers for the elite, charkhas and ploughs for the masses. The cash economy was for urban producers, subsistence for the villages. Thus ``basic needs'' of food and clothing would be provided by farmers and weavers using (partially updated) traditional methods which relied on labour rather than capital and so could presumably employ the seemingly innumerable masses of India.To some extent, the Green Revolution broke this pattern. In spite of the problems caused by chemical pesticides and fertilizers, it decisively ended India's dependence on import of food grains, and achieved self-sufficiency in agriculture. Yet for the romantics, opponents of ``big dams'' and biotechnology, the Green Revolution is only a symbol of unsustainability. Few of them are ready to admit that farming needs water, that in most of the country's dry areas even the best ``local rainwater harvesting'' is insufficient, that some external water provided by irrigation projects is necessary. Just as ``big dams'' are opposed, so biotechnology is seen as simply a conspiracy of multinationals out to make farmers dependent. Yet this Gandhian prescription for the farmer does not fit the reality - which is that throughout farmers have been ready to adopt and use new seeds and new technologies, to try out new crops, to seek out change and innovate. [xi]
Noble intentions have much theoretical value, but they often fail the test of pragmatism. The recent ban on the smoking of tobacco in public places all over the country odered by the Indian highest Judiciary will be welcomed by those who are aware that not only does smoking harm the person who is fond of his tobacco, it also results in slow physical damage to the non-smoker who is forced to inhale the second-hand smoke. However, the well-intentioned judgment may not take off for reasons outside the apex court’s control. More than three million people die every year in India as a result of smoking tobacco, including cigarettes and bidis. . . .No one cares two hoots for the ban, and the government itself seems least interested in implementing it. Second, banning something almost always never succeeds. Prohibition of alcohol turned out to be a total failure in Haryana and Andhra Pradesh, and it is no more difficult to buy a bottle of alcohol in dry Gujarat than in the states where selling and consuming liquor is legal. Similarly, the ecology driven ban on polythene bags in Delhi has proved to be sheer tokenism. In India it has been a notorious phenomenon that banning something only pushes it underground, you only have to pay more — as it is with cigarettes which are openly sold in ‘tobacco-free’ railway platforms all over the country. What is needed is the social awareness from below, not laws from above. Because the man who is hell-bent on poisoning himself, even if he is fully aware of the danger, will do so, ban or no ban.[xii] There is another side to the story as well. Statistical evidence points to a reduction in the incidence of smoking in India, with the per capita consumption of cigarettes declining over the past decades. That the per capita consumption of cigarettes in the country has fallen from 190 per annum in 1970 to 129 cigarettes in 1997 is indicative of the positive interplay between increased awareness and reduction in smoking. It will also be appropriate to realise that the ban on smoking in public places is only a part of the solution. The larger and more difficult issue of getting cigarette manufacturers to comply strictly with the provisions of the Cigarettes (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 1975 remains incomplete. International experience is not very encouraging about the success of voluntary compliances. It is in this unfinished task that much of the battle against smoking is to be waged, especially given the impact of advertisements on impressionable minds. One common argument by resource-powerful tobacco groupings has been the adverse impact of harsh measures aimed at curbing tobacco consumption on cultivators as well as those who are employed in related industries. There is considerable sensitivity to the sufferings that could descend on those who make a living through the tobacco industry. However, it is also time now for society to pause and ponder if it has to encourage the slow-death of millions in the name of providing employment opportunities. Finding alternative crops and work opportunities for those in whose name such resistance is put up is a compelling social duty. India can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to its millions who continue to be lured to inhale to death. [xiii]

Conservationists in India are warning against the dangers of a sharply increasing crow population which might ``accelerate the pace of vanishing bird species''. Modern living with all its pitfalls is leading to the disappearance of smaller bird species.[xiv]

The Environment and Energy Ministers from around the world agreed on the fine print of the landmark Kyoto pact to limit global warming, paving the way for its implementation in 2002. The deal, reached after hard bargaining at the end of a two-week, U.N.-sponsored conference on climate change in Morocco, provides a detailed rulebook governing the treaty aimed at limiting humanity's negative impact on earth's climate.[xv] Reports of increasing levels of global warming-the last few years towards the turn of the millennium have been recorded as the warmest ever in recent history-make it imperative for earth's residents to take action necessary to save the planet from further dessication. Earth's environment is undergoing dramatic changes which can only have a cataclysmic effect on the future of mankind. As a result of indiscriminate burning of fossil fuel, denudation of forests for timber and agricultural land, and burgeoning industrial activity which causes polluting carbon gases to enter into the atmosphere, the earth is gradually becoming increasingly inhospitable. Indeed, instead of treating the earth as our home, and far from working in its highest interest, we have revealed ourselves as a species with an insatiable appetite for our natural resources and environment. Such has been the extent of our pillage of the earth, and so rapid because of it the depletion of ozone layers that protect us from harmful rays of the sun, that the human world is sinking rapidly into a dark abyss of its own making. . .Thus, while "sustainable development" is the buzzword; while there are any number of papers, seminars and discussions on the subject; while NGOs and governments in the developed world are supposedly working to bring about its fruition; and, while the UN has made all the politically correct noises to that effect; the question is whether the human cost of such ineffectual rhetoric can be afforded by us any longer. Clearly, the global initiative to check climate change has to cover much more ground if it has to make a difference. The Rio Convention and the Kyoto Protocol in the last decade incorporated global policy imperatives to bring about a positive climate change with the reduction of greenhouse gas emmisions to 20 per cent below the 1990 levels in the decade 2000. How much of these objectives will be achieved, only time will tell. Going by available indications, the future does not appear too bright. Unless the world becomes one in countering global warming, and is prepared to take radical steps that simplify human existence, there will be no light even at the end of the tunnel. The earth will then be enveloped in darkness. Such a future must be averted at all cost. [xvi]

The Central government in India has decided to launch National Green Corps (NGC) and introduce environmental education in school curriculum to spread awareness about environment in the society. The NGC would cover 50,000 schools across the country in compliance of the Supreme Court order in 1991. The environment ministry has "gone far ahead with regard to implementation of environmental awareness programmes." The HRD ministry has also come out with the national policy on education and environmental concerns in compliance. This policy not only envisaged integration of environmental education in the school curriculum but also the related issues such as ecological decay, resource depletion, neighbourhood education, tourism education, awareness about aids, human rights, safety and problems of over population[xvii]

The Garhwal Rifles regiment of the Indian army recently returned with a staggering 450 kilogrammes of garbage, collected, ironically from the highly protected Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve, in yet another instance of the army cleaning up civilian crap.Most of the garbage brought back by the army expedition, was picked up enroute to the Nanda Devi Peak. The expedition was described by Col Pawan Kumar, Commanding Officer, Sixth Garhwal rifles, as a 'Clean Nanda Devi' mountaineering expedition and the huge amounts of trash recovered is just another instance of the flagging flesh of the environment laws in this country. Most of the trash, some bio-degradable and others non-biodegradable, was reportedly dumped by previous expeditions to the Nanda Devi Peak and interestingly, most of it has been recovered from the core zone of the biosphere reserve. As pointed out by noted wild life expert, Dr V P Uniyal of the Wild Life Institute of India, who accompanied the expedition, the Nanda Devi Park was declared a biosphere reserve to protect its fragile eco-system because it is "one of the most important hot spots of wilderness and bio-diversity" in the world. In 1988, it was declared a world heritage site.[xviii]

A pregnant woman's exposure to ozone and carbon monoxide, air pollutants commonly found in urban areas, may increase the risk that her baby will develop certain cardiac birth defects, according to a study released yesterday. In the study, due to be published in the January 1 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology, researchers found that pregnant women living in areas of Los Angeles with elevated levels of ozone and carbon monoxide were up to three times as likely to bear children with pulmonary or aortic artery/ valve defects or other heart defects. [xix]

Small Arms :

Arms and ammunition are a virtual cottage industry in Dara Adam Khel in Pakistan. With fears of possible retaliatory US strikes on neighbouring Afghanistan looming, arms dealers here are amassing a fortune as men and boys get ready for jehad against the US, according to a report by SADA news agency. [xx]

[i] The Hindu 31 December 2001
[ii] Y K Alagh The Indian Express 2 October 2001
[iii] 'Halt terror against the earth' Soma Basu The Hindu 5 October 2001
[iv] The Hindu 5 October 2001
[v] The Hindu 15 October 2001
[vi] The Statesman 21 October 2001
[vii] The Indian Express 23 October 2001
[viii] Food Security: China Shows The Way Kanthi Tripathi The Statesman 29 October 2001
[ix] The Pioneer 5 November 2001
[x] The Hindu 7 November 2001
[xi] Gail Omvedt The Hindu 9 November 2001
[xii] Editorial Hindustan Times 5 Novermber 2001
[xiii] Editorial The Hindu 5 November 2001
[xiv] The Hindu 8 November 2001
[xv] The Hindu 11 November 2001
[xvi] Editorial The Pioneer 13 November 2001
[xvii] The Times of India 20 November 2001
[xviii] The Pioneer 26 November 2001
[xix] AFP Hindustan Times 31 December 2001
[xx] The Times of India 03 October 2001

Compiled from Media Sources

by

Arabinda Acharya