{"id":51588,"date":"2019-08-26T19:00:17","date_gmt":"2019-08-26T13:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogadmin.forumias.com\/?p=51588"},"modified":"2019-08-26T18:27:13","modified_gmt":"2019-08-26T12:57:13","slug":"7-pm-a-bottom-up-approach-to-conservation-26th-august-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/7-pm-a-bottom-up-approach-to-conservation-26th-august-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"7 PM | A bottom-up approach to conservation | 26th August, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Context:<\/strong> Devolution\nof power to protect the Western Ghats<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>About the Western Ghats:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>One of the 34 Biodiversity hot spots of\nthe world, the Western Ghats, together with the west coast form an important\necological region, springing from the Arabian Sea coast to the montane heights\nof over 2,000 m. <\/li><li>The Western Ghats straddle the states of\nKerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra, and southern Gujarat. Just as\nthe Himalayas preside over the biogeography of India, the Western Ghats to a\nlarge extent presides over the ecology and biogeography of Peninsular India.<\/li><li>More like rolling hills\nthan snow-covered mountains, the Western Ghats-stretching some 1,600km from the\nnorth of Mumbai to the southern tip of India-are a biodiversity hotspot that\ncontains a large proportion of the country&#8217;s plant and animal species; many of\nwhich are only found here and nowhere else in the world.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Threats facing by Western Ghats:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Forest destruction in river catchment areas:<\/strong>\nDeforestation of upper catchments of rivers for timber, river valley projects\nand plantations has drastically reduced the capacity of the hill streams that\nfeed into the rivers to hold and recharge water. <\/li><li><strong>Dam construction:<\/strong> Most\nof the rivers in the Western Ghats are either dammed or diverted and many of\nthe reservoirs especially in the steep valleys are silting up prematurely due\nto the massive encroachment and deforestation of catchments consequent to dam\nconstruction. Idukki dam is a classic case wherein the entire catchment was\nencroached along with dam construction<\/li><li><strong>Agricultural practices:<\/strong> The\nexpansion of commercial plantations in the Western Ghats has led to\nfragmentation of forest, soil erosion, degradation of river ecosystems and\ntoxic contamination of the environment<\/li><li>One of the most crucial ecological\nissues of great concern is that degradation and contamination of soil and water\nin the upper reaches of the Ghats gets carried downstream leading to the\ndegradation of midlands and coastal regions.<\/li><li><strong>Live\nstock rearing:<\/strong> Normally indigenous livestock adopts with the Ghats\necology, but the introduction of exotic crossbreeds has disturbed the entire\nproduction systems and the traditional knowledge on feeding and healing is\nbeing eroded. <\/li><li><strong>Grazing\nissues:<\/strong> One of the major challenges being faced\nby the cattle keepers in recent years is the conversion of grasslands and\ndegraded lands for various plantations, e.g. bio-fuel plantations, and other\nactivities under government programmes thereby reducing the grazing land<\/li><li><strong>Forestry\nand biodiversity management:<\/strong> The\nBritish introduced the current system of Forest Management in India some 150\nyears ago with claims that it was a scientific system that would result in\nsustainable harvests. <\/li><li>Both these claims of scientific basis\nand of sustainability are of dubious validity. Science must stand on solid\nbedrock of empirical facts. An important weakness of so-called scientific\nforestry is the lack or poor quality of its database.<\/li><li><strong>Poor\nimplementation:<\/strong> In the decade-and-a half since PESA act was passed,\nthe promise of PESA tragically remains mostly unrealized. The legislative and\nexecutive work, which state governments were meant to undertake, still remains\nincomplete. <\/li><li>Further, as the above reading of the law\nshows, PESA envisaged a radical shift in the balance of power-from the state\napparatus and from the economic and political elite to the community.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Measure\nto protect the Western Ghats with devolution of power:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Local\nself- government level:<\/strong> Decentralized water management plans to\nbe developed at least for the next 20 years. Water resource management plans\nwith suitable watershed measures, afforestation, eco-restoration of catchments,\nrainwater recharging and harvesting, recycling and reuse etc. should be built\ninto the plans. <\/li><li>These water management plans should\nintegrate into basin level management plans. The objective is to reduce the\ndependence on rivers and external sources and to improve recharge.<\/li><li><strong>Encourage\nuse of organic manures:<\/strong> Self-help groups\/ local entrepreneurs\nshould be supported to set up units for the manufacture of organic farming\nmaterial such as good quality organic manure, oil cakes, and bio-fertilizers so\nthat good quality manure can be assured on time and reduces ground water\npollution<\/li><li><strong>Agro-<\/strong><strong>biodiversity\nconservation with local participation:<\/strong> A\nparticipatory plant breeding and crop improvement programme needs to be\nlaunched at the Panchayat level with farmers, including women, to restore\ntraditional varieties and develop good varieties suitable for each locality.\nConserving locally adaptive varieties may also become extremely relevant in the\ncontext of climate change<\/li><li><strong>Legislations:<\/strong> Joint\nForest Management (JFM), Extension of Panchayati Raj to Scheduled Areas (PESA),\nProtection of Plant Variety and Farmers\u2019 Rights Act (PPVRFA), Biological\nDiversity Act (BDA) and the Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest\nDwellers (Rights over the Forest) Act (FRA) have conferred substantial rights\nover natural resources to local communities and governments should devolve the\npowers as mentioned in these acts.<\/li><li><strong>Environmental Impact Assessment:<\/strong> For\nmining within the Western Ghats, cumulative EIAs must be made mandatory rather\nthan entertaining EIAs for individual leases in the same areas.<\/li><li><strong>Local energy:<\/strong> Micro\nand mini hydel projects in eco sensitive areas in the Ghats should be designed\nmore to meet local power demand and not to feed to the grids as power lines are\nneeded to evacuate power from these plants<\/li><li><strong>Transportation:<\/strong> All\nfuture proposals for railway lines and roads should undergo a thorough\nenvironmental and wildlife impact assessment. There should be a subcommittee\n(comprising all relevant stakeholders and local communities and tribes) to\nassess the environmental and ecological impacts of constructing any transport\ninfrastructure through rich forests, wildlife habitats and wildlife corridors.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Way forward:<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>India has realized the importance of\ninvolving local communities in forest protection and management, and has\ndeveloped several policies and implemented large programmes such as Joint\nForest Management programme. <\/li><li>India has multiple institutional\napproaches to forest protection and management. However, in spite of its rich\nexperience in forest management through traditional initiatives, JFM, social\nforestry and farm forestry, the genuine involvement and empowerment of local\ncommunities is limited. <\/li><li>It is necessary to use this vast\nexperience and existing policies to formulate and implement appropriate\npolicies, including transfer of financial powers, and institutions to promote\nsustainable and participatory forestry under the emerging programmes and mechanisms<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/a-bottom-up-approach-to-conservation\/article29253850.ece\">https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/a-bottom-up-approach-to-conservation\/article29253850.ece<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Context: Devolution of power to protect the Western Ghats About the Western Ghats: One of the 34 Biodiversity hot spots of the world, the Western Ghats, together with the west coast form an important ecological region, springing from the Arabian Sea coast to the montane heights of over 2,000 m. The Western Ghats straddle the&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/7-pm-a-bottom-up-approach-to-conservation-26th-august-2019\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">7 PM | A bottom-up approach to conservation | 26th August, 2019<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7-pm","category-public","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":53,"cached_at":""},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}