The Hindu Business Line : Ecology losing to corporates in a big way

Sometime in March 2005, at a press conference in Mafatlal Centre, Hemendra Kothari and Bittu Sahgal got corporates to field for preserving Indian wildlife. Top corporates mailed in signed statements of support and Kothari told the press, "India Inc will make the critical difference."

A press note promising the support of India Inc said: "In the wake of recent reports that wildlife is in trouble once more in India, a group of empowered citizens has come together to find ways to add their strength to that of the wildlife and nature conservation movement in India." A lady from a TV channel wanted to know how corporates will look at fresh investments impairing local ecology. Kothari replied, "A balance has to be struck." Till today, local ecology has lost in the largely imbalancing act and the maxim applies to the corporates and babus running the public sector.

One is not sure whether the India Inc movement is still on. One would like to get the views of India Inc on the proposed Rs 4,000 crore, 22 km sea-bridge linking Sewri to Nhava in Navi Mumbai.

Their intervention will be critical as the flamingoes can be classed as Mumbaikars as Mumbai is their home. They fly in from Kutch to the Sewri bay by October and stay on till March and the site is listed in the Important Bird Areas in India.

Bird-watchers and others have been pleading with the Maharashtra Government to realign the sea-bridge (and not drop the proposal) by shifting the site some 500 metres away. Going by press reports, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation is not for any concession and has short-listed three consortiums with work to start by July.

The State Government wants the bridge as it could cut driving time and also make for easier access to the proposed international airport in Navi Mumbai. There is also pride in the fact that the road link will be the world's longest sea-bridge after the two bridges at Hanzhou near Shanghai, and have we not come across the political message that Mumbai will be made a Shanghai, flamingoes or no flamingoes. In the event can India Inc, Hemendra Kothari and Bittu Sahgal lobby the Maharashtra Government to agree to a small locational shift to accommodate these birds and be a decent host.

The flamingoes have no means to raise their demand — a few km of quiet, parking space in the Arabian Sea. When they sight construction machinery defacing the Sewri bay on landing in October they may not come anymore.

Humbly put, bird watchers fervently hope India Inc will stick to Kothari's famous single-line exhort: "A balance has to be struck". It will not dent the project anyway. Between balance sheets with their top and bottom lines and the lives of a few thousand flamingoes, India Inc, as of date, seems to prefer lucre. If flamingoes do not have a constituency in Mumbai can forests and wildlife have any in India? It does not need a sea-bridge to move from flamingoes to the JPC Report on "The Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill 2005."

In its comments on the JPC Report, Kalpavriksh, "is in full agreement with the extension of the Bill to traditional forest dwellers (other than STs), to those in close proximity of forests (in addition to those living within), and to special categories such as shifting cultivators. We do, however, have concerns that the definition of "traditional forest dwellers" is not sufficiently sharp to exclude a number of situations where vested interests have encroached, or where forest dwellers have themselves recently enlarged their encroachments beyond their original occupations." That's politely put.

Building contractors, with politicians operating from their back pockets, will cement the forests; their purses will bulge with monies from brutally snaring the tigers and every other animal in the forest. The JPC Report has favoured the extension of the cut-off date for land occupations from 1980 to 2005 and scrapping of the 2.5-hectare limit to land claims. In a manner, the JPC Report argues for doing away with the extant forest laws and Kalpavriksh contends the JPC strategy "creates a situation fraught with dangers of ecological abuse."

In a separate article, P.K. Sen, one of India's best foresters and a former director of Project Tiger, is not sure of the myth binding the tribals to the forests. Tribals want to migrate to the cities and live your and my lives. They cannot be blamed as there is nothing in the forests or rural India. Sen writes: "It would be relevant to ask if the belief in the projected meaning of the much-touted phrase, "Tribal forest symbiosis", is even remotely shared by the actual tribals themselves. Even if partially true once, this is no longer true as the modern day tribal has not remained unaffected and his aspirations have undergone a major change, much in conformity with what has happened to his urban dwelling counterparts, with whom he interacts on a daily basis. Under the circumstances, is it not an irony that the promoters of the Tribal Bill who claim to have the interest of the tribals at heart, even after 58 years of India's independence, can only think of providing a dignified life to the tribals by forcing them to continue to depend on the forests, when the rest of India has moved on to enjoy the benefits of modern day facilities and comforts?"

Please, Dr Manmohan Singh, do not help strip the diminished forests of India and drop the Tribal Bill. Indeed, none has ownership rights over Nature.

P. Devarajan

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