In a country of 1.4 billion (and growing) people with rapid urbanisation pressures and increasing demands for infrastructure, forests will always be contested spaces. This was evident yet again this week when the Supreme Court (SC) modified its June 2022 order that ruled that every protected forest land, national parks and wildlife sanctuaries must have a mandatory eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) of a minimum 1km, measured from the demarcated boundary of such protected forest, and no new permanent structure or mining will be permitted within an ESZ. In its modified order, the SC revoked a complete ban on development and construction activities within ESZs but kept the ban on mining untouched. The court was hearing a plea filed by the central government, contending that if the directions were not modified, hardship would be caused to the millions of people living in ESZs.
Saying that the 2022 order is “impossible” to implement, the SC said that demarcating an ESZ must be case-specific and accepted that there are inbuilt safeguards under the ministry of environment, forest and climate change’s (MoEFCC) February 2011 ESZ guidelines for preventing rampant construction, and ordered that MoEFCC and all the state/Union territory governments shall strictly follow the provisions in the guidelines.
The SC is correct when it said that the 2022 order became difficult to implement because most states (forests are on the concurrent list) have different views on the issue, depending on their local demands and situations, and don’t have the adequate staff to execute such an order. Besides, the creation of ESZs – which are known to be “shock absorbers” in protected areas and serve as wildlife corridors – and especially the blanket ban on construction sparked some consternation among local communities, without whose support conservation efforts can be difficult. Last year, many districts in Kerala and other areas of Western Ghats saw protests against the 2022 ruling, and these protests were backed by political parties cutting across party lines.
Unlike in many other countries, Indian jungles are ringfenced by human habitation, and people will continue to demand infrastructure, homes and powerlines, even if they come at the cost of wildlife. In a review plea of the 2022 order, Kerala mentioned that its human population density is more than twice the country’s population density, and the mandatory ESZ, along with a ban on permanent constructions, would create insurmountable problems, and there is no way the state can shift people to other areas. It is the job of the political parties and policymakers to balance these needs with those of the environment and involve local populations in sustainable-yet-profitable ventures, a job that has until now been largely thwarted by short-term political expediency.
While the ideal situation would be to keep the areas around protected areas bereft of human habitation, the hard truth is this is impossible in India. Declaring ESZs is a vexed, negotiated and conflicted process. It ideally requires governments to reconcile historical and current land, its uses and rights through a participatory planning exercise. The need of the hour is to learn to live with this reality and try to strike a delicate balance between the two demands. This can only happen with a proper scientific study to understand specific local requirements, engaging with local communities, and initiating participatory planning exercises so that people and animals are not at loggerheads. This will need governments to shed a confrontational attitude towards green guidelines and genuinely empower local groups, two things that don’t appear to have much political traction among any dispensation today.
