Green Wars: Dispatches From A Vanishing World

Preface

The word ‘environmentalism’ evokes extreme reactions in people depending on which side of the debate one is on. The editor of a leading media house, everytime I pitched a green story, would invariably complain, ‘environmentalism is stalling growth; all I am interested in is double-digit growth for this country’. It’s a common reaction, shared by many urban, educated Indians, that development at breakneck speed will get our country out of its current misery. They believe that first we need development, environment protection can come later. Their belief system is based on the EKC (Environment Kuznets Curve) hypothesis, which suggests that environmental effects are initially low at low levels of economic growth. At higher levels of economic development, countries are able, through structural changes, to adopt industrial and agricultural technologies that are less harmful to the environment. The editor quoted believes the same: that first we need development and then we will have the money to clean up our rivers or plant more trees to increase our green cover. However, the experience of the developed world has shown it isn’t always as simple as that. In fact, the EKC theory is now widely contested. Look at the growth story of China. It is hailed by economists round the world, yet with no mention of the high levels of pollution, the loss of species, the contamination of its rivers or high incidence of respiratory diseases.

Even with India’s growth story, successive governments have led us to believe the same: that as we soar towards a developed world, we will have more money to clean our rivers and seas, more funds to give for tiger protection or to deal with the issue of declining species. We know now from the experience of other developed nations like the US that the EKC hypothesis doesn’t work, particularly in the context of biodiversity loss. Increasing only the GDP levels or per capita incomes, in fact, can increase pollution and CO2 emissions in the long run. Many environmental problems, especially deforestation and loss of species, have been created and exacerbated by economic growth. Extinct species cannot be resurrected; once gone, they are lost forever, no matter how much money is spent.

For the first ten years of my career, I ran a community-based conservation project with the belief that we could work with local people on the ground to save wildlife, to make a real difference. I was so busy working in villages on my conservation project that I lost sight of the big picture. What I missed was that in that same decade, India had arrived as a superpower and soon there were huge economic super stressors out there eating, away our forests and wilderness areas. This book encapsulates the story of my transition from a conservation biologist to a journalist, of my travels around India and abroad, reporting from pristine rainforests, rivers and mountains, struggling with this constant internal debate: how can our biodiversity and wilderness areas be preserved from this hungry giant called ‘development’?

This book is not meant to be a diatribe against capitalism or modern living. I am not urging you to go back to living in huts or travel by horse-driven carriages. What this book seeks to explore is the tension between environment and development and to question the existing model of ‘growth at any cost’ that has led to an unprecedented onslaught on India’s forests and rivers. It seeks to put you, the reader, at the centre of some of these choices we make. Of course, growth is necessary. We need roads, we need sources of energy, but perhaps we need to start questioning: how much is too much and what is the tipping point?

Much of contemporary writing in India has looked at the impact of this unbridled ‘development without breaks’ model on our urban and rural landscapes and what this has done, for instance, to human beings and to traditional societies. Not much writing has focused on the impact of development on our natural environment and our most precious wilderness spaces. Scientist Jared Diamond states that there are four main causes of extinction of wild species, which he refers to as the ‘Evil Quartet of Extinction’ in which habitat destruction is a central cause. Even in the popular media, we focus on just one cause that Diamond lists, i.e., poaching. The destruction of habitats is largely ignored, rarely making it to news headlines.

Let me illustrate this with real examples. In north India, the entire Upper Gangetic Basin has been earmarked for over 300 small and big hydropower dams. Once these dams are constructed almost 70 per cent of the Ganga and its tributaries will flow through tunnels, submerging large swathes of rich Himalayan forests. The entire northeastern region of the country, home to some of our richest biodiversity, is slated to be the power house of the country for production of over 50,000 MW of energy. Neeraj Vagholikar, who works with Kalpavriksh, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), has spent the last decade documenting the impact of large dams on northeast India. He estimates that over 130 mega dams along with 900 micro and mini hydel projects, once constructed, will cover every inch of the rivers of the region. In Chapter 5 of this book I deal with the struggle of an indigenous tribe against a dam, and a prime minister who rushes to lay the foundation stone even though the environment clearance process is not through.

Marine biologist Deepak Apte from the Bombay Natural History Society has estimated that along India’s western coast, at least fifteen coal-fired power projects equalling 25 GW of power are proposed to be built on a narrow strip of coastal land, 50 to 90 km wide and 200 km long. This represents a 200 per cent increase in coal-fired power for the entire state of Maharashtra. In the process, at least eleven eco-sensitive sites will be severely damaged from the discharge of hot water from the power plants into the sea, not to mention the economic loss to local fishermen. Combined with other projects like shipyards, ports and coastal mining, this implies there would be big infrastructure projects every 20–25 km along the Konkan coast. This in the same area that was declared an eco-sensitive zone in 1997 and is home to rich coastal and marine biodiversity associated with coral reefs, mudflats and mangroves. Moving further south, from Konkan, environment lawyer Ritwick Dutta estimates that over 182 large dams, power plants and chemical treatment plants will be set up in the biodiversity hotspot of the Western Ghats, just recognized by the UN as a World Heritage Site, home to over 5,000 species of plants and 100 species of mammals, with many new species yet to be discovered.

Now take a look at the impact of this model of development on India’s forests. Since 1980, over 1.5 lakh hectares of forest land have been diverted for the cause of India’s development, 50 per cent of that figure in the last ten years. Take a look at the list of projects that came for approval to the National Board of Wildlife, Government of India, in the year 2010, celebrated as the International Year of Biodiversity across the globe:

A limestone mining plant on the boundary of the Rajiv Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary in Andhra Pradesh, one of the finest habitats for the tiger;

A dam in the Narasimha Wildlife Sanctuary in Andhra Pradesh, home to the critically endangered Jerdon’s Courser bird, which would involve submergence of 1,000 hectares of forest;

240 hectares to be diverted for a 400 KV transmission line for an underground oil pipeline at the Gujarat Wild Ass Sanctuary, only home to the Indian wild ass; and

The diversion of forest land for a high-power transmission line by the Power Grid Corporation in the Chandaka Wildlife Sanctuary, home to elephants, barking deer, sloth bears and leopards.

Every high-level meeting in the environment ministry today is entrusted with the task of deciding which forest is to be given away for mining or roads or dams instead of generating plans for saving our dwindling wildlife. Many decisions are based on faulty environment impact assessment reports with little scientific inputs. A ministry that should have played a protectionist role now plays the role of a distributor. The ministry has itself admitted that almost 95 per cent of the projects that come to it are cleared.

An argument put forward by the proponents of carbon-intensive growth is that the poor will have better access to sources of energy. But are these mega-sources of energy being used for the poor or are they being used to sustain the energy-intensive lifestyles of people who live in cities? A study by Greenpeace shows that a rapidly growing rich consumer class in India produces 4.5 times more carbon emissions than the poorer class and three times more than the global average. If the upper and middle classes do not check their CO2 emissions, they will not only contribute to global warming but also deny poor Indians access to these sources of energy being developed in the name of the poor.

We continue to labour under the delusion that no matter how many thermal power plants, dams and mines we construct, there will always be enough in nature to replenish the earth’s resources. A WWF Living Planet study shows clearly that we will need to be the size of two planets by 2030 if we continue with ‘business as usual’ models of consumption.

I hope through this book to reach out not just to the environment activist but the ordinary citizen who craves green spaces, blue skies and clean water and air. Most of all, I want to create the hope that through simple changes in our own lifestyles and greater pressure on our policy makers, a gentler footprint on the planet is definitely possible.

1

Of Charmers and Hunters

New Delhi, 1999

My grand ambitions to save the planet were being dealt a severe blow. Here I was in Asia’s largest dwelling of snake charmers, on the outskirts of Delhi. I was just 10 km away from home but everyday I felt like Alice stepping through the looking glass into a brand new Wonderland. I changed two DTC buses, then hopped on to an auto-rickshaw bursting with people, pushing my way through women in bright, flashy sarees and sweaty men giving me that ‘you aren’t from here, what are you doing here?’ look. I was hitching a ride that would take me off the main road to the interior bylanes of Badarpur to Sapera Basti.

Here, right off the historic Grand Trunk Road that once connected Kabul with Bengal, live 200 families of a community that uses ‘dancing snakes’ to earn a living. Once a symbol of the ‘exotic’ East, the snake charmers today are on the wrong side of the law. Under India’s wildlife laws, the use of snakes, or for that matter any wild animal, is strictly prohibited. Unknown to a modernizing India, this ancient community now spends most of its time on the run from law enforcement agencies. A decade ago, tourist buses would stop at this settlement, people showering pennies and cents, but today those coins adorn the been or flute of the charmers as a testimony to the times (as Shishanath Sapera said to me) ‘when life was good’.

At first sight, Sapera Basti is like any other settlement of Delhi, where the municipal corporation is conspicuous by its absence – open drains, garbage spilling out at every corner. An intricate maze of narrow lanes leads to a row of houses. The inhabitants are not too concerned with visitors. On my first visit I found a group of snake charmers with their flaming beards and kohl-laced eyes sitting under the shade of the lone banyan tree, playing cards. The younger lot at the basti were more forthcoming. Hawa Singh, a seventeen-year-old, thin, wiry fellow, was in the mood for fun that day. ‘Madam, you know what this is?’ he asked me, showing me his palm. I could see tiny worm-like creatures wriggling around. I recognized them as the hatchlings of a cobra. I knew these have fully functional venom glands even at birth but I wasn’t going to show any signs of fear. They were testing me, trying to scare me away. The boy laughed, dropping the menacing creatures in my half-open handbag slung over my shoulder, until Banwari Nath, with a flowing beard and orange turban came up and scolded him, making the band of giggling boys disperse.

It was my noble intention to save the world at the age of twenty-two that had brought me here. And it was the optimism (naiveté perhaps) of youth that made me board that bus every morning and keep coming back, despite the open hostility I encountered. I didn’t know then that I had initiated a long engagement with the charmers that would last over fifteen years. I came to ‘change them’ and, as the cliché goes, they ended up changing me.

My childhood ambitions, though daring, had been less complex. I had told my parents I wanted to be surrounded by animals when I grew up. My mother’s career was daring too, for her times. She was one of the first women to report on the Indo-Pak war from the border. She was known for her intrepid investigative reports at a time when she herself noted in frustration that women journalists were asked only to cover flower shows. She juggled a full-time career with bringing up her two daughters, coming back from work at midnight sometimes when her story was going into print. My father worked for Air-India and was posted in New York, so we spent our childhood shuttling between these two cities. When we were asked what we wanted to be when we grew up, my sister was sure from the start that she wanted to be a journalist. I was conspiring to align my career in whatever way possible around animals. I announced in a grandiose way to the family that I would be saving the animals of the world. I had a vision of myself, the Mother Teresa of the animal world, saving all creatures great and small as the animals rah-rahed around me.

In a country where 200 million people live off forests and their natural resources, that’s easier said than done. The first day at Sapera Basti, and the next few years, confirmed that my engagement with them had to be more than a fanciful childhood indulgence. This community, once revered for its magical skills, now lived on the edge of poverty, facing arrests and seizures of their snakes. They knew no other way to earn a living. Once enjoying an almost god-like status for their ability to charm deadly snakes, they were now subjected to frequent raids by the police and animal welfare activists. If the community had it bad, the snakes had it worse. I got a young herpetologist from the Pune Snake Park, Vikram Hoshing, to assess the health of these snakes. He found that the snakes were defanged, emaciated and often housed in baskets that were seldom cleaned. I should add here that the truth comes in several complex layers. He also found in the course of his data collection that the older members of the community looked after their snakes better, tended to them, while the younger lot didn’t know how to or couldn’t be bothered. This suggested that at some earlier point, this community had been gentle on the reptiles.

But perceptions aside, the fact is that the use of wildlife for commercial purposes is forbidden, and I set about the task of working with the snake charmers to find them jobs in tune with their skills and the law of the land. My motivation was, of course, the animals to start with. I thought if I could ‘rehabilitate’ this community of 200 families, they would stop trapping snakes. Within the caste-based milieu of rural Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, where I had focused my interventions, this was going to take many years of hard work, given that none of the snake charmers had access to land and were heavily in debt, having borrowed large sums from the landed class of their village, with very low levels of education making it difficult for them to adopt new livelihoods.

But I kept at it over the next few years, painstakingly, the naiveté gradually replaced by a street smartness that only throwing yourself in the deep end can teach. I had completed a Masters in Social Work that teaches you the art and science of organizing people, so I used the principles of sociology, psychology, gems of knowledge that