India is facing the inevitable toss up between saving its forests and following a fast growing development paradigm. For the last few months, this issue has hogged the centerstage, with some cabinet ministers expressing unhappiness over the minister for forests & environment Jairam Ramesh’s keenness in pushing the green agenda.
The mining lobby and the transport lobby are completely at unease with forests being given priority over “development”.
The public at large and the tribals, who live in these forests, are equally miffed on the issue of eviction and environmental degradation that is an inevitable fallout of these mining operations.
Ramesh has vehemently stressed that mining firms will not be allowed to tap 35 per cent of the country’s coal reserves due to environmental concerns in forested areas. “I am not being anti-growth. Environment and development must go hand-in-hand. Sustainable development means having 9 per cent rate of growth, but that must not weaken the ecological security of the country,” Ramesh says.
“If environment and development have to go hand-in-hand, there will be cases where I will say ‘yes’, there will be cases where I will say ‘yes but’, and there will be some cases where I will have to say, ‘no’,” he says.
The “nos” are not easy to digest. His critics assert that despite having 14 per cent of the world’s recoverable reserves of hard coal, India has been unable to meet its domestic requirements and is having to resort to large imports, which were near zero five years back.
The larger issue is that if our forests are destroyed, the country will lose a major water source, it will lose its biodiversity reserves and worse, its climate stabiliser. Forests play a key role in helping stabilise climate.
Sunita Narain, director of the Centre for Science & Environment, sums up the situation: “The government must show greater political will in ensuring our forests remain sacred and inviolate.”