A way out

ON the occasion of National Wildlife Week (the first week in October), environmentalists supported a call to split the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and establish a dedicated Ministry of Forests and Wildlife, empowered specifically to protect the 20 per cent of India that is under forest cover.

This proposal was put forward in a hard-hitting report written by Valmik Thapar and Bittu Sahgal, Editor of Sanctuary Magazine, and published as the cover story in the October issue of the magazine. Says Thapar, Member of the Steering Committee of "Project Tiger": "India is the only major country without a dedicated Ministry of Forests. Splitting the MoEF to establish a ministry that is mandated to protect forest lands and wildlife habitats is the only way to save India's natural treasury."

Dr. Asad Rahmani, director of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), supports this view saying: "The Ministry needs to be split into a ministry of forests and wildlife, empowered to protect forests, and a ministry of environment, which would handle issues surrounding pollution concerns for air, water and land." Eco-lethal projects continue to be the order of the day, feel conservationists. These include nuclear reactors in the Sundarbans and the Nagarjunasagar tiger reserves, mines in Kudremukh, highways in Melghat and Tadoba, marble mining in the Jamua Ramgarh sanctuary adjacent to the Sariska tiger reserve and dams in the Great Himalayan National Park. According to Sahgal, "the MoEF should have prevented such 'development', but it has failed to convince successive governments that protecting ecological assets is in India's best financial interests, because protection was never its mandate and it was never designed to think independently. This is why, time and again, the MoEF has contributed to the destruction of our natural treasury by accommodating the interests of the politically powerful."

The MoEF, all too often becomes the de facto promoter of mines, dams and roads, by certifying that forests like the Kudremukh National Park, with its liontailed macaques and tigers, is of "no wildlife of significance" and can be destroyed. "Even the Supreme Court orders issued to protect forests are often not implemented, especially by State Governments," says Debi Goenka of the Bombay Environment Action Group, which specialises in protecting wildlife through legal action.

The Sanctuary report suggests that the idea of splitting the MoEF into separate Ministries of Environment and of Forests and Wildlife has wide support among the wildlife wing of the Forest Department, and in the Ministry itself. But officials are not willing to speak out because their service rules prohibit their expressing an opinion against existing government policy.

P.K. Sen, Director, "Project Tiger" states: "The tiger has lost 150,000 sq. km., half of its forested habitat, to deforestation between 1973, when 'Project Tiger' was launched, and today."

Valmik Thapar points out in Sanctuary that according to figures gleaned from MoEF files, forest lands, legally or illegally, probably yield between Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 100,000 crores each year to profit takers, at the expense of forests, wildlife and communities which depend on the forest for their daily survival.

Dr. Asad Rahmani pointed out that it was essential to recognise water and not timber or minerals as the prime produce of forests.

Thapar and Sahgal further affirm that: "It is necessary to turn 'Project Tiger' into the Tiger Protection Authority of India, legally empowered to appoint, recruit, transfer and assess all officers in tiger reserves from the rank of ranger upwards, as the present administrative set up does not empower

'Project Tiger'.

Like the Ministry of Health is mandated to protect health, the new Ministry of Forests and Wildlife must be empowered to protect, not exploit forests."

A task force of the Planning Commission on Agroforestry and joint forest management has also recommended a split in the MoEF. They suggest that the Centre create a Department of Forests and a Department of Environment by bifurcating the Ministry of Environment and Forests. However, this proposal is a transparent attempt to commercialise India's forests and not to protect them.

Co-authors Valmik Thapar and Bittu Sahgal argue that "Unless this reform and restructuring occurs our forests cannot be safe or secure. A new federal arm for effective governance and enforcement of the laws must come into being and with immediate effect otherwise little will be left in the coming decade."

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