“Management of the Western Ghats through prohibitionand fiat is often detrimental tointerests of the very people and environment the policy is aiming toprotect,” it says. Incentivisation, and not displacement, is the HLWG motto. The Gadgil committee, onthe other hand, had taken an activist position. Just because a windmill project in the Bhimashankar Wildlife Sanctuary threatened Maharashtra’s state animal, the Giant Malabar Squirrel, the Gadgil committee had applieda blanket ban on windmills across the WesternGhats. Gadgil threatened the future ofthe legendary Kodagu coffee whenit recommended that existing plantations in ESZbe replaced withendemicplant species. The Kasturiranganpanel admonished the Madhav Gadgil Committee for being blindto the human cultural component in WesternGhats. It divided the Western Ghats area into culturaland natural landscapes and placed the culturallandscape, which forms the largest chunk of the Ghats, out of the ambit of the ecologicalsensitive area (ESA) even while fully aware that these landscapes are biologically rich. The cultural landscape, as different from natural landscape, is human-dominated land of settlements, agriculture and plantations (otherthan forest plantations). It is the naturallandscape that has been branded ESA. What’s more, the HLWG acknowledges and allows for the presence of humans even in areas marked as natural landscape. It says that unlike in other countries like Africa, the natural landscapes in Western Ghats cannot be called“wilderness areas”. “It is not wilderness area, but the habitat of its people,” is how the HLWG report puts it. Then it adds: “It is not possible to plan forWestern Ghats, only as a fenced-in zone, with no human influence.” The HLWG deems the human influence has enriched more thanit had degraded the biological richness of the Western Ghats. “People living withinthe richbiodiversity have nurtured nature. They must benefit from conservation,” the report states. It says facilities shouldbe created for the value addition of non-timber forest products. It alsocalls for both infrastructure and financial support for the collectionand transport of suchproduce. The Kasturiranganpanel indirectly mocks at the rigid approachofGadgil by stressing the importance of generating sustainable livelihoods inside biodiversity-rich areas. The HLWG, unlike the organic cultivation diktat issued by Gadgil, has recommended an incentive-based shift to organic cultivation. Controversially, it even promotes tourism. “It is clear that tourism, particularly, afterthe declaration of portions of the Western Ghats as a world heritage site, can be an important source of livelihoodand economic growthinthe region,” the report state
Posted on: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 17:57:17 +0000
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