'India is engaged in unlimited exploitation of its limited natural resources'

Rediff: Maharashtra: Friday, June 29, 2012.

It was a big victory for RTI activist G Krishnan when the Delhi high court dismissed the plea of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) against making public the Gadgil Committee report on the Western Ghats.

Justice Vipin Sanghi upheld the Central Information Commission (CIC) ruling in response to Krishnan's RTI application asking MoEF to disclose the Western Ghats Ecology Experts Panel (WGEEP) report authored by Madhav Gadgil. The HC also agreed with the CIC directive to ensure that all reports of commissions and special panels are posted on the ministry's website within 30 days of being received.

In this interview with Shobha Warrier, Krishnan talks about the implications of the verdict on the Western Ghats and other environmental issues. Excerpts:

What was the background behind the Gadgil committee report on the Western Ghats?

The Western Ghats, which ranges from Gujarat up to Nagercoil is one of the eight ecologically important hot spots in the world. But over the past few years, in the name of development, the entire Western Ghats have been getting exploited. It may be for minerals, real estate interests, or in the name of tourism, the forest cover of the Western Ghats has been undergoing a decline. And, this in turn has affected the climate, agriculture and the general economy of the states.

Naturally environmental groups have been concerned about this development which resulted in the Save Western Ghats Movement. When Jayaram Ramesh was the Minister for Environment, he agreed to set up a 14 member committee under the Chairmanship of Madhav Gadgil to identify and study the most sensitive areas of the Western Ghats, and recommend measures to be taken to save the ghats. Gadgil is a very famous ecologist and holds a Padma Bhushan.

The mandate given to the committee was to assess the current status of the ecology of the region and demarcate the areas within the Western Ghats region that need to be notified as ecologically sensitive and recommend for notification under the Environment Protection Act. And also to make recommendations for conservation, protection and rejuvenation of the Western Ghats region following a comprehensive consultation process involving people and governments of the concerned states.

Over a period of two years, the committee went around all the states, had discussions with many people and did special study on the environmental impact of the Gundiya electrical project in Karnataka and the Athirapally hydro electric project in Kerala and the ecological conditions prevailing in certain areas in Maharashtra.