{"id":41823,"date":"2024-08-03T02:46:54","date_gmt":"2024-08-02T21:16:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=41823"},"modified":"2025-05-01T00:51:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T19:21:20","slug":"conservation-and-protection-of-western-ghats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/conservation-and-protection-of-western-ghats\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservation and Protection of Western Ghats"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in News?<\/li>\n<li>Western Ghats and its Conservation Efforts<\/li>\n<li>The Sixth Draft Western Ghats Notification<\/li>\n<li>Challenges Towards Conserving Western Ghats<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Union Environment Ministry (MoEFCC) has issued a draft notification to declare the Western Ghats an ecologically sensitive area (ESA).<\/li>\n<li>The ESA includes villages in Wayanad (Kerala), where a devastating series of landslides on July 30 killed at least 210 people, with hundreds more still missing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Western Ghats and its Conservation Efforts<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>About Western Ghats:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>It is a mountain range<\/strong> (in a stretch of 1,600 Km) parallel to the western coast of the Indian peninsula.<\/li>\n<li><strong>It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site<\/strong> and is one of the 36 biodiversity hotspots in the world.<\/li>\n<li><strong>These are home to high mountain forests<\/strong>, which have been <strong>severely fragmented<\/strong> due to human activities, especially clear-felling for tea, coffee, and teak plantations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Conservation efforts:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>In 2010<\/strong>, MoEFCC appointed the <strong>Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP)<\/strong>, to be chaired by ecologist<strong> Dr Madhav Gadgil<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>It was formed <strong>to study the impact of population pressure, climate change and development activities<\/strong> on the Western Ghats.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Recommendations of the WGEEP:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Designate the entire region as an Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA)<\/strong> and classify 64% of the Western Ghats into Ecologically Sensitive Zones called ESZ 1, ESZ 2 and ESZ 3.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Almost all developmental activities<\/strong> like mining, construction of thermal power plants, and dams were to stop along with the <strong>decommissioning of similar projects<\/strong> that have completed their shelf life in ESZ 1.<\/li>\n<li>The report suggested <strong>a bottom-to-top approach<\/strong> and the establishment of a<strong> Western Ghats Ecology Authority<\/strong> to manage the ecology of the region and to ensure its sustainable development.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Resistance to the implementation of the WGEEP\u2019s recommendations:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Stakeholder states resisted<\/strong> the Gadgil panel recommendations amid fears of hindrance to development and loss of livelihood.<\/li>\n<li><strong>In 2012<\/strong>, MoEFCC constituted a <strong>High-Level Working Group on Western Ghats<\/strong> under former ISRO chief <strong>Dr K Kasturirangan, <\/strong>to formulate a report to replace WGEEP.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Recommendations of the Kasturirangan-led panel:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>It notified only 37%<\/strong> (against 64% by Gadgil commission) of the area as ecologically sensitive.<\/li>\n<li><strong>It also split the Western Ghats into<\/strong> cultural (human settlements) and natural (non-human settlements) regions. It was suggested that<strong> cultural lands be designated as an ESA.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Status of implementation of above recommendations:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>In 2017<\/strong>, MoEFCC demarcated an area of 56,825 sq Km in the Western Ghats as ESA as opposed to the 59,940 sq Km recommended by the Kasturirangan committee.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Kerala has 9,993 sq km; <\/strong>Karnataka 20,668 sq km, Tamil Nadu 6,914 sq km; Maharashtra 17,340 sq km; Goa 1,461 sq km and Gujarat 449 sq km.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>The Sixth Draft Western Ghats Notification:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Background:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The latest draft notification<\/strong> has been reissued because the previous draft (issued in July 2022) expired, and may have been prompted by recent <strong>devastating landslides in Wayanad district<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>This comes 13 years after<\/strong> the first such demarcation was recommended by a panel led by eminent ecologist Madhav Gadgil in 2011.<\/li>\n<li>Since then, the proposed protected area has <strong>shrunk from the original 75% recommendation to the current 37%.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>About the draft notification:<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The proposal for the ESA classification <strong>covers six states<\/strong> and 59,940 square kilometres of the Western Ghats or <strong>roughly 37% of the range.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>It states that:\n<ul>\n<li>All new and expansion projects of building and construction with built-up area of 20,000 square metres and above, and<\/li>\n<li>All new and expansion townships and area development projects with an area of 50 hectares and above or with built-up area of 150,000 square metres and above <strong>shall be prohibited<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Impact of the latest draft:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>If finalised, <strong>the notification would impose a complete ban<\/strong> on mining, quarrying, sand mining, thermal power plants, and polluting industries in the designated areas.<\/li>\n<li><strong>It would also prohibit <\/strong>new construction projects and township developments above certain thresholds.<\/li>\n<li>Additionally, <strong>hydropower projects and less polluting industries would be regulated<\/strong>, and a monitoring mechanism would be established.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Challenges Towards Conserving Western Ghats:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The outcome of this long-standing environmental protection effort <strong>remains uncertain<\/strong>, with <strong>conservation needs clashing with the developmental aspirations<\/strong> in one of India\u2019s most ecologically significant regions.<\/li>\n<li>As the draft notification now stands,<strong> it is up to the Western Ghats state governments to accept or reject the proposa<\/strong>l.<\/li>\n<li>Despite its six iterations, <strong>the draft notification is yet to become law<\/strong>, as all six affected States have objected to specific places that have been included in the ESA regions.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The dominant sentiment in Kerala<\/strong> was that this notification would subsume agricultural plantations, curtail the State\u2019s hydro-electricity plans, and would lead to a migration crisis given the State\u2019s high population density.<\/li>\n<li>To address states\u2019 concerns, MoEFCC constituted a high-level committee in 2022 to balance\n<ul>\n<li>Conservation aspects of the disaster-prone pristine ecosystem, and<\/li>\n<li>The rights, privileges, needs and developmental aspirations of the region.<\/li>\n<li><strong>But is yet to submit its report.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q.1 What are biodiversity hotspots?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>A biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographic region with significant levels of biodiversity that is threatened by human habitation. To qualify as a biodiversity hotspot, a region must contain at least 1,500 species of vascular plants as endemic, and at least 70% of its primary vegetation has been lost. Globally, 36 zones qualify under this definition.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Q.2. What are shola forests?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Sholas are the temperate forests found in valleys amid rolling grassland in the higher montane regions of South India in the Nilgiris, Anaimalai and Palani hills.<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After series of devastating landslides in Wayanad (Kerala), MoEFCC has issued a draft notification to declare the Western Ghats an ecologically sensitive area (ESA)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":41824,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-41823","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}