Wayanad Mishap Fallout: Gadgil Report, Deforestation and Nicobar Project Figure in Parliament

New Delhi: The lack of a weather RADAR system for north Kerala, the perspective that Kerala had not implemented the Gadgil committee report, deforestation in the country and the proposed Great Nicobar Project in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands found mention in the parliament on Thursday, August 8.

The Union government’s “mishandling” – by not providing the best technology for climate predictions in north Kerala – is what caused the Wayanad landslides, argued V. K. Sreekandan, a member of parliament from Kerala. Meanwhile, Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav – in response to another question – said that the Union government had not given any forest clearance in the last 10 years in the area where the Wayanad landslides occurred.

Regarding clearances given by the ministry for the projects at the Great Nicobar Island, Yadav, while responding to Congress MP Jairam Ramesh, said that before the environmental clearance was given, several experts were consulted and land for compensatory afforestation was identified.

North Kerala needs Doppler RADAR, reiterates Kerala MP

The “mishandling of the Central government” caused the Wayand landslides in north Kerala, said V. K. Sreekandan, MP from Kerala in the Lok Sabha during Zero Hour on August 8.

The multiple landslides in Meppadi panchayat in Kerala’s Wayanad district have so far claimed more than 220 lives; more than 100 people are still missing and unaccounted for. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to visit the area on Saturday, August 10.

Sreekandan, an MP from Palakkad district, said that the Union government had not met Kerala’s repeated demands for a weather RADAR in north Kerala so far.

“Despite recurring landslides in Wayanad due to rain, there were neither Doppler weather radars nor any manual observatories of the India Meteorological Department,” he said in the Lok Sabha.

“The Union government has approved putting up an X-band RADAR with an observation range of 100 km in the year 2023 in Kozhikode, which will cover Wayanad as well. But the site inspection has not been completed even till today. Manual observatories are essential for assessing many climate conditions that are lacking in Wayanad,” he noted.

Kerala’s “long-pending demand” for a permanent weather RADAR in north Kerala has not come through yet. 

“So what happened in Wayanad is because of the mishandling of the central government, therefore owing moral responsibility to what happened in Wayanad,” he said.  

He also added that the Union government should declare the Wayanad tragedy a national disaster and “pay adequate compensation to everyone who suffered” in the Wayanad landslides. 

“It is a tragedy that Kerala has never experienced.”

Deforestation and clearances

Meanwhile, BJP MP from Puducherry S. Selvaganabathy said in the Rajya Sabha that the recent tragedy in Wayanad was “an example of neglecting the recommendations of the Gadgil Committee”. The report recommended a complete ban on the use of genetically modified crops in the Eco Sensitive Zone I and II areas and also to stop the construction of major road and railway projects in these zones, he said. 

“If there had been tree cover, the calamity would have been arrested or lesser. My question is will the government formulate a device mission scheme to establish tree cover in such zones,” he asked Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav. 

“As far as development in forest cover is concerned, we have a system where we give forest and wildlife clearance,” Yadav responded. “Any development activity in forest cover or wildlife areas is given permission only based on these rules. Secondly, there are more than 6,47 eco-sensitive zones in the country. And these eco-sensitive zones are demarcated based on the rules laid down in the specified laws by the union government.” 

He also told the House that over the last 10 years, only one forest clearance was given in Wayanad, that too on a theoretical basis where 70 hectares of land was given for a canal. 

“The Union government in the last 10 years has not given any clearance for the area where the tragedy occurred,” he added.

Given that landslides are now commonplace in many hilly regions, has the government taken any step to identify landslide-prone areas in advance, perhaps like an early warning system, so that loss of life can be prevented, asked one MP. To this, Yadav passed the buck: the disaster management authorities look into landslides, as do states, he said.

“We deal only with forest areas.”

Tree loss in the Great Nicobar Island

Congress senior leader and MP Jairam Ramesh then asked Yadav about multiple projects coming up on the Great Nicobar Island in the Andaman and Nicobar Island complex, which he said “is going to lead to a loss of thousands of hectares of good, rich forest which is ecologically very sensitive”. 

“What is the status of this, and what steps are going to be taken to prevent the loss of forest cover in this ecologically fragile and sensitive area of the country,” Ramesh asked.

Yadav, in response, claimed that before the environmental clearance was given for the project, several experts were consulted and land for compensatory afforestation was identified. He added that the advice of our “expert institutes” such as the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) and Botanical Survey of India (BSI) which keep track of wildlife was consulted and then a clearance was given based on scientific grounds. 

“These details are available on the website,” he added.

However, reports by The Wire have shown that the impact assessment for the project was shoddy, incomplete and ignored existing information about the biodiversity of the island. The Wildlife Institute of India – also one of the “expert institutes” that was consulted for the clearance but which Yadav did not mention on August 8 in Parliament – had given inputs about the giant leatherback turtles (which use the Galathea beach as a nesting site) without the institute having conducted any study on it.

The Wire Science had reported then about how six months after the National Board for Wildlife justified denotifying this area based on an expert’s opinion, the expert’s institute – a premier wildlife research body – said it has no expertise on these reptiles in this area.

When Maharashtra MP Imran Pratapgarhi asked about the lakhs of trees that news reports have claimed will be cut to make way for a Kanwar yatra corridor in Uttar Pradesh, Yadav said there was no such scheme to his knowledge. And, when asked about the status of Joshimath in Uttarakhand and how its people are still living in fear, Yadav said that the NDRF (National Disaster Response Force) “is looking into this”.

Compensatory afforestation and its banes

Though Dr. Fauzia Khan of the NCP from Maharashtra asked about the “rampant deforestation that is antithetical” to India’s climate targets, and whether there is any data to suggest that the alternative that India is pushing forward – compensatory afforestation – that is, the afforestation of new trees, is a replacement for millions of acres of untouched forest cover, Yadav did not directly answer this particular question. Instead, he touched on the many schemes of afforestation that the government was taking up – such as MISHTI, Green India Mission, etc.

Later, in response to another related question, Yadav even recommended that all members of the House encourage and promote tree cover and plantation, and plant more trees in their constituencies. However, Rajya Sabha chair Jagdeep Dhankar reminded Yadav that afforestation and tree plantation were two different aspects. Dhankar said that the government is taking up both, but that tree plantations are not a substitute for afforestation nor compensation for it  – which Yadav agreed to.

While it is well-established that tree plantations – these typically refer to monocultures – are not a substitute for afforestation or the loss of forests (across a range of factors, including carbon sequestration and sustaining biodiversity), science also shows that afforestation is also not a substitute or compensation for the loss of intact and existing forests.

Actions related to preserving existing forests are known to provide the largest reduction of emissions in the short term, while carbon sequestration from afforestation is more important in the long run. There are differences when it comes to the tropics and temperate regions too: avoiding deforestation is most crucial in the tropics such as in India, while afforestation is important for the world’s temperate regions. Studies such as this one in 2020 suggest that governments need to do both: avoid deforestation, and promote additional afforestation.

This isn’t the first time that the Union environment minister has promoted plantations: in an interview in January 2022, Yadav said that “India has defined forests as per its national capabilities” and that “all plantations play a crucial ecological role”.

As a scientist who studies trees, forests, plantations and restored forest patches told The Wire Science, the fact that plantations have ecological functions is an “undeniable truth”; but what’s also true, Anand Osuri told The Wire Science is that natural forests’ ecological functions dwarf those of plantations.