August 25, 2019

As the Amazon burns, India must look at its own environmental record

topic:	Global Warming
located:	India
editor:	Tish Sanghera

“We must not go against nature”, implored Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a recent episode of Man vs Wild, hosted by Bear Grylls. Together the two hiked through Jim Corbett National Park in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand while PM Modi shared anecdotes from his humble childhood and described himself as a “nature lover”.

Yet PM Modi doesn’t always practice what he preaches. Since coming to power in 2014, his government has rejected just 1 percent of applications from polluting industries, such as mining and major infrastructure projects that lie in some of India’s last pockets of biodiversity. So keen is his government on a model of ‘development’ that relies on extracting the country’s natural resources, that the environment ministry boasts of improving the ‘ease of doing business’ in protected areas. Experts also fear for the sanctity of India’s forests, rivers and indigenous populations after the continuous dilution of environmental laws and regulations.

This view of ‘development’ though is misguided. As the earth warms and the effects of climate change wreak havoc across the globe, India will bear the brunt of climate-related crises. Water scarcity, freak flooding events and scorching temperatures could make many places in the country unliveable. Failure to protect the environment will only make matters worse.

A recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said vastly unequal populations, such as India will suffer most under climate change. Due to large social and economic disparities, swathes of the population will be unable to cope with rising food or water prices. Unfortunately, many people with decision-making powers do not understand how ‘natural infrastructure’ such as forests, wetlands and tropical mangroves help to improve climate resilience. Forestland, for example, helps to capture rainfall and recharge groundwater. Yet in a highly water-stressed area, there is an expensive project underway to submerge almost 1.8 million trees for irrigation and river linking programme that experts have deemed wholly unnecessary.

While the Amazon burns as a result of illegal clearing, which some have attributed to the pro-business and anti-conservation rhetoric of Brazil’s president, Indians are joining in with the social media outrage, circulating the hashtag #PrayForAmazonia. But the public should also look at the situation at home. In just three years between 2015 and 2018, 20,000 hectares of forestland, larger than the size of Washington DC was lost to industrial activities. As the government sets out its aim to become a $5 trillion economy by 2024, backed by a $1 trillion infrastructure spending plan, conflicts with nature will only increase.

The PM closed the episode advocating for citizens to no longer ‘exploit nature for their enjoyment’, seemingly laying the blame for environmental degradation at the feet of ordinary citizens. But it is Prime Minister Modi and his government who have the most power to prevent pollution and environmental destruction. After a summer of intense drought and extreme flooding, reeling under the effects of climate change, it is clear the country needs tighter green governance – not less.

Image: meg and rahul - Flickr