Western Ghats: Flash Floods in Kerala

In News

• Flash floods and back-to-back land- slips in Kerala bring into focus the fragile ecosystem of the mountain chain that runs almost parallel to India’s western coast.

Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) Report  

• The report was submitted in 2011.
• Madhav Gadgil, ecologist and panel chairman pointed to the degradation suffered of Western Ghat.

• The report had designated the entire hill range as an Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA). 
  • It had classified the 142 taluks in the Western Ghats boundary into three Ecologically Sensitive Zones (ESZs). 
  • It also recommended no new dams based on large­ scale storage be permitted in the region. 
  • Participatory process for development related activity involving the gram sabhas in these zones.

• The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change opposed disclosure of the report stating that it could affect the economic and scientific interests of the six States. 
  • The successive State governments opposed it stating that most of its suggestions were impractical.

• The Centre later appointed a high­ level working group on Western Ghats led by K. Kasturirangan, in August, 2012 to examine the Gadgil report.

K.Kasturirangan Committee

• Mandate:
  • To give special attention to the preservation of the precious biodiversity.
  • Also,to consider the rights, needs and development aspirations of the local and indigenous people. 
• Committee’s observation:
  • It identified only 37% or 59,940 sq. km of the Western Ghats in the 6 States as ESAs. 
  • Around 4,156 villages along the region were identified as ESAs 
    • On the basis of the criterion that they had 20% or more of ecologically sensitive area within their boundary.
    • Nearly 123 such villages were identified as ESAs in Kerala, provoking political and religious protests. 

Oommen V. Oommen Committee

• Following the advice of the Kasturirangan Committee
  • The area of 9,993.7 sq. km to be considered ESAs in Kerala as against the 13,108 sq. km area.

• It also recommended that the inhabited areas, plantations and agricultural lands in the Western Ghats region be excluded from the scope of ESA

Union Environment Ministry Draft notification of 2014 

• Notified a total of 56,825 sq. km in the Western Ghats as ESA instead of the original 59,940 sq. km recommended by the Kasturirangan Committee.
• The final notification remains pending despite a directive by the Principal Bench of the National Green Tribunal 
  • that there is no justification for continued delay merely because the States have sought exclusion of the area from the Eco Sensitive Zone.

Apprehensions

• Farmers approached the Supreme Court to declare the Centre’s draft notification as “unconstitutional”.
• The recommendations of both the reports on land use, farming practices, animal husbandry, forestry, industries, infrastructure development, tourism, etc. 
  • Would convert the semi­urban villages in the region into forests with no facilities and roads

Biological diversity:

• The Western Ghats is home to a vast biological diversity of flora and fauna including hundreds of globally threatened species. 
  • Many of these species are also endemic to the region.
  • Covering an area of 180,000 sq.km, or just under 6 percent of the land area of India, 
  • It  contains more than 30 percent of all the plant, fish, herpeto-fauna, bird, and mammal species found in India.
  • The Western Ghats include a diversity of medicinal plants and important genetic resources such as the wild relatives of grains, fruit and spices.
• Biodiversity Crisis
  • The International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2020 found that the Western Ghats is 
    • Under increasing population and developmental pressure.
    • This requires intensive and targeted management efforts to conserve the  existing values and also remediate past damages. 

Natural disasters

• About 40% of Western Ghat ranges lie in Kerala, which makes the State particularly vulnerable to the ecological changes in the mountain chain. 
  • Environmentalists point to the fragile ecosystem of the Ghats and call for urgent action. 
• A case of the October landslides in Kerala. 
  • Koottickal village in Kottayam,was removed by the State government in 2015 from the list of 123 ESAs witnessed back ­to back landslides. 

• The increasing extreme climate events have resulted in large­ scale disasters and destabilised the already vulnerable districts along the Western Ghats.
• The World Meteorological Organisation had included the August deluge that rocked Kerala in 2018 
  • As among the five major extreme flooding events in the world between 2015 and2019. 
  • Official estimates showed that there were a total of 2,062 landslides in the State in 2018­-19. 
  • Idukki was the most vulnerable with the district facing around 1,048 landslides in this period. 

Ecological Threats

• Mr. Gadgil’s warnings are now resonating after the tragic loss of over 40 lives in flash floods and landslides in the aftermath of heavy rains.
  • In the hilly regions of the Western Ghats in central Kerala districts of Kottayam, Idukki and Pathanamthitta.
  • Gadgil reiterated that human interference and unscientific land use had worsened the already damaged ecosystem of the Western Ghats.
• The studies by the Geological Survey of India in the landslide vulnerable areas in the hilly districts of Kerala had found 
  • faulty cultivation patterns and defective maintenance of drainage systems.
• Geoscientists advocate the need for exempting areas of very high susceptibility in the Western Ghats from any types of constructions 
  • while urging the government and the local communities to increase the vegetative cover as a first defence against the landslide.
• The relentless assault on its natural assets. 
  • Developmental activities have led to large scale deforestation and submergence of pristine forests. 
  • Conversion of forest land into agricultural land or for commercial purposes like tourism has resulted in shrinkage of the habitat.
• Climate change and Global warming  have led to big variations in the duration and intensity of rainfalls in the region. 
  • This is giving rise to increased instances and intensity of extreme weather events in the region.

Way Ahead

• Sustainable Growth 
  • A balance between conservation efforts and development should be sought.
  • Exempting areas of very high susceptibility from any types of constructions.
• Nature Based Solution 
  • Increasing the vegetative cover as a first line of defence during a natural calamity.

• Government Policies
  • An intelligent public policy response is the need of the hour.
  • Policies must adhere to the recommendations of reports In
• Avoiding mindless consumerism
  • United Nations Development Programme, which had pioneered the human development approach, 
    • has proposed a Planetary ­Pressures Adjusted Human Development Index 
    • That weighs a country’s human development for its ecological footprint. Living in
• Awareness among various stakeholders 
  • Living in the Anthropocene, we need to guard against any further damage to the natural world.

Source: TH