Role of locals essential in protecting environment: Ecologist Madhav Gadgil

He said, “The approach for making decisions has to be bottom-up, and not vice versa. In low-sensitivity areas, rock quarrying can be allowed with suggestions from well-organised community groups such as Kerala’s Kudumbashree [a community network and poverty eradication programme that aims to empower women]. These groups should be given the contract for rock quarries and asked to manage them.”

According to Gadgil, such measures along with limiting activities in high and moderate ecologically sensitive areas in the Western Ghats would help in avoiding disasters such as the Wayanad landslides which took place in July this year. The disaster killed more than 250 people. The ecologist, however, said implementing these actions would not be easy as the rich and powerful continue to profit from the rock quarries, which make ecologically sensitive areas more prone to landslides, in the vicinity.

“Most of these quarries are illegal and do not have adequate permission from the local district collectors. My friends in Kerala have told me that a large number of the quarries are owned by members of political parties, including the BJP, CPI (M), and Congress, who make a lot of money,” he said.

Gadgil also accused “tea estate owners and their friends” of building resorts and lakes in the area which are further increasing the pressure on the land and making it more vulnerable to landslides.

He highlighted the fact that when disasters like the Wayanad landslides take place it is the poor and marginalised communities that suffer.

The ecologist also pointed out that India needs to revise its outlook on economic growth. He said that the country needs to focus on the development of four main components — natural capital, human capital, social capital, and man-made capital.

“We cannot just focus on man-made capital, which includes mining and polluting industries for economic growth. That is because man-made capital, in the long term, adversely impacts natural capital and human capital. It severely affects the environment and creates unemployment by destroying agriculture, etc… If we proceed this way, I am quite sure that we can pursue a path which will lead to overall development,” he said.