Earth calling

The biodiversity crisis is less talked up but perhaps more subtly damaging than the related worry of climate change. While temperature rises can be easily documented,the slow dying of species and eroding of habitats,tipping ecosystems into danger,is a more insidious problem. India,now at the helm of the Convention on Biodiversity,hosted a conference in Hyderabad and,apart from pledging $50 million,also extracted funding commitments from developed nations,to spend twice as much as they did between 2006-2010.

India is remarkably biodiverse,with three global hotspots in the Western Ghats,the Himalayas and the Indo- Burma region,areas with a panoply of endemic species,where conservation is essential. However,sustainability and growth must not be set in crude opposition to each other,as has happened too often in India. Policymakers often assume that environmental and developmental concerns are a zero-sum game,instead of assessing each case,balancing the needs of a growing economy with those of specific vulnerable ecologies. For instance,environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan proposes that biodiversity become an additional criterion for environmental and forest clearances in mining and industrial projects. This could easily become an other onerous barrier for investors,in addition to the existing challenge of environmental approvals. Instead of strewing hurdles in the path of industrial projects,it makes more sense to educate and include them in conservation efforts. Similarly,recently the rhetoric around the Western Ghats panel recommendations acquired a harsh and polarising tone,pitting a certain model of conservation against arbitrary and corrupt considerations rather than a matter of weighing priorities. The debate around GM crops and a biotech regulatory bill is another case in point alarm about biotech and mutant superweeds eradicating biodiversity has often ignored the fact that Indias vast food needs must be met,that these crops could boost yields and cut pesticide costs for small farmers. Rhetoric has often seemed to win over rigorous farm evaluations,ideology over a more intelligent consideration of the costs and benefits of GM crops.

Certainly,ecosystems cannot always be valued in economic terms there are clear long-term and diffuse goods to biodiversity. However,even as India commits wholeheartedly to conserving its natural wealth,it must address its developmental needs without ideological blinders.