Selfie Balm For Environment Woes In India

Wepen, June 6, 2019: “Plant a sapling; Click a selfie; Post it on the internet” is the Modi Government’s prescription for all environmental problems that the country is reeling under. Rapid depletion of forest cover; extreme weather conditions and dangerous rise in pollution levels have been plaguing India lately.

On the occasion of World Environment Day on Wednesday, environment minister Prakash Javadekar said that the government wants citizens to plant saplings, click selfies with the saplings and send the selfies to #SelfieWithSapling.

“The Modi government believes that environment is not only a government programme, environment protection is a people’s programme. In all such programmes we are ensuring people’s participation. Planting of sapling will help create carbon sink which will help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere” stated Javadekar.

In the last 5 years, under the NDA Government, India has lost more than 1,20, 000 hectares of primary forest, a whooping 36% more than loss of forest cover between 2009 and 2013.

Records reveal that between 2014 and 2018 the forest cover loss stood at 1,22,748 hectares. 2016 suffered the maximum loss with 30,936 hectares followed closely by 2017 with a loss of 29, 563 hectares.

Between 2009 and 2013 the loss was to the tune of 77,963 hectares while 87,350 hectares of tropical forest cover was lost in between 2004-08.

Latest data from the University of Maryland using NASA satellite images to study the loss of forest cover trends globally.

The data was released by Global Forest Watch of the World Resources Institute, a US based NGO.

The survey which is based on satellite imagery however does not provide any reasons for the depletion. Since 2002 Indian has cumulatively lost 3,10,625 hectares of forest cover.

Upto 2015 the forest cover loss has been attributed to mining, logging and shifting cultivation. The forest cover loss has led to an increase of carbon dioxide in Indian atmosphere by 101 to 250% up to 2017 as per WRI.

The world has lost 12 million hectares of tropical tree cover in 2018. This is reported to the fourth highest annual loss since the process of keeping records was initiated in 2001.

There are numerous instances of forests being systematically destroyed for commercial gains while the Government prefers to remain a silent spectator.

Sixteen hundred acres of dense forest has been destroyed in the Sawantwadi-Dodamarg wildlife corridor in four years since 2014 claims a report submitted by an NGO to the government.

The deforestation occurred after the Bombay High Court ordered banning of tree felling in 2013 in the sensitive 30 km corridor connecting the Bhimgad wildlife sanctuary in Karnataka to the Radhanagari sanctuary in Maharashtra. Tigers, elephants and bison are found in this region.

The destruction of 103 locations within the proposed Western Ghats Eco System has been mapped by Vanashakti, an NGO, using Google maps since 2013.

However not much policy reforms are in the offing as the dilution of some critical environmental laws pertaining to air and water pollution in the previous Modi government will continue in the Modi 2.0 Government. New changes to the Indian Forest Act and the overhaul of the Environment Impact Assessment notification 2006 are ample indicators that the dilution of environment protective laws will continue.

Prakash Javadekar who had laid the groundwork of dilution of environmental laws as the environment minister in the previous government has returned in the second term to complete the task.