Prof. Madhav Gadgil |
The definitive legacy of ecologist Madhav Gadgil is the codification of the eternal values of India’s Western Ghats, a biodiversity hotspot and water tower for the entire peninsula. Prof. Gadgil, who passed away at 83, was an extraordinary scientist who refused to be intimidated by bureaucratic obstructionism in the working of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) that he headed. The committee’s work foregrounded the principle of development and conservation by inclusion, and its recommendations were based on the conviction that local communities and their elected institutions had the highest stakes in the land. Such a philosophy provoked a major backlash against the WGEEP, with non-cooperation extending to even official agencies, such as the Central Pollution Control Board, which refused to share its Zoning Atlas for Siting of Industries with the panel. Even more shockingly, the Union Environment Ministry under Minister Jayanthi Natarajan refused to make the WGEEP report public until it was forced to do so by an RTI order that was upheld by the Delhi High Court in 2012. Unfazed by governmental intransigence, Prof. Gadgil persevered, meeting communities and using science to estimate the ecological sensitivity of each transect of the Western Ghats, a diligence that finally produced a permanent classification of these mountainous landscapes into Ecologically Sensitive Zones of high, moderate, and low sensitivity, covering their entire 1.29 lakh sq. km area.
Quite predictably, the sharp lens turned on incompatible economic activities being carried out in the Ghats, often illegally, produced a violent reaction from special interests who benefit from the status quo. Protests by various shades of opposition, including major political parties, effectively sought to shield mines, quarries, buildings, and industries that were damaging the ghats. Prof. Gadgil once referred to a veiled reported threat of a Kashmir-like uprising even from a bishop in Kerala, a key Western Ghats state with severe pressure on land and rivers. What was credentialed science to the rational failed to sway the politics of the day, and a High-Level Working Group under K. Kasturirangan was set up in an undisguised effort to dilute the WGEEP recommendations. It is a sad commentary on the prevailing myopic economic vision centred solely on GDP growth that even the Kasturirangan panel’s less rigorous recommendations were unpalatable to states. Inevitably, the floods, landslips and misery that visited Kerala after 2015, taking a heavy toll on lives, vindicated the stark warnings that Prof. Gadgil and his colleagues had issued. There is no finality yet to what the Union and the states want to do with a weak notification, declaring the ecologically sensitive areas, issued two years ago. Some of Dr. Gadgil’s ideas, such as a more tolerant view of hunting by communities outside protected areas, did not find great appeal. Yet, his map recording the Western Ghats as a timeless treasure is inestimably valuable.
