Environmentalist Sunita Narain says ‘we have to come up with a very different strategy for development where the ecosystem is more vulnerable; a predevelopment plan is the way forward’.
New Delhi
Amid untold tales of horror and fury unleashed by nature across the north Indian plains from Punjab to Haryana and from Himachal to Uttarakhand and even Delhi-Gurugram, The Sunday Guardian spoke to Padma Shri Sunita Narain, acclaimed environmentalist, on the “manmade monsoon disaster” of North India. Narain has been with the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) since 1982 and is currently the director general of the CSE and the treasurer of the Society for Environmental Communications. Excerpts:
Q: What do you make of this disaster from Ravi-Beas in the Himalayas to Yamuna in Delhi?
A: This is a combination of two issues, (1) The changes in weather because of climate change, and (2) The kind of development that we are doing in this region. Let me explain. First, we know that the weather is changing due to climate change, in this case two things have happened—the western disturbance which are winds that come from the Mediterranean to India, normally come over winter, but due to the weakening of the jet stream, the western disturbance is also becoming weaker and as a result, came much later in the year, which is now, and you also have the unusual extreme heating of the Bay of Bengal which has also led to the early onset of the monsoon.
Combination of these two factors meant collision of the two systems over J&K, Himachal and the northern Indian plains. Now, that has meant extremely heavy rainfall perhaps unprecedented in this region and that is one key reasons for the floods.
But this is not the only reason. The reason is also that we have been developing, doing development work in that very fragile, vulnerable area of the Himalayan region as we would in the plains of India. And we have to come up with a very different strategy for development where the ecosystem is more vulnerable.
Q: Has rampant development along the Ganga basin created Kedarnath like disaster 2.0?
A: It is about the kind of development that we are doing. For instance, the fact is that we are making a lot of hydroelectric projects in this region. Now that is good, because one of the big economic benefits of this region is water. Water provides clean energy, but the way we are building the hydro projects is literally one after the other and that is creating pressure on the fragility, adding to vulnerability of the region—with the blasting, the construction—the way you do it.
I am not against the hydroelectric plants, I think you need to build them, development is good for the region, but one has to plan keeping in mind the fragility of the ecosystem of the region. So, you have to plan accordingly, you cannot plan for these plants coming up one after the other and you reengineer the river. Now this is the kind of development which is bad. Development per se is not bad. Development is needed for that region, people need development but the kind of development we are doing is without any consideration of vulnerability of that region.
Q: Where are the policies to keep the hills free of population from the plains? What according to you should be the way forward from here?
A: As far as what kind of policies, I will leave the policy-making to the wisdom of the state. According to me, all policies and planning have to be made keeping in mind an increase in disaster in times to come. Our data shows that India experienced one extreme weather event from 1 January 2022 to 30 September 2022, now that’s huge, and we are only going to see more of it. That is the nature of the climate change. We have not created the problem but we are the victims of it. And this is clearly going to happen and it is going to get worse and worse.
In that scenario we have to understand that Himalayas are the youngest mountain range in the world. They are fragile, they have landslides. We really have to make sure that we do development accordingly. This is where the state governments, the central government, the coalition that the central government has set up for disaster reliance infrastructure, the Niti Aayog—they all need to think about what is the development strategy for the Himalayas. What kind of masterplans do we need for the cities so that you say where you will not build? What kind of buildings you will have, what is the carrying capacity of the region? –these are important questions. They cannot be dismissed as academic questions anymore.
Q: Is Instagram-generated tourism taking a toll on the Himalayan ecology?
A: Tourism is very good. It is very important for the Himalayan ecosystem’s economy, especially the kind of tourism that is being promoted by states like Uttarakhand and Himachal which is “homestay tourism” which is laudable. We need to say that this is a good policy, but what is bad is that you do not have any plan. Earlier, at the end of the day, there used to be very clear restrictions on what was called a flood plain area–you could not build there, so the city administration has to impose the plan. So, it is not about tourism, it is about enforcement from the city. The problem is there is nobody to say no to such things and if you raise the point, you can be seen as anti-development, but at the end of the day, it is important for cities and states to themselves come up with these plans–where is that we will allow development and what kind of development.
There are rules across the world, there are seismic areas where you build houses with only certain kinds of building plans. So also for the Himalayan region, you have to understand the fragile ecology and plan accordingly which is predevelopment. A predevelopment plan is the way forward.