Cement, Energy and Environment

ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION & RESOURCE MANAGEMENT GOVERNMENT'S POLICY MATRIX FOR ALLOCATING GREEN RESOURCES In a bid towards transparent and swift allocation of scarce natural resources, including airwaves, a high-powered government committee, headed by former finance secretary Mr. Ashok Chawla, will devise a policy matrix to suggest the changes required in the current methodology in different central ministries and departments. A report will be given in the next four weeks. Known as the Committee on Open and Competitive Mechanism for Allocation, Pricing, and Utilization of Natural Resources, it was set up to suggest measures for tackling corruption. Such natural resources will include land, water, minerals (including petroleum products like oil and gas), and radio frequency (spectrum). The committee will consider multiple issues such as public welfare, revenue maximization, sectoral precedents, and so on. The policies, therefore, would be tailored differently, depending upon the context of each sector. Courtesy: TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) Newswire, 1- 15 February 2011, P13. TOWARDS WETLAND CONSERVATION Asad Rahmani, Director, Bombay Natural History Society The Union environment ministry has been working for the past four years to create a regulatory framework to protect the country's wetlands. In June 2008, it framed rules to protect wetlands. The draft was criticized by lawyers, environmentalists, activists and people dependent on wetlands. In December 2010, the ministry revised the rules under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, and called them Wetlands (Management and Conservation) Rules, 2010. Down to Earth sought comments on the rules from people involved in conserving wetlands. The comments are summarized below: COMMENT1:CHECKLAND SHARKS The Government of India should enact a wetland conservation act, on the lines of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980. But it should also consider the views of people dependent on wetlands. Millions of acres of village, semi-urban and urban wetlands are controlled by gram panchayats or city administrators. Most often administrators have no interest in protecting them and succumb to land sharks easily. Many times, wetlands are "inspected" during peak summer, when they have no water, and allocated to land sharks as wastelands. COMMENT 2: FOOD SECURITY India is a signatory to the Ramsar Convention which slots irrigated agricultural lands, and canals under wetlands. But the wetlands conservation rules, 2010 does not have river canals paddy fields and the coastal wetlands in their ambit. Paddy fields are under water for more than six months and in certain areas like Kerala they are under water throughout the year. So paddy fields should not be excluded from wetland conservation. Not conserving these fields will seriously affect food security and groundwater sources . Tamil Nadu, for example, has lost about 600,000 hectare of paddy fields after Independence. COMMENT 3: BLIND TO PONDS The framers of the rules have no idea of small ponds in the country, both in urban and rural areas. The draft rules do not have the term "pond", though they do use a roughly similar term, "tank". They are not sensitive to the way ponds and tanks are managed. For example, the rules do not permit "construction except boat jetties within 50 metres from mean high food level of water bodies". But thousands of small ponds have bathing stairs (ghats) and bathing facilities within this restricted area. Area surrounding ponds are also places for recreation. Will such recreation be banned? There are heritage structures like temples, mosques near ponds which require maintenance and development. If the draft rules become an act, these activities will be illegal. The rules mandate "prior approval from state for aquaculture and horticulture". Most ponds and tanks are used for aquaculture and the earnings from these activities are the only source of the financing maintenance. COMMENT 4: FAULTY LIST The forest conservation law recognizes only certain categories of forests as worthy of conservation. If a stakeholder or an environmentalist wants legal protection for a forest not in the list, then he or she has to file a public interest litigation in courts. We might face similar situation with respect to wetlands, if the draft rules become an act. People might have to take help of the court if 23