Centre for Science and Environment DIRECTOR'S REPORT-1995-96

Item

Title
Centre for Science
and Environment
DIRECTOR'S
REPORT-1995-96
extracted text
DIRECTOR'S

REPORT

Centre for Science
and Environment
New Delhi

. lhe Centre for Science and

Environment is a public interest
research and advocacy organisa­
tion which promotes' environmentally-sound and equitous
development strategies. The
Centre's work over the past 15
years has led it to believe and
argu$, both nationally and
internationally, that participa­
tion, equity and community-based'
natural resource management
system^ alone will lead the
nations of the world towards a
durable peace and development.
As a public interest organi­
sation, the Centre supports and
organises information flow in a
way that the better organised*
sections of the world get to hear
the problems and perspectives of
the less organised. Environmental
issues are seen in an anthro­
pocentric perspective that seeks
to bring about changes in the

behaviour of human societies
through appropriate governance
systems, human-nature interac­
tions and the use of science and
technology.
Though the public aware<
ness programmes of the Centre
are its key strength and current
focus of work, it is endeavouring
to move into associated areas of
work like policy research and
advocacy. Learning from the peo­
ple and from the innovations of
the committed has helped the
Centre to spread the message
regarding environment without
its normal association with doom
and gloom. Rather, the effort of
the Centre is to constantly search
for people-based solutions and
create a climate of hope.
The Centre has always been,
and will continue to be, editorial­
ly independent of interest groups,
governments, political parties,
international agencies and fund­
ing sources. CSE never accepts
funding to push a donor's view­
point. All its outputs are available
for public dissemination.

CONTENTS

I

OVERVIEW

Chairperson’s perspective 3

Director’s perspective 4
A campaign called change 8
PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS

Equity in a world of opinion 1O
Winds of change i8

Initiatives taken so far... 34
Green wisdom 40

Events 42
In print 44
HUMAN RESOURCES

What others said 47
CSE's executive board 48

Who’s who at CSE 49
Our partners worldwide SO

SC orders closure of 5 polluting units in Rajasthan

OVERVIEW

I

PERSPECTIVES

Keeping alive
G D AGARWAL, CHAIRPERSON

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... and they say “sorry”!

1995-96, the year under report, proved to be
almost the year of revelation for many of us.
The few months since the end of 1995-96 have
only shown that all is not over and we have to
weather many more shocks. Shocks, if we still
retain some sensitivity to feel them. With each
day revealing more and more scandals and the
near-complete lack of integrity among even the
nation’s most trusted and respected personalities
— not one or two or a few, but by dozens and
scores — what hope could be there from
surface-dressings by 'transparency', and 'account­
ability'? And what hope can there be from the
■common-sense’ and ‘maturity’ of the mass of our
citizens who do not hesitate to re-elect, and with
thumping majorities, persons whom large
sections of people, media, police and even courts
openly call prima facie charged with serious
misconducts? While one was punished for
clearing the setting up the Union Carbide plant in
the midst of the capital city of Bhopal, or. for that
matter, of the pesticide factories in Delhi or Goa.
a Member of Parliament and former minister for
environment was not tolerated by the political
party that is in control of the "nation's" destiny
for even a month after criticising the govern­
ment’s hurried clearance of a project. If that is the
sort of cost to be paid for frankness, how can we
expect transparency’?
At myr age and stage, it is easy, probably even
natural, to be cynical. To me. environment
protection efforts by some sincere XGOs (like
CSE) can do little more than keep the flame
flickering till the storm lasts. And keeping alive
implies keeping the hope that the storm will pass
out. The case of our dear Anil, who for some of
us is the very embodiment of our environmental
consciousness, only confirms this. May AlmightyGod grant victory to him and CSE in their
struggles.

OVERVIEW

PERSPECTIVES

Challenge of ecological balance:
Making government deliver
ANIL AGARWAL, DIRECTOR

India's electoral polls which concluded in May
1996. constituted the world's biggest demonstra­
tion of a nation's commitment to democracy.
From the high hills of Anmachal Pradesh to the
seashores of Kerala, every five years people have
participated in a massive exercise to assert their
national priorities and political choices. But in
the May exercise, where did the concern for the
environment — the very resource base which
determines both our daily survival and our future
economic growth — stand?
That the environment is badly threatened in
India cannot be a matter of doubt. During the
1980s. the country's environmental community
emphasised the threat to the rural environment
— from deforestation to land degradation — and
demanded ameliorative action. Urban environ­
mental problems were then thought to be rela­
tively less important but with economic growth
over the years, which accelerated under former
Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao’s new policy
of economic liberalisation, they too have become
stark. Even India's metropolises, which attract
large financial investments compared to the rest
of the urban sector, are reeling under an extraor­

dinary’ scale of pollution and resource misman­
agement. The environmental problems of smaller
towns and cities are not even part of the dis­
course within the environmental community.
There can also be no doubt that India, a
country with enormous poverty and unemploy­
ment, cannot do without economic develop­
ment. But in this tension between environment
and development, essentially a tension between
bread and jobs in the short-term and hunger and
poisons in the long-term, will India simply refuse
to forsake the long-term and go ahead with
short-term development without any care for
maintaining the ecological balance? This is what
I call the challenge of the balance.
In some ways, after 50 years of post­
Independence economic development, the long­
term is already here. Resource degradation and
pollution in many parts of India have already
reached crisis proportions and, in comparative
terms, exhibit levels that are amongst the worst
in the world.
To assess how the country's political panics
are trying to face this challenge of organising
development while maintaining the ecological

I hope the new
government will

take us into the
21st century in a
way that we

can meet its
extraordinary
challenges. But it is

definite that India

cannot meet the
challenges of the

21st century with
1 9th century

institutions and legal

frameworks —
maybe 1 5th
balance, a team of researchers from the Centre
for Science and Environment travelled across
the country' during late 1995 and early 1996 to
document how the four major political parties
of India — Congress-I, Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP). Janata Dal (JD) and the Communist Party
of India-Marxist (CPM) — were responding to
the environment concern. The first part of this
assessment was an analysis of the manifestoes
of these parties. The second part was an analy­
sis of the actual actions of each of these parties
when they formed governments. In.the case of
those parties like the BJP and CPM which have
not formed or participated in national govern­
ments. the researchers visited the states where
they rule to assess their actions as politicians in
power.
In this massive exercise which took months,
numerous senior politicians including Union
ministers and chief ministers were interviewed
along with lower levels of the political cadres of
different political parties and local environmen­
tal activists and analysts. The study was pub­

lished in our fortnightly magazine Down to Earth
just as people were going to the polls.
The study clearly shows that environmental
issues began to find a place in the manifestoes of
almost all the important political parties since the
1980s. with different parties taking slightly differ­
ent positions. Janata Dal has generally embraced
a more radical position which emphasises the
importance of maintaining a healthy natural
resource base for the survival and growth of the
poor. The Congress-1, on the other hand, has had
a somewhat more conservationist emphasis in its
manifestoes. CPM. the party of the poor, has
shown the least interest in environment. B[P. on
the other hand, has indulged in green rhetoric on
several occasions.
But beyond the different shades of the
rhetoric, our study shows that there is not much
to be happy about. The political action of almost
all parties has been generally counter to the
requirements of the environmental balance.
There is a big gulf between political rhetoric
and real action and it runs counter to the

century institutions

have something to
teach us. The civil

society has to play a

vital role in nudging

the government

towards this
challenge

commitments macle in the manifesto of almost
ever}' party. Once in power, politicians of all
shape, form and colour emphasise the impor­
tance of development and tend to dismiss
environmental concern. They forget that it is
environment that has so far been neglected and
no balance between environment and develop­
ment can be achieved unless environment gets
emphasised in ail economic developmental activ­
ities. But to my mind, the key question that environmentally-conscious citizens have to ask them­
selves is: what actions must the civil society lake
to address this problem?
It is obvious that environmental issues are
not yet electoral issues on which people vote
and thus determine the electoral fortunes of
political parties. The rural poor are most affected
by the degradation of the resource base but they
are, unfortunately, not a politically organised
force. Even the communist and socialist parties
tend to underplay the interests of this group. As
air and water pollution become more and more
severe and toxic waste production grows and
multiplies, they will impinge on the health of the
urban middle class, which is indeed a group that
is very organised and vocal, but will assert its
priorities only if there is sufficient awareness of
the health impacts of pollution. This will call for,
first, a lot of medical research and then for that
information to be made widely available. But. as
of the moment, this awareness does not exist and
as a result most politicians do not believe that
either their rural or their urban constituencies
care about the environment. Therefore, they are
rarely prepared to go beyond the confines of
shallow rhetoric.
Or, as the campaign against the Narmada
dam in Gujarat reveals, where a small con­
stituency does show that it cares for its habitat,
politicians force through development projects

by pitting the development interests of a large
constituency against the environmental interests
of a minority. At least at the national level,
the dam-affected tribals of Gujarat could have
generated considerable political pressure on the
Central and state governments if the country’s
entire tribal political leadership would have
protested against the dam. But these leaders who
are torn between environment and development
have not been able to clarify in their own minds
and assert to the rest of the society where the
balance lies between the two.
It is almost certain that none of the above
will change with the forthcoming election. But
under the combined impact of population
growth, urbanisation and enhanced economic
activity, the environment will continue to deteri­
orate at an accelerated pace. This poses a serious
challenge to those citizens and groups in the civil
society who care for the environment. In fact, it
poses their biggest and most critical challenge,
more than all their fights against specific devel­
opment projects. It is vital that they gel together
and find a strategy to green the electoral process
or develop a strategy that can effectively force
any government that comes to power — at the
Centre or in the states — to undertake good envi­
ronmental governance. Within the environmental
community in India, the credibility of almost all
political parties to implement green measures is
rock bottom. But neither cynicism nor piecemeal
efforts will help to green the political system. If a
coherent strategy can be developed to green the
electoral process or to enforce good environ­
mental governance and combined action under­
taken, then at least the next elections may turn
out to be more fruitful from a green perspective
than this one and the Indian political system
would enter the next millennium with a better
mandate.

What will constitute better environmental gover­
nance? Among the obvious issues are:
ACCOUNTABILITY OF GOVERNMENT INSTITUTIONS:

The major challenges here are: what does the
civil society do to make these institutions more
accountable? And, what governmental proce­
dures and actions does the civil society insist
upon that would internally make state institu­
tions more accountable? In other words, for
some time, groups in civil society probably need
to focus not |ust on the substantive issues like air
and water pollution but also on institutional
issues like what are the reasons for the pollution
control boards to be so ineffective?
Transparency:

Transparency and accountability tend to go
together. Bureaucracies would hate to do this but
why can’t each one of them be forced to produce
a self-assessment report in terms of the status of
the problem they are trying to manage, what are
their goals, what did they achieve or not achieve
during the year and what were the obstacles in
their work? I don't know of any bureaucracy
across the world that does such a thing but it
would probably be a great innovation for state
bureaucratic systems to produce an annual pub­
lic document of this kind.
They definitely must be asked to produce a
report on the state of the natural resource they
are trying to manage — air, water, forests, etc,
whatever, so that groups in the civil society can
assess for themselves whether the country is
making progress or not. Many environment
ministries across the world produce an annual
environment status report in which latest data is
provided by the government on the state of the
environment to the public. Many governments,
unlike ours, make environmental impact assess­
ments of major protects available to the public.
Public participation:

How much decision-making should be left to
bureaucracies? Bureaucrats have their own per­
sonal agendas and to a great extent subserve
political agendas. If a balance between environ­
ment and development has to be achieved, then
people’s participation has to be brought about.
But what procedures are necessary to ensure that
this happens more and more in decision-making
systems of the government? In fact, the biggest
change in environmental governance has come
about because the courts have become more
open to public participation in questioning
projects, policies and procedures. This has been
the most redeeming feature of the 1990s. But
what is needed to ensure increasing public
participation in decision-making within the
executive system?
Decentralisation and institutional
DEVELOPMENT:

This is an issue that environmental NGOs have
repeatedly raised. But very little has happened

in this area. It is true that panchayati raj institu­
tions arc slowly being created and strengthened
in rural areas. But the constitutional amendment
to revive and strengthen city governments has
just not gone anywhere. India today faces an
institutional crisis. Over the last 20 years we have
totally moved away from our roots and traditions
and centralised natural resource management
under state bureaucracies, which are totally inca­
pable of managing, for example, the 500,000
tanks that exist across the country in a cost-effec­
tive manner and they are not even interested in
doing so. It is obvious that if there is nobody to
look after these resources or have disinterested
caretakers, these will deteriorate. And yet India
was once a country with a million institutions.
Ever)' eri (tank) in Tamil Nadu had a people’s
institution to look after them. That is why even
today in Ramanathapuram district, they stretch
across the landscape in Indian space satellite
pictures. But who is there other than centralised
bureaucracies to look after each of our tanks.
each of our rivers, each of our forests, each of
our national parks, each of our village eco­
systems, and each of our urban atmospheres? It is
the resolution of this institutional crisis that will
most help us to bring about the balance between
environment and development
None of the above will happen without ideas
and constant pressure to learn and change. I
hope the new government will take us into the
21st century in a way that we can meet its extra­
ordinary challenges. But it is definite that India
cannot meet the challenges of the 21st century
with 19th century' institutions and legal frame­
works — maybe 15th century institutions have
something to teach us. The civil society’ has to
play a vital role in nudging the government
towards this challenge.
It is said that the British invented bureaucra­
cy. Indians have definitely perfected it and per­
severed with it endlessly. Lets hope we change
that soon.

The political action
of almost all parties
has been generally

counter to the

requirements of the
environmental
balance. There is a

big gulf between

political rhetoric and
real action and it

runs counter to the
commitments made

in the manifesto of

almost every party

OVERVIEW

I
A campaign called change

The environmental
crisis is immense

and growing.
Hence, it became
imperative for the

Centre to find new

ways of bringing
about change.
Experience has

reinforced its

convictions that
detailed research is
the key to change

8

The challenges facing an institution compel it to
constantly innovate and change. Over the years.
with ever)’ new challenge, the Centre for Science
and Environment (CSE) has also been evolving
Every time we think, we have established a
programme and found a way to be more
effective. It is time to move on. The environ­
mental crisis is immense and growing. Therefore,
it becomes imperative to find new ways of
bringing about change.
A few years ago, we felt the need to effec­
tively communicate our ideas on environment.
We wanted to continue our research on environ­
mental issues, but we also wanted a medium
through which our research could reach out to
people across the country and the world. We,
therefore, worked with the Society for Environ­
mental Communications, to launch a fortnightly
newsmagazine, Down To Earth. Into its fifth year
of publication, since March 1996, the magazine is
now on the newsstands across the country,
thereby, reaching beyond the community of the
environmentally conscious. In addition, a weekly
feature service, sent to newspapers across the
country, has also been established. This feature
service has been widely accepted and with all
mainstream newspapers giving coverage to our
research, CSE has found an effective way to
spread environmental awareness.
In 1995, we set ourselves the aim of streng­
thening our research and advocacy capabilities.
We found that writing and researching for a
periodical helped us to organise our research
into a timeframe. Research, by its very nature, is
a timeless activity. Our past experience — in fact,
a key reason why we moved towards writing for
a regular periodical — was that research had no
deadline. The best of schedules could be modi­
fied as there was always something more that
needed to be done, and most reports remained
as manuscripts and drafts. Therefore, we wanted
to organise work which was driven by indivi­
duals and by necessity, and was organised in a
way that the product was determined and the
output assured.
With this achieved, the challenge was to
move towards more detailed research and to get
involved in campaigns. We, therefore, decided to
work towards policy research, on the one hand,
and specific campaigns, on the other. This would
build a team of specialist writers and analysts
who would be rigorous in their understanding of
the subject. Also, this would enable researchers
to undertake specific campaigns to push for
change and their research would find an
outreach through publications of the Centre.

Communication and research would become a
tool for change. Over the years, CSE has been
actively involved in both research and advocacy.
But its work, though effective, has been ad hoc.
Therefore, instead of writers focussing only on
environmental news stories, we planned to
strengthen and increase the number of teams
which would undertake national and inter­
national campaigns, policy studies and indepth
investigations.
In 1995, the Centre's work on research and
campaigns has grown. We have established a
new unit called the Environmental Research and
Advocacy Cell to organise research and cam­
paigns. The Cell for Global Environmental
Governance continues to research and advocate
changes on international issues. The element
which is fundamental to each campaign — and
indeed its most powerful underpinning — is the
need for change in the governance of natural
resources. People have to be involved, in terms
of their control in the management of our envi­
ronment, and not by mere participation. The bat­
tle before us is long and tough. At a recent press
conference in Delhi, in which the Centre pre­
sented its stand on the management of protected
areas for local communities and lambasted the
current strategy for wildlife management, jour­
nalists agreed with CSE's contention but added
that changing the bureaucracy would take a
longer time. The Centre believes, though the
timeframe is long and the struggle difficult,
change is imperative.
CSE now has researchers and campaigners
working on global governance issues like climate
change, biodiversity, ozone depletion and the
Montreal Protocol, and trade and environment
issues. On the national front, its researchers work
on forests, protected area management and now,
the question of water and policies on it.
When the Ministry of Environment and
Forests announced its policy to give 2.5 million
hectares of so-called degraded forest land to the
industry for afforestation, it did not surprise us.
For the last 10 years, every minister and official
keen on the work of planting trees has had
visions of transforming vast barren lands by
“corporatising the control of forests". It is the
best, quick-fix solution being aggressively
pushed by the paper and pulp industry and so
far, it had been turned down because of wide­
spread criticism. This time, however, the pro­
posal had gone very far and an industryfavourable decision was expected.
The issue of handing over land to the indus­
try has gripped our attention many times in the

past We have worked to lobby against it at the
government level, published articles about it and
even gone to court. But this time, the most excit­
ing, and to our minds, the most important contri­
bution CSE made was die effort it had put in to
do research work on the issue. We knew that the
industry was crying hoarse about the shortage of
raw material, but we also knew through our
investigations how, on the one hand, the indus­
try had sabotaged the efforts of farmers to grow
trees because it was not prepared to pay the
price, and on the other hand, the industry —
faced with the crisis — had found innovative
ways of involving farmers in planting its raw
material. CSE researchers travelled to remote
areas across the country to discover the trials and
tribulations of the Indian paper industry in its bid
to grow trees. There was no doubt that industry
was finding new approaches to involve local
communities to grow its limber. But it was also
clear that this was a difficult route. A far easier
and cheaper solution would be to get huge
amounts of land at a fabulous subsidy and then
to use public funds to grow trees in captivity. In
the subsequent campaign on this issue, the effort
was vital to stall the move.
The campaign reinforced our convictions
that detailed research was the key to change. We
also undertook indepth studies to understand
the problem of vehicular air pollution in our
cities. The study has been an eye-opener, even
for environmental veterans like us. The problem
is horrific and no amount of 'checking-the-backside-of-our-cars' approach of the government is
going to improve the situation. The most fright­
ening fact is that there is very little information
available on the health impact of all the poisons
we are inhaling. This is perhaps the reason why
nobody takes the issue seriously We hope to
sustain our work in this area in the coming year.
We also undertook an interesting study on
agencies involved with industrial investment in
India and the private share market. We were
keen to understand the current practices of these
agencies with respect to environment, and the
measures they could possibly take. To help us
make inroads into these financial institutions.
Raja Chelliah, senior adviser to the finance min­
ister, wrote introductory letters to chairpersons of
all state industrial investment companies. This
access was tremendously helpful and interviews
revealed that while investment firms provided
more money to private companies than the share
market, these state-run companies hardly invest
on the basis of the environmental performance
of the companies. The Centre is considering
ways of bringing change, including a green
rating system, which would put industries under
public scrutiny.
In the year ahead, we plan to extend our
work on research and advocacy further. We
would also like to strengthen our outreach by
moving into films and television. We hope this
strategy will help us make a difference to the
environmental crisis which involves us all.

9

PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS

Global environmental governance

Equity in a world of opinion
Hectic activities in terms of seminars, workshops.
meetings and conventions marked the year for
the Cell for Global Environmental Governance of
CSE. These activities included policy research on
the emerging dimension of global environmental
governance and organising research and cam­
paigns to push the case of equity and fairness in
international environmental treaties by making
links with Northern and Southern NGOs and
other groups in civil society.
The Cell tries to maintain up-to-date infor­
mation on global environmental issues by moni­
toring ongoing debates, negotiations and activi­
ties; informs Indian, Southern and Northern
NGOs by disseminating repons and position
papers; undertakes advocacy by strategically
feeding back responses from our constituency to
the relevant international institutions; and devel­
ops database of individuals and institutions relat­
ed to issues of global environmental governance

CLIMATE CHANGE
Fight for a cool world
At the first Conference of the Parties to the
Framework Convention on Climate Change, held

in Berlin in March 1995, participants recognised
that the present commitments to reduce green­
house gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2000 AD,
are inadequate to meet the threat of climate
change, and sought to negotiate a further legal
agreement with the goal of setting "quantified
limitation and reduction objectives" for deve­
loped countries.
A striking feature at the political level was
the general resistance by the US, Canada,
Australia, and the oil exporting countries, to dis­
cuss the issue of targets and time-tables as advo­
cated by developing countries and supported by
the European Union. On the other hand, there
was a concerted attempt by the industralised
countries to place the issue of developing coun­
tries' commitments and future emission levels at
the centre of the public agenda. Environmentalist
groups like the Greenpeace International and the
Climate Action Network, of which the CSE is an
active member, were not satisfied with the out­
come as they strongly advocated a 20 per cent
cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2005 AD —
a proposal made by the Association of Small
Island States (AOSIS) at the February 1995 meet­
ing in New York. Besides the issue of adequacy
of commitments, negotiators at the Berlin

Climate Modelling
In an effort to assess the scientific endeavour
relating to global climate change in South Asian
region, CSE organised a South Asian regional
workshop on science and climate change in
November 1995The workshop served as a forum where
scientists, government officials, journalists and
NGO representatives discussed issues as varied
as international climate programmes, climate
modelling, agriculture and food security, sea­
level rise, problems of methodologies and inven­
tories. The workshop helped the participants to
gain knowledge of the scope for capacity-build­
ing and managing the interface between
research and public policy in the context of
climate change.
According to a CSE working paper on the
science of global warming and climate change,
the impact offuture climate change may be felt
more severely in developing countries of South
Asia, whose economies are largely dependent
on agriculture, and are already underpressure
due to population increase and associated
demands for energy, fresh water andfood.
Presentations and discussions centred

10

around the necessity ofgathering reliable mete­
orological data (rainfall and temperature vari­
ations over time and space), preparation of
inventories or databases of greenhouse gases
(GHG) from various sources and their effect on
temperature, and running regional climate
models that have been designed keeping in
mind the climate requirements of the region so
that they can realistically predict climate
change and its associated effects, such as sea­
level rise. It was felt that in the field of climate
modelling and GHG inventories, the region had
a long way to go.
Scientists agreed that climate modelling in
the South Asian region is handicapped by
the lack of computing power to make long­
term projections. Experts attending the work­
shop agreed that research in climate change
at the national or regional level should be initi­
ated within the framework of a coordinated
South Asian climate programme. Lack of
communication between climate researchers
working in the South Asian region and those in
the West, is a major lacuna that needs to be
corrected.

Queries on climate chance
Concerned over the problem of climate change, Members of
Parliament took up the issue in Parliament. The MPs (Umareddy
Venkateshwarlu, Lal Jan Basha and Sanai Kumar Mandat) raised
questions on the findings of N II Ravindranath of the Indian
Institute of Science, Bangalore, presented at the CSE workshop.
Forests are generally considered significant emitters of carbon, but
they also absorb a lot of carbon dioxide. Experts were of the opinion
that the emissions were in excess of the uptake, but a study by
Ravindranath and bis colleagues revealed that in India, the emis­
sions are almost equal to the uptake.
Surendra Lal Pathak, MP, asked the then Minister of
Environment and Forests, Rajesh Pilot, to state if the government has
conducted any study regarding climatic change in the South Asian
region and whether it has formulated an action plan to meet any
contingency resulting from climatic change. The MPs also sought an
explanation on the Indo-German research on climate modelling and
on the concept of environmental rent putforward by India, whereby
industrialised countries will have to pay developing countries for
excess emissions. Ibis was strongly advocated by CSE.
In the wake of the CSE-organised workshop, the Environment
Ministry requested it to provide pertinent information available on
the subject.
Climate Summit were faced with the task of
deciding criteria for Joint Implementation Major
developing countries such as India and China
made a volte-face by agreeing to participate vol­
untarily in a pilot phase of Joint Implementation
for "activities to be implemented jointly". While
the project would help to lower global green­
house gas emissions, the investing country'
would not be able to claim any credit for
reduced emissions during the pilot phase.
CSE, which has been pushing for equity on
the world stage, participated as an NGO observer
at the Berlin Summit and expressed its concern
to the Indian government and the people at
opening the door to the principle of Joint
Implementation. The Centre is of the view that a
potential bargaining tool for India to challenge
the inequitable sharing of global common
natural resources, like the atmosphere and the
oceans, is slipping out of its hand.
In Berlin, Ravi Shanna of CSE advocated the
need to place the issue of equity at the centre of
climate negotiations. CSE lobbied Indian officials
and advocated an aggressive support for AOSIS
proposal arguing that global climate change
would not just affect island nations, but India
and China as well because they have extensive
coastal areas and islands where several millions

live.
Finally, India's then Environment Minister,
Kamal Nath, announced the country’s support
for AOSIS proposal, closing the ranks between
developing countries, except a few oil producing
nations.
CSE, along with the Indian Social Institute
(ISO. facilitated a training programme on global
warming in February 1996, with the aim to
impart knowledge on the subject of global
warming and climate change and also to bring
different social sectors into the climate change

debate. The programme was attended by NGO
representatives from Jammu and Kashmir,
Punjab, Gujarat, and Orissa. At the workshop,
CSE presented a -iO-page working paper on the
science of climate change.

The Centre is of the

-'-rr

bargaining tool for

-

-

Divided stand
CSE was invited by the Asian NGOs to represent
them at the Global Environment Facility (GEF)
Council meeting, held in July 1995. Prior to the
Council meeting, CSE had prepared a detailed
response to the GEF paper on its plan to imple­
ment its mandate on climate change, biodiversi­
ty', conservation, international waters anil ozone
layer CSE had distributed this paper to the
NGOs involved in GEF work, and also presented
it at the NGO consultation prior to the Council
meeting, where it was nominated as the
spokesperson on climate change issues. The
Centre made a formal presentation at the GEF
Council and was supported by a couple of gov­
ernments, including the Indian government.
This was followed by a letter to several South
Asian NGOs. highlighting the Council's discus­
sions and the position taken by CSE. GEF has
been provided $2 billion for a period of three
years to fund projects in the developing coun­
tries on the above four issues. Three of the four
issues have a legal international agreement (.con­
vention) signed by most of the countries and CSE
has been working on these agreements.
The Centre stated its position saying
that GEF's Operational Strategy paper actually
goes against the spirit of the convention, which
places the liability of improving global environ­
ment squarely on the industrialised countries.
Instead, it pushes the developing countries to

view that a potential

India to challenge

the inequitable
sharing of global

common natural

resources, like the
atmosphere and the

oceans, is slipping
out of its hand

11

subsidise the North’s responsibility.
The GEF paper mentions that funding will be
based on the projects' contribution to the global
environment, after subtracting the benefits
accrued to the host country’s environment. This
concept is not consistent with the Convention on
Biodiversity (CBD), especially the financial
mechanism. Indeed, the CBD states that funding
under this mechanism should help developing
countries implement measures fulfilling its oblig­
ations and to benefit from its provisions.
The issue is further complicated by the intro­
duction of the concepts of global importance,
particularly when referring to protected areas.
Indeed, the conservation of areas that are not of
"global importance” can still generate global ben­
efits, thereby meeting GEF's requirements.
GEF has even brought in projects to increase
the sink for greenhouse gases (GHGs) by includ­
ing carbon sequestration projects in the seven
priority programmes, although they are not
in the category of mitigation measures, GEF’s
main activity in climate change. The clause
that claims that such projects will not hann the
soil is a marginal issue; the real concern is that
such projects consistently undervalue our
resources.
Above all, GEF Operational Strategy has
fixed a ceiling of US S3.30 per tonne of carbon as
the maximum unit abatement cost (incremental
cost per unit of GHG sequestered or not emitted)
to start tire funding. It is arbitrary compared to,

for example, the European Commission’s recom­
mendation of a carbon tax of US $5 per barrel of
oil equivalent (approximately US S 14.5 per tonne
of carbon dioxide).
In search for equity, it should be possible to
examine this arbitrary figure by studying the car­
bon budget of a rural and an urban community
It would also be advisable, as a long-term policy
measure, to look for alternative ways of incorpo­
rating natural resource accounting into the
national accounting system.
The GEF strategy is biased in its approach. It
assumes that fossil fuel technology is a stop-gap
arrangement and not part of a sustainable energy
future for developing countries.
The attempt to phase out fossil fuels has to
come from the industrialised countries, but GEF
is bent upon starting with developing countries.
It refuses to fund advanced Clean Fossil Fuel
Technology: the only innovative aspect of GEF's
climate change projects is the first-time applica­
tion of promising technologies and the attempt
at commercial application of previously nonviable technologies in the capital-intensive ener­
gy sector.
The main area where developing countries
would require latest technology is energy effi­
ciency; GEF’s weak strategy stresses difficult con­
ditions like application of energy conservation
techniques that are uneconomic and projects
which can be replicated. This is a distortion of
the priorities of developing countries

FORESTS
Contentious as usual
The issue of who will and how the world's
forests will be governed is hotting up again. The
Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD)
has set up the Ad Hoc Intergovernmental Panel
on Forests (IPF) to recommend what should be
done by the global community to better manage
the world s forests. At the Earth Summit (1992) in
Rio, CSE had successfully opposed the proposal
for a global forestry convention.

NCO PLAZA

The idea behind the International NGO Forum meet in November 1995, was to provide contin­
ued NGO space for increased cooperation, also called the ‘NGO Plaza '. The agenda to identify
areas where Joint action is possible was seconded by CSE as it believes that NGO networks can
be very effective, specially if they cooperate and work together toicards the broad goals of sus­
tainable development.
The forum will be assisted by an interim/internationalfacilitating group, comprising three
to five members each front Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America and the
Caribbean. Ravi Sharma of CSE is one of the representatives for the Asian region. He is also a
member of the international facilitating group, which will be entrusted the task of identifying
resource needs of the forum.
Areas were identified around which information systems are being developed. It was also
recognised that various NGO networks have a lot of experiences, resources, etc, which could be
shared. Five task groups were also formed to steer certain types of capacity-building exercises.
The participants proposed the creation of a thinktank which would give direction to the NGO

network globally.

Despite the temporary victory at Rio, the
battle was still to begin. In March 1995, CSE was
invited by the Director General of the UN Food
and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to a special
meeting of NGOs on forests and forest people.
This meeting preceded the first meeting even of
forest ministers convened by FAO. Not surpris­
ingly, the unsaid agenda was to give FAO a
leadership role in global forest management.
Worse still, FAO was reviving the idea of a
forest convention A draft statement of the forest
ministers was prepared even before their
arrival, and embarrassingly leaked out to the
NGOs. It said that the ministers resolved to
work on the "need, or otherwise, to proceed
towards a legally binding instrument on
forests.”
The recommendations of this meeting
would go to CSD and could well have been
accepted After massive lobbying, FAO backed
out and the statement w'as watered down. CSD
then decided to set up the Ad Hoc IPF. At the
first meeting of IPF, the Swiss and Peruvian
governments teamed up to set up an expert
group to review the existing institutions and
instruments on forests. The group consisted of
government representatives from North
America, Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia
and three NGO representatives — two from the
South and one from the North. CSE’s deputy
director, Sunita Naratn, was one of the repre­
sentatives elected from the South through a
worldwide election process.
Clearly, in this age of aid cuts, each multi­
lateral agency is desperate for survival, and
wants to bag the mandate to protect and manage
Southern forests.
The main issue, to our mind, which needs to
be resolved is not which institution but what
work does it do. Forests are local resources, best
managed by local communities. Therefore, what
will be the role of supranational governance in
forests? This is a chance to redefine the role of
multilateral organisations in a crucial area of
forests.
Another parallel issue is also gaining
momentum — the development of a set of
criteria and indicators (C<S:I) for sustainable
management of forests. The idea is to use the
C&I for labelling which woods are eco-friendly
and vice-versa. There are reasons for serious
concern. Firstly, the single-most important
criterion and indicator for sustainable forest
management has to be the direct control of
local people in forest management. A study of
the current C&I shows that in most cases
people are not even mentioned, and if they are,
then at best their participation is sought, not
guaranteed.
Besides, since forests are local resources,
the C&I have to be first developed by local
communities and then harmonised into global
standards. The extraordinary diversity of forest
types and use by the forest people, and in par­
ticular, the diversity of life, styles, cannot be

coded into a national or global C&I. This can
only be done for the single-use, humanmade,
monoculture forests of the North, which till today
control over 80 per cent of the trade in forest
products.
It is our strong belief that the C&I process is
controlled by the pulp and timber lobby of the
temperate North. The real worry for the South
lies in this process becoming the logical input
into a legal framework, which then governs its
adherence. The forest convention then would
not be far away.

The single-most
important criterion
and indicator for

sustainable forest
management has to

BIODIVERSITY

be the direct control

Sharing benefits

of local people in

The new year heralds new challenges for nations
that are party to the Convention on Biological
Diversity, especially since last year witnessed the
Second Conference of Parties (COP2). which
marked the beginning of the implementation
stage of the Convention. It is time for the NGOs
active in this field to play a different role in iden­
tifying the relevant issues, and bringing them to a
flash point.
The Centre focussed its attention on the
issue of equitable benefit-sharing to stress the
overwhelming need of setting up a viable mech­
anism that will monitor the outflow of genetic
resources from the South. The Centre is
convinced that the South should concentrate on
garnering support from the world community
on what concerns its people most — setting a
price for its natural resources, so that they are
not available free for research institutes or multi­
nationals in the North. It feels that while rights of
the indigenous communities were deliberated
upon at considerable length during the Jakarta
forum, there has been no significant headway
towards adopting concrete measures to mete out
justice to the people.
CSE, in an attempt to take the issue beyond
interminable and apparently fruitless sessions

forest management.

A study shows that
in most cases

people are not even
mentioned, and if
they are, then

at best their
participation is

sought, not
guaranteed

13

The Centre focussed

its ottention on the
issue of equitable
benefit-sharing,

to stress the
overwhelming need

of setting up a
viable mechanism

that will monitor
the outflow of
genetic resources

from the South

of debates and dialogues, has organised an
international workshop on benefit-sharing with
indigenous people. A special advisory com­
mittee has been set up, comprising key persons
like Anil K Gupta of the Indian Institute of
Management, Madhav Gadgil of the Centre for
Ecological Studies, who is also the Indian
representative at the Subsidiary Body of
Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice,
Darshan Shankar of Foundation of Revita­
lisation of Local Health Traditions, R I Daniels
of M S Swaminathan Research Foundation and
P Pushpangadan of Tropical Botanical Garden
and Research Institute. The Centre proposes to
approach the governments and policy-makers
at the national and international level, urging
them to set guidelines which will help the
local communities to reap profits from what is
rightfully theirs.
CSE has also taken a few other significant
steps in this field It was one of the prime
movers in the process of setting up the
International Liaison Group on the Biodiversity
Convention (1LG), a networking system com­
prising nine interim regional liaisons including
NGOs from developing and developed coun­
tries. The main endeavour of this group is to
disseminate information and to maintain a
steady flow of communication amongst organ­
isations working in the same field. It comes up
with regular circulars that provide NGOs with
relevant information required to prepare
themselves for COPs and other meetings
related to the Convention. Besides this, the
Centre is also co-sponsoring the Biodiversity
Bulletin, a publication which seeks to provide
a platform to express divergent viewpoints,
and recommendations on future action to
promote conservation of biodiversity. CSE
hopes to voice its ideas on the benefit-sharing
issue through this forum and identify its allies
across the world.

Priceless neem
Neem, azadirachta indica, and the products
derived from it have traditionally been
widely used for centuries, especially in
India, for medicinal purposes and pest-control. Recognising its vast potential, Western
science and industry has embarked on a
flurry of patenting neem's much-valued
derivatives — 36 new patents in 10 years —
while India, the plant's native land, has
been reduced to playing the role of a back­
bencher.
In an increasingly inter-dependent
world where we all benefit from the knowl­
edge of others, it would probably be unfair
as well as impossible to outlaw any foreign
interest in our inherited knowledge. But it
would be extremely fair and legitimate to
demand that if this interest results in a mar­
ketable product, a definite share in the roy­
alties and other forms of income that
emerge from the marketing of the product
should accrue to India.
If India prohibits exports or charges
higher prices, competing nations will begin
producing the required raw materials.
.Moreover, tissue culture techniques could
be used to produce natural products in the
laboratory. In November 1992, the Journal
Science reported that the "big agrochemical
companies have been slow to Jump on the
neem bandwagon." The reason? “It's
extremely costly to extract the insecticide
molecule, azadirachtin, from neem seeds,
and no one's been able to take out a broad
patent covering the molecule because its
structure was published way back in the
1970s. What's needed, say business-minded
pest-control experts, is a cheap way of mak­
ing azadirachtin /rX’e compounds that can be

patented."Anti that is exactly what may be
happening in Western laboratories.
Bat who do we blame? The govern­
ment? Indian scientists? The politicians? Or
Just ourselves, members of the educated
middle class who seem to have precious lit­
tle interest and pride in their own roots and
traditions. Partly everyone.
If India wants to enter the global phar­
maceutical and agrochemical market in a
big way, we must learn to innovate and
patent and seize the world market with
new products.
A three-pronged strategy is the need of
the hour. Firstly, the country has to get Its
act together on ensuring that India's tradi­
tional knowledge becomes a legally valid
entity. Everyone who wants to benefit from
it isforced to pay royalties to the communi­
tyfrom which it derives knowledgefor com­
mercial use
the CBD contention that all biodiversi­
ty is national property means nothing in
terms of the knowledge of use of that biodi­
versity and the community's rights to that
knowledge. There is considerable confusion
whether the World Trade Organization
(WTO) agreement, which strengthens the
patents regime worldwide, goes against
community rights on traditional knowl­
edge of uses of biodiversity On theface of it,
there is nothing in the WTO agreement
which would prevent India from develop­
ing a strong patent system that wotdd
respect community rights to the knowledge
about the use of plants.
The real problem in developing a sys­
tem for protecting community knowledge
arises not out of WTO but out of the legal
principles on which pawnt law itselfis built.
There are two problem areas. Firstly, patent
law respects only private inventions; corpo­
rate inventions are respected only because
corporations are accepted as individuals in
patent law through a legal legerdemain.
Community knowledge is therefore, by that
very definition, knowledge in the public
domain. How can that knowledge be
patented under patent laws? All Indians
constitute a community because the know­
ledge of neem is nationwide. Who will
then receive the royalties on behalf of these
communities? These are undoubtedly com­
plex legal issues and only a committed
group of legal scholars, given a clear
charter by the government, can come up
with solutions.
The second pointer that neem patents
specifically raise is: How do we ensure that
the benefits of our traditional knowledge
accrue to India and not to a foreign multi­
national? This brings us to the realm of

research. Simply doing basic and applied
research, as India has done in the past, will
only mean that foreigners will pick it up
and take it through the later stages, which
will allow them to exploit a world market.
India has an immense knowledge about
plants, zls an industrial giant, she must
exploit the full world market by developing
and launching products on her own.
Once there is clarity on this second
issue, there will have to be a third compo­
nent of our national strategy. India's
research programme must go beyond basic
and simple applied research on to industri­
al and product research. This cannot be
done simply by state-owned research labo­
ratories; nor can this be done by Indian pri­
vate companies. A CSE staffer who inter­
viewed managers in Dabur, was told that
they were not interested in developing any
new product because it was too expensive.
The South Korean approach may be
useful and instructive here. Based on it,
industrial and product research on neem
could be declared an area of National
Research Importance and given a specific
budget over the next 10 years amounting
to, say, Rs JOO crore The programme could
then be thrown open to any public or pri­
vate sector scientist to develop a research
project that involves public and private lab­
oratories, or a collaboration of both. While
the scientific and industrial merit of the
proposal would, of course, receive due con­
sideration by the peer review group, whose
deliberations once finalised will always be
open to public scrutiny, the government

coidd try to push the programme towards
industrial participation by giving greater
weightage to those proposals in which
industry is prepared to put a greater per­
centage of research costs.
To raise funds for research on plant
products, a cess can be levied on all prod­
ucts that call themselves ayurvedic or
herbal: the funds can be used to finance this
research and thus reduce direct govern­
ment subsidies, though the programme
should get as much government financial
support as necessary. There is one particu­
lar issue that would have to be taken
account of while developing the above
research strategy. According to several
Indian neem researchers, many products of
neem can be made using very simple pro­
cessing techniques, which would be helpful
to India's poor economy.
India cannot afford to neglect either
approach. If she restricts herself to the
appropriate technology route, then foreign
companies will be left free to sell
azadirachtin, and Indians can at best
demand royalties for their traditional
knowledge. The government could, howev­
er, provide free legal service to researchers
who develop new plant products of this
kind to explore ifpatent possibilities exist. If
they do, the government could become a
joint partner in the patent to ensure that no
Indian individual or company is restricted
from using the knowledge, and to disallow
foreigners from developing such a
product/use without prior benefit-sharing
agreements.

15

TRADE & ENVIRONMENT
Green barrier
The world trading system today faces various
new challenges. The most important is the grow­
ing use of non-tariff barriers, an example of
which is the 'environmental' or 'green' barrier
that confronts the exports of developing coun­
tries. As the North grows more environmentally
conscious, it takes a bad turn for developing
countries. And also, the barrier comes in simul­
taneity with the trimming of the tariff wall, dimin­
ishing the benefits that might be reaped from
these trimmed walls. This, in turn, affects the
markets for primary' and other products that are
exported from developing countries of the South.

Toxic waste:
Recyliimc the problem
The third Conference of Parties to the Basel
Convention on the Control of Transboundary
Movement of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal
adopted a proposal to ban all trade in tvaste from
January 1, 1998. The technical working group will
make efforts during the next two years to evolve spe­
cific criteria relating to recycling and hazardous
wastes. CSE believes that it is important to strike a
balance between environmental and economic
interests when considering issues such as recycling
and trade in wastes. India has a sizeable recycling
industry and in a business with a worldwide
turnover of S90 billion, one cannot ignore the com­
petitive advantage accruing to Indian industry. At
the same time, stringent legislation specific to this
industry needs to be enacted to protect health and
environment. But CSE is not certain whether the
government is capable of stringent regulation
because of tvidespread corruption and lack of trans­
parency in government clearance and monitoring
mechanisms.

CSE is involved in preparing a status report
on trade and environment. It would bring togeth­
er various experts from developing countries to
finalise its formal position and agenda, which
could also be used as an input for a future com­
mittee on trade and environment meetings.
These issues are under the institutional umbrella
of the WTO, specifically the Trade and
Environment Committee. The Centre feels that
people, who live closest to nature, will have the
best ideas and the ability to conserve the envi­
ronment. To make this possible, it is exploring
the role of the grassroots, the system of property
rights and the like.

Time for celebration?
The Montreal Protocol to phase out ozone
depleting substances (ODS) celebrated its 10th
anniversary in December 1995, in Vienna. The

16

Centre's associate director Ravi Sharma, parti­
cipated in the meeting and discussed if it was
indeed time to celebrate.
On the ozone front, the Protocol has sub­
stantially reduced tire amount of chlorofluorocar­
bons (CFCs) released in the atmosphere. But if
one determines who is paying the cost
for this phase-out, the Protocol leaves a lot to be
desired. The Protocol strengthens a global gover­
nance system where the rich and the poor are
being asked to share the costs for solving a global
environmental problem caused by the rich.
In December 1995, more than 100 govern­
ment negotiators decided to phase out CFCs in
developing countries, 14 years from now, in
2010. Currently, since only few equipment in
large developing country markets do not use
CFCs, the consumers have no other alternative.
Though new CFC-free refrigerators manufactured
by foreign companies are using this opportunity
to start marketing the HFC-134a (hydrofluoro­
carbon) based equipment, the cost and life of
this new technology, patented by few multi­
nationals, will be passed on to the consumers.
There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly,
HFC-34a is also going to be phased out under the
climate change treaty, as it has global warming
potential. And secondly, since the possibility of
this shift in technology, prompted by the
Protocol, receiving any significant subsidy from
the shrinking Multilateral Fund seems grim, it will
be high-priced.
In Vienna, no promises were made by indus­
trialised countries to increase the shrinking size
of the Fund, established to assist developing
countries buy alternative technologies to the
existing ozone depleting ones. The US is consi­
dering a cut in its partially paid contribution to
this Fund, making it more difficult for budget­
cutting European governments to continue fund­
ing as well.
India, for example, has seen less than S20
million until now, and is pinning its hopes on
attracting larger sums in the coming years. Even
tire Chinese, the largest recipients, have got less
than $60 million. These figures are far less than
the internationally assessed need of about 2
billion dollars for each of these countries to
phase out the ozone depleting substances.
Therefore, the uncertainty of the Fund's future is
especially unsettling for India and China.
However, if the Fund does not meet the
demands of developing countries, these coun­
tries are legally not liable to meet the agreed
phase-out schedules. Nice words, but unrealistic,
keeping in view the brief history of the Fund.
Firstly, industrialised countries, while reducing
the size of the Fund publicly, never cite shortage
of money as the cause. Instead, they use clever
ways to reject project proposals on the basis of
ever narrowing criteria. One Indian refrigerator
giant has already withdrawn its proposal, after
hearing of the massive cuts made by the Fund’s
executive committee on their demand.
Furthermore, the Fund wants the govern­

ment to pledge on behalf of the industry. The
Fund recently refused money to all Indian
aerosol companies, until the government pledges
that this sector will not increase its use of CFCs in
future. In view of the large number of small-scale
units involved, this is one promise the govern­
ment is afraid to make. In any case, informed
consumers are likely to force changes on the
Indian industry by showing preference for the
latest technology', which happens to be CFC-free.
This will happen for no other reason than to
avoid the uncertainty of the future maintenance
of 'dying' CFC-based technology.

In Vienna, no

promises were

made by

CFC trade among developing nations
Fortunately, developing country CFC producers
were allowed to trade amongst themselves in
CFCs until 2010, giving most of them cheaper
products, and some of them increased profits.
In the wake of a very limited fund established
for developing countries, CSE supported this
move. Earlier, industrialised countries had
united in their efforts to prevent CFC trading
between developing countries, and keep it only
between North and South until 2010 AD. CSE
believed that this was blatant misuse of an
environmental instrument to gain economic
advantage. As far as the ozone layer is con­
cerned, it does not matter whether the CFC is
from a developing country or an industrialised
country, as long as it is legitimately produced
and used.
The Protocol explicitly prohibits the develop­
ing nations, as well as nations not members of
the Protocol, to export CFCs to other developing
countries. This implied that with total protection
and monopoly, Western nations can switch to so
called alternative technologies and at the same
time use their quotas to export and increase
trade.
India and China are rare examples of deve­
loping countries which have indigenous com­
panies producing and consuming CFCs. In
September 1992, a United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) report detailed the enhanced
production capacities of developing country
manufacturers. It was logically expected that
industrialised countries would be told to stop
export oriented production, and let indigenous
manufacturers take over. This would have
enabled them to get the required money to
support their respective country's ODS phase­
out, which will not get the level of funds
demanded from the Multilateral Fund. But the
CFC giants were in no mood to relinquish their
hold, and aside from raising their production
quota from 10 to 15 per cent, they also exert
considerable clout over the ozone fund.

Lessons to be learnt
These negotiations show clearly that promises
made by governments in the North, for paying
the costs to phase out polluting technology in the
developing world, have little validity now.
Firstly, Northern governments facing severe

industrialised
countries to increase
resource crunch due to the demand for 'small
government', are unwilling to tax their polluting
industry to clean the mess caused by them in
developing countries.
Secondly, the issue of technology' transfer is
a farce. The industry in the North, is not even
considering selling its latest technology, forget
doing it on concessional terms. This industry is
only interested in selling its products, in this case
alternative chemicals to CFCs, on which they
hold an oligopoly.
Thirdly, the little money received from the
Multilateral Fund by developing countries is
used to push certain technologies, instead of
assisting developing countries in finding alter­
natives to ozone depleting chemicals. The Fund
supports those technologies defined as mature'
by experts in Washington, who again belong
to the few chemical multinationals in this
business.
Therefore, expectations that environmental
agreements will help in shifting to environ­
mentally benign technology are not true.
Developing countries, especially large ones,
cannot escape from investing in research and
development. For example, two Indian compa­
nies, Godrej and Voltas, with assistance from
the German and Swiss governments, have
invested in pilot plants to test the freely avail­
able technology of propane and cyclopentane
(hydrocarbons) for domestic refrigerators. This
technology which succeeded in Germany, could
be the alternative for the Indian industry to
supply the much demanded refrigerators. And
all this at no cost to the environment, plus at an
affordable price to the consumer, unlike the
patented HFC-lJ-ia.
Ultimately, the governments, realising the
cross-border nature of pollution, should ensure
that the polluter-pays principle be made legally
enforceable internationally to avoid similar
problems in future. Until then, the victims of the
pollution will be forced to share the costs of
preventing pollution, and this is unacceptable by
all standards.

the shrinking size of
the Multilateral

Fund, established to
assist developing

countries buy

alternative
technologies to the
existing ozone

depleting ones. The
US is considering a

cut in its partially
paid contribution to

this Fund, making it

more difficult for
budget-cutting
European

governments to
continue funding

as well

17

PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS

I
Environment research and public policy

Winds of change
In order to can}' on sustained work on environ­
mental research and specific environmental poli­
cies of the government, the Environmental Policy
and Advocacy Cell was formed in mid-1995. In
particular, its task is to bring about policy-level
changes in the government on issues such as
decentralised governance of natural resources
and water management, air and water pollution,
forest management, wildlife conservation and the
like, by networking with various activists in the
field, government, NGOs and representatives of
people's movements.
The Cell is presently engaged in campaign­
ing for changes in the government policies on
wildlife conservation. It has also led a successful
campaign against a proposal of the Ministry of
Environment and Forests (MEF) to give degraded
forest lands to the paper and pulp industry as
captive plantations to grow their raw materials.
The strength of the Cell as well as CSE has been
to undertake comprehensive policy studies to
support each campaign. The research work has
been the cutting edge to change.

CAPTIVE PLANTATIONS
Not the remedy­
in 1995, MEF proposed to give 2.5 million
hectares of degraded forest lands to the paper

and pulp industry as captive plantations to meet
the raw material needs of the industry-. The pro­
posal was opposed by CSE and several other
NGOs and people's organisations for its adverse
social, economic and ecological implications It
was feared that tire move would affect the rural
poor who depend on the degraded forests for
their daily biomass requirements. It would also
act as a disincentive to the small and marginal
farmers to grow trees on their lands, if the indus­
try meets its requirements from captive sources
A team of CSE researchers travelled across
the country- to study the nature of the problem,
validity of the industry’s demand and capability
of the farm forestry sector in meeting the indus­
try’s demand.
With raw- material scarcity growing, the
paper industry found it difficult to meet its wood
fibre needs domestically. The industry- has been
demanding, for nearly two decades, that large
tracts of degraded forest lands be allotted to it to
be used as captive plantations to meet its raw
material needs. After several state governments
began to entertain such requests in the early
1980s, the Central government amended the
Forest Conservation Act of 1980 to exclude such
arrangements and also stated in its Forest Policy
of 1988 that industry should source its raw mate­
rials from farmers.
The 1980s saw numerous developments.
Firstly, the social forestry programme collapsed.
Even the industry did not do anything to save its
successful component of farm forestry-. More­
over, as pulp prices were very cheap at the
international market, the paper industry con­
vinced the government to allow imports of pulp
and timber at reduced customs duties. This
became the major factor in the collapse of farm
forestry.

Innovative attempts
Simultaneously, several companies, recognising
the government's determination and environ­
mentalist opinion not to open up state-owned
forest lands for forest plantations, began to
undertake innovative attempts to reach out to
farmers. One of the most innovative attempts
was made by a West Bengal firm — Titagarh
paper mills — to reach out to poor farmers
owning very poor quality farmlands to grow
eucalyptus as pulpwood species. In the Chotonagpur region, thousands of poor farmers had
received grants of poor lands from the com­
munist state government but it could not support
anv crop on it. These land recipients remained
migrant agricultural labourers. Due to high

population density in the state, the government
too did not have any degraded forest land which,
even if available, was in a worse condition. The
company, therefore, found it an even better
proposition to reach out to poor farmers than
insist on state-owned forest land. Other com­
panies in other parts of India have also made
efforts to encourage farmers to plant trees to
meet the wood needs of the industry.
But the desire to corner state-owned forest
land at zero and concessional costs for captive
industrial plantations had remained high on the
industry’s agenda. With international pulp prices
shooting up in recent years, the industry has
strongly renewed its demand for state-ow'ned
forest lands. This time finding a more attentive
forest minister, the matter reached the Indian
Cabinet in 1995, for a decision to reverse the
country’s forest policy on this matter. Tire forest
minister has since been moved to another port­
folio. It is, therefore, unlikely that the issue will
get raised again until the new government takes
over.
The position that CSE has taken is that the
Indian paper industry must source its raw mate­
rials from the farmers. If the industry' was given
access to cheap state-owned forest lands for cap­
tive plantations, it will destroy the development
of a wood market in India. It argues that if
state-owned degraded lands arc given over for
captive plantations, the poor, depending on
these lands, will be badly affected as they will be
prevented from collecting fuelwood or grazing
their animals in these lands.
The strategy which CSE advocates for the
country’s afforestation is that stale-owned forest
lands should be largely tackled through joint for­

est management so that participatory and com­
munity-determined forest regeneration can take
place on them. Such forests will be ecologically
diverse and will be belter suited to meet the bio­
mass needs of the people. Private farmlands
should be brought under tree plantations direct­
ly with the support of the wood-based industries.
This would restrict monocultures to farmlands.
The industry should try to identify multipurpose
fast-growing species which can be pulped so that
farmers can also meet their fodder needs and
increase their fodder supply in villages. The gov­
ernment should, simultaneously, identify policies
that encourage and make it economically viable
for industry to reach out to poor farmers.
The study concludes that a mix of policies
are needed in India to develop a sustainable
paper industry. On the supply side, India must
make all efforts to develop technologies and pro­
mote non-wood raw material for paper and
paperboard production. This would mean:
• A greater emphasis on paper recycling in a
way that these recycled papers are used for
making paper and paperboard.
• Greater use of bagasse for paper making.
• Greater emphasis on industry through eco­
nomic instruments and regulatory measures
to become more efficient in its use of raw
materials, chemicals, water, energy and to
become pollution-free.
♦ Consistent efforts aimed al producing better
quality paper with the help of alternative raw
materials, including reduction in water pollu­
tion resulting from the use of alternative
materials like rice straw.
• There will be an increasing demand for
wood fibre because it is essential to produce

Proponents and Opponents
What industry says

What environmentalists say

Captive plantations will green the country

Yes, but local people and farmers must be involved in afforestation

Government reforestation
has failed

Yes, but industry's refusal to buy wood at fair prices led to
the failure offarm forestry

Industry has money

Money will comefrom publicfinancial institutions such as
NABARD and multilateral banks like ADB. This money can be
given to farmers instead of industry.

It will afforest wasteland

Firstly, these so-called wastelands have intense users who will
be displaced by industry. Secondly, industry has rejected all such
degraded lands — in the desert, for instance, it wants
better quality land as it needs quick returns.

Farm forestry is unreliable and an
insufficient source to meet industry’s
needs for ra w material

No evidence to support this contention. Stable supply will be
ensured by market mechanisms ofpricing. It may even be cheaper.

People s needs will be met.

Needs will not be met. The only way industry can grow biomass on
these lands is by fencing the poor and their animals out. And
by using force to do so. Rural communities dependent on these
lands will suffer. Poorfarmers will lose their chance ofgrowing
trees on low productive farmlands.

Promotion of bamboo afforestation urged
Anil Agarwal, director, CSE, in a statement to the
members of the National Afforestation and
Ecodevelopment Board, Ministry of Environment
and Forests. New Delhi, strongly recommended
planting of bamboo and cane for afforestation. He
advised the board to encourage a deep study.
Excerpts from his agenda: Research on
Afforestation with Bamboo.

/ have proposed Ibis agenda item for the
consideration of the board because 1 have a
sense that bamboo is not getting adequate
attention in our afforestation programmes. In a
presentation to tbe Union Council of Ministers
in 1986, we bad cited several cases from
Karnataka and Maharashtra showing that tbe
artisans were not getting easy or cheap access to
bamboo while the forest departments were sup­
plying them in bulk and at extremely cheap
rates to tbe paper and pulp mills. This problem
relates not just to these two states but to many
other states too.
I strongly recommend to the board that it

good quality paper.
Industry must be forced to pay the price of
its raw material usage. Therefore, not only must
the state not give it subsidised land for captive
plantations but it must also not give it subsidised
wood from government forests.
On the demand side, there is a need to pay
attention to the following:
Firstly, while cultural paper (for printing and
writing) may be considered a necessity and its
use encouraged, the use of industrial paper can
be considered a luxury and its use discouraged
through appropriate economic instruments.
About half of the paper and paperboard con­
sumption in India is for industrial purposes. But
there are no policies to discourage overuse of
paper and paperboard by industry. This is a sec­
tor that can afford to pay and its use of paper
must, therefore, be taxed to a point that it
becomes an incentive for it to reduce its use as
much as possible.
Secondly, CSE study shows that the growing
use of personal computers is leading to an enor­
mous growth in the use of good quality paper.
Paper use will probably get reduced only when
computers in India get networked and, therefore,
paper is not required as a medium to transmit
information. New technologies to store informa­
tion are needed and die government should pro­
mote them on a high priority basis.
It is clear, however, that India will have to
increase its paper supply and cut on its con­
sumption due to its high levels of poverty —
which will restrict the growth of electronic tech­
nologies, and low levels of literacy — which will
mean that informational and educational
demands will grow as people become more and
more literate. It is hard to predict die future size

make a deep study of what the needs are for
research on bamboo and cane and what kind of
recommendations should be made to the state
governments for promoting bamboo and cane
as a species for afforestation.
Bamboo has three major roles to play in tbe
national economy. One. at tbe household level, it
is a very useful materialfor making houses. . In
the artisanal sector, it is used in making mar­
ketable products and can provide millions of
jobs in tribal areas. In the large commercial sec­
tor, it can be usedfor pulping and for making a
variety ofproducts like bamboo mat boards, etc.
...It is estimated that tbe global bamboo
products market today is of tbe order of US $1015 billion and it is growing rapidly. . . While
China specialises in temperate bamboo, India
can easily specialise in tropical bamboo.
Bamboo gives quicker economic returns
because it is a grass.
It is, therefore, necessary to develop a com­
prehensive policy for tbe promotion of bamboo
afforestation and bamboo products

of the Indian paper industry because it will
depend heavily on the rate of growth in literacy
and social development, on one hand, and
industrial development, on the other. A combi­
nation of both 'supply and demand strategies' are
needed so that industrial use of paper is kept
under control, whereas cultural use of paper is
allowed to grow, and this growing demand is
met in such a way that it provides a big econo­
mic incentive to farmers to undertake massive
afforestation across the country

CSE on the offensive
CSE organised a debate on this issue between the
paper and pulp industry representatives, bureau­
crats, academicians and environmentalists. Public
opinion was mobilised against the move by voic­
ing CSE’s views on the issue in the mainstream
media and national newspapers. The debate was
published in Down to Earth, which was widely
distributed. Letters of appeal against the propos­
al were written to the Prime Minister, Vice
President, ministers and Members of Parliament.
CSE sent a letter to the Prime Minister, Narasimha
Rao, which was signed by agricultural scientists
like M S Swaminathan, economists like C H
Hanumantha Rao and administrators like N C
Saxena. The Centre works closely in this effort
with other NGOs.
CSE campaign team members met die minis­
ters personally to lobby against MEF's proposal.
The response was positive as senior ministers
gave categorical assurance to oppose the pro­
posal. As a result of the lobbying, the proposal
was stalled by the ministry. The Prime Minister
referred the matter to a committee of ministers.
The forest minister did not find much support in
the committee, especially as the general elections

were round the corner and the move would be
seen as anti-poor and anti-tribal.
Currently, CSE is preparing a counter pro­
posal to the ministry’s plan that addresses the
raw material needs of the industry and meets
India's socioecological needs simultaneously.
The counter proposal will include different ways
to achieve successful farm forestry by involving
poor and marginal farmers and the changes
needed in our legislations to make farm forestry
a success.

By the people, for the people
With problems mounting around the issue of
conservation of national parks and sanctuaries,
the present state of India’s wildlife and protect­
ed areas is in jeopardy. In most of the cases the
malady has been identified as the largely unsci­

entific and anti-people approaches adopted in
dealing with the management of these regions.
CSE strongly believes that India needs a more
rational, sustainable and effective conservation
policy which cares for the people’s needs and
rights.
Conservation is a genuine concern. While
trying to evolve an effective system, the govern­
ment must accept that the present policies are
myopic and view the whole wildlife manage­
ment issue very dogmatically. CSE believes in
nurturing a strong concern for poor people who
essentially depend on natural resources for their
survival — people who are always neglected
while conservation processes are planned and
implemented, people who are denied access to
their natural resources as more and more areas
get earmarked for protection.
CSE strongly believes that a balance has to be
reached between the priorities of conservation
and people's needs. To preserve wildlife at the

Minister
Environment and Forests, India
19th February, 1996
Dear Shri Anilji,

I thank you for your letter dated December 6.
1995 regarding wildlife conservation policies. 1
have also noted your concern about the need to
improve the system of wildlife conservation and
management in the country and I am happy
that your organisation is involved in such activ­
ities.
I entirely agree with you that it is only
through people's participation that we can con­
serve our natural forests and protected areas.
Our ecodevelopment initiative aims at address­
ing these very issues. We fundamental objective
of a protected area is its effective conservation.
and one of the ways in which this can be
brought about is through people's participation
through the ecodevelopment programme. I may
mention that the planning of this programme is
highly participatory and transparent and a
large number ofNGOs and people's institutions
are involved in the process. The UP Van
Panchayat Legislation, our Joint Forest
Management Resolutions are functioning with
more than 10,000 forest protection committees
for looking after more than 1.5 million hectare
mha offorest land are examples of alternative
systems of management which have been
successfully undertaken. We Wildlife (Protec­
tion) Act, 1972 also provides for three tribal
members in the constitution of all State Wildlife

believes that a

balance has to be
reached between
the priorities of

conservation and

people's needs.
To preserve wildlife

at the cost of
people's rights is

self-defeating

9ru Kesporjse
Letters were received from Rajesh Pilot, the then
Minister of Environment and Forests and I K
Gujral, Member of Parliament Rajya Sabha in
response to the letters sent to them as a part of the
wildlife campaign.

CSE strongly

Advisory Boards. d separate committee has also
been set up for reviewing the provisions of
Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 to accommodate
the grassroots-based issues.
We have recently set up the institution of
Van Mukhia in each panchayat all over the coun­
try who shall act as a continuing link between
the panchayat, local communities and the forest
department. U'e have also formalised a consul­
tative mechanism providing for quarterly meet­
ings at block and panchayat levels between
foresters and panchayats with a view to assess
the performance of the forest officials and
responsiveness of the community. 4 social audit
panel has also been set up for this Ministry
which would evaluate and assess effectiveness of
various policies and programmes. While I do
agree with you that we need to build on these
experiences and a lot more needs to be done, I
am told that our position is not as bad as it may
look. We have been able to do much better than
many others. For instance, I am told that the
rhino and elephant populations in Africa have
declined to less than one-eighth for rhino and
one-halffor the elephant over the past 20 years,
even though they do not have the kind of human
population density as we have here. In India, the
rhino population is stable and the elephant pop­
ulation is growing. Werefore, we have to devel­
op a model that suits our own socioeconomic
milieu and cultural ethos and in this endeavour,
I wotdd welcome your valuable suggestions.
I thank you for your interest in the subject
and expect that your organisation will continue
to contribute to the conservation of our rich bio­
diversity.
With best wishes.
Yours sincerely,
Rajesh Pilot

21

cost of people's rights is self-defeating. So, the
Centre seeks for reconsideration of the existing
wildlife management strategy on the following
grounds:

Inefficient and ineffective
India today has 521 national parks and sanctuar­
ies, covering 4.3 per cent of our geographical
area. There are ambitious plans to increase the
number to 5 per cent, which is about 15 million
hectare of land. The Eighth Plan had earmarked
Rs 37.63 crore as assistance for the development
of national parks and sanctuaries. Project Tiger
itself has received Rs 7.7 crore in 1994-95.
Despite such huge investment, tiger population
has declined from 4,334 to 3,750 between 1989
and 1993, according to government statistics The
actual situation might be worse. Notwithstanding
the fund spent for tracking poaching (more than
Rs 1 crore spent between 1990-1993), there are
speculations that we might lose the tiger forever
by the turn of the century. And this is within a
time span of 20 years after Project Tiger had won
laurels as one of the biggest success stories in
international conservation programmes.
However, the fact that a Tiger Crisis Cell had
to be created in 1994 is indicative of the govern­
ment's realisation about the impending doom.

CSE believes that

Unscientific approaches
community-based

wildlife
management
strategies — given

strong government
and NGO support
systems — will be

most effective. It
also believes that
any single policy
formulated at the

national level is

bound to run
into serious
implementational
trouble

The existing policies smack mostly of an unsci­
entific temperament. There has been increasing
evidence to show that a wrong premise under­
lies the policy of trying to keep nature reserves
pristine and free from human intervention. In
fact, a large part of the world's so-called virgin
or primary forest areas are ecosystems modified
through centuries of human-nature interac­
tions.
Studies on a Panama lake show that humans
may have influenced rates of forest diversifica­
tion and prevented the dominance of any one
species. In the Bharatpur National Park, the ban
on grazing of cattle inside the reserve, which led
to police firing in 1981, has now' proved to be a
scientifically misguided decision. The Bombay
Natural History Society studies show that cattle
movement had helped to preserve grass and wet­
land ecosystems since ancient times.
Therefore, stringent measures to keep off
human beings from trespassing forest areas can
slowly impoverish wildlife habitats. In fact, by
prohibiting people from using forest resources,
the indigenous knowledge base about species
and their multifarious uses as crop, food, medi­
cines, and rural technologies may simply erode
away.

Life vs wildlife
Traditional communities have always been
dependent on natural resources, including
forests, for their livelihood needs. It is, therefore,
quite natural that they should have rights over
the land they have lived in and resources they
have used for centuries. But the Wildlife

Protection Act of 1972, later modified in 1991,
prohibits all human intervention or settlement in
national parks, and allow's only a very limited
intervention in sanctuaries. While the govern­
ment has taxed the locals to pay for biodiversity
conservation, it does not guarantee any benefit
to the latter from this exercise.
This alienation has spurred a serious back­
lash from local communities, and in places, this
resentment has manifested itself in violation of
the protected areas by the local inhabitants. And
this is true not only in India, but has also been
reported from other parts of the world, especial­
ly the developing world
In Africa, in a sad show of antagonism to
protected areas, there have been rases of poison ing animals and beating up forest guards To cite
a case in Namibia, in 1990, the Ovambo tribals
living on the boundary of the Etosha National
Park, celebrated their freedom by cutting the
game fence and hunting down animals ruthlessly.
Closer home in India, the displaced Jen
Kurumbas and the Betta Kurumbas in the
Nagarhole National Park, burned down approxi­
mately 20 sq km of forest as a protest against
w’ildlife guards who killed a poacher.
At the Manas Tiger Reserve in Assam, the
insurgents have taken advantage of the resent­
ment of the local Bodo tribals, who have lost
their land to the reserve to carry out their activi­
ties. With most guards deserting the area, the
Bodos have been killing wildlife to provide
funds to the insurgents.

Piecemeal solution
In an attempt to reduce human and economic
pressures on protected areas, the government
initiated the ecodevelopment approach. This
approach, however, only has an objective of pro­
viding alternative resources and income generat­
ing activities outside the protected areas. There is
no structural change in the conservation policy
involved and the people are still not recognised
as partners in park management.
In fact, the ecodevelopment indicative plan
stays aw'ay from formulating any plan for people
residing inside the protected areas. The plan
does not comment on the issue of rehabilitation
of the forest people. As this is the basic issue to
tackle before any plan is chalked out, the plan
has a major loophole.
It is unfortunate that India today lags
behind in a world drat is fast realising the plus
points of involving the local communities in the
whole process of biodiversity conservation.
Several experiments in countries of the North
and South have shown that the people, NGOs
and park authorities can successfully share
benefits and responsibilities of biodiversity
conservation.
CSE is of the opinion that under the present
circumstances, the state-managed conservation
policy cannot stay. There is considerable need
for experimentation to develop wildlife manage­
ment strategies suited to the different Indian

cultures and regions, keeping in mind the needs
of wildlife conservation and people's survival
needs. While CSE strongly believes that commu­
nity-based wildlife management strategies —
given strong government and NGO support sys­
tems — will be most effective; it welcomes the
idea of experiments in appropriate institutional
development. It also believes that any single pol­
icy formulated at the national level is bound to
run into serious implementational trouble and
the ultimate cost will be paid by India's wildlife
and biodiversity.
Conservation strategies which assign respon­
sibilities to the people, and specific roles to the
state and environmentalists, would definitely
work belter than state-managed strategies if there
is enough experimentation and scientific imple­
mentation. Institutional flexibility, a marriage of
conservation and development priorities, and
creation of local stakes in biodiversity conserva­
tion, is the only answer. Otherwise, the entire
conservation movement in India will get throttled
in its infancy.

Why the campaign?
The rising conflicts in and around protected
areas show that it is impossible to preserve these
areas without giving the people living around it a
stake in managing and protecting these areas.
Keeping the crisis in mind, CSE has developed
an advocacy strategy:
• Present policies of protected area man­
agement have proved to be ineffective
and inefficient.
• Increasing evidences show that scientific
premise over which these policies have
been built are incorrect.
• The policies have ignored the rights and
needs of local communities that are
dependent on these forests.
• The latest government strategy on ecodevelopment to reduce pressures on pro­
tected areas will not address the root of
the problem.
• The rest of the world has realised that
local people have to be made active and
equal partners in any strategy to manage

CSE RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE GOVERNMENT
•

•

•

•

•

Produce a white paper on the status of wildlife in the country, which also evaluates the current
conservation policies and their effectiveness.
Reassess the Wildlife Act, 1912, and bring in appropriate modifications which would allow
people to he involved in the management of protected areas, as well as create flexibility to
experiment with innovative institutional mechanisms.
Reformulate the committees that deal with wildlife management. The current constitution of
committees, like the Indian Board for Wildlife, the State Wildlife Boards, and the Steering
Committee for Project Tiger, are dominated by elite conservationists andforesters, with virtually
no representation ofpeople who are directly affected by the wildlife policies.
The scope of these committees should be broadened from merely serving as a clearinghouse of
policies, to that of think-tanks, more open and sympathetic to the grassroots concents, and with
broader constituencies.
Create scope for experimentation in the development of institutional alternatives to manage
protected areas, which are built on people’s management and control.

23

biodiversity. Experiments to this effect
are on in Latin America, Africa and rest of
Asia.
The first important task before the Cell was
to get together all relevant and available material
that would give an insight into the status of pro­
tected areas in India at present. Based on the
issues that emerged out of it. a research theme as
well as a campaign strategy would be formed.
A debate was organised in October 1995. to
bring together the people involved in issues
related to protected areas. A press conference
followed the debate. CSE drafted a statement
clearly stating its stand on the issue, which was
released in December 1995 Simultaneously, let­
ters were sent to the Prime Minister, minister for
environment and forests and to Members of
Parliament, asking them to take initiatives on the
issue.

Ecodevelopment project
The Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and the
World Bank are together funding the ecodevelopmenl project in India. The project, designed
to reduce dependency of the people on pro­
tected areas, would cost nearly S70 million, out
of which S28 million is in form of loans from the
World Bank, and S20 million in form of grant
from GEF. In the pilot phase the project will take
up seven protected areas namely, Ranthambhore
(Rajasthan), Bench (Madhya Pradesh), Nagarhole
(Karnataka), Periyar (Kerala), Buxa (West
Bengal), Gir (Gujarat), and Palamau (Bihar).
The approach of ecodevelopment has certain
basic flaws. It hopes to mitigate pressures on
protected areas by giving alternative resources
and income-generating activities to people,
believing that poverty is the single-most impor­
tant reason for people to depend on natural
resources. It does, not recognise the environmen­
tal rights of the people to use their habitats. CSE
believes that the first problem of forest-based
people is not poverty but disempowerment by
wildlife laws and programmes and erosion of
their environmental rights to use their habitat.

CSE has been very critical of this project and
feels that it would collapse because of its inherent
contradictions In a bid to generate a debate on
the project, CSE organised a meeting of NGOs
and representatives of people's movements in
March 1996, and circulated a draft for discussion.
CSE was the NGO focal point for South Asia at
the GEF Council meeting which met at
Washington in Apnl 1996. CSE took the opport­
unity to convey to the NGO participants as well
as the Council members apprehensions regard­
ing the protect in India.

Draft forest bill
In September, the draft rehabilitation policy was
finalised by the NGOs and a few days prior to
that the draft forest bill, too, was given the final
shape. CSE took an active part in the drafting
process, especially of the rehabilitation policy.
The process began in 1994 when the NGOs,
through their contacts, procured a copy of the
draft forest bill prepared by the Ministry of
Environment and Forests. Alarm bells went off at
the anti-people stance of the bill. In retaliation,
the NGOs organised and began drafting a forest
bill. Simultaneously, the group also began draft­
ing a national rehabilitation policy, in response
to the numerous draft rehabilitation policies
prepared by the Ministry of Rural Development,
Central Water Commission, Coal India and the
National Thermal Power Corporation These
policies took displacement for granted and did
not involve the people who were to be displaced
The NGO rehabilitation policy, which was
presented to the secretary, Ministry of Rural
Areas and Employment, demanded a new' land
acquisition act, and a sharp definition of public
purpose, under which land is acquired. Il reiter­
ates that before a project is finalised, all possibil­
ities should be examined and that local people
should be involved in the project's implementa­
tion. CSE stressed that area development plans
should be made with active involvement of the
local people and NGOs in order to avoid multi­
ple displacement.
In view of the fact that economic develop­
ment will bring in many projects which might
displace thousands of people, CSE suggested that
the provisions of the 73rd and 74th Amendment
should be implemented to empow'er local
bodies, including the gram sabbas, to decide
whether they would accept a project which
might displace them. This suggestion found its
way into the rehabilitation policy.
The alternate draft forest bill puts forest
dwellers at the centre of forest management and
begins with the gram sabba and the forest
dwellers' communities as the basis of forest
management.
The process of the draft formulation has
strengthened the NGO movement in the country.
There were several national-level workshops, the
last being held at Anandwan in Chandrapur in
mid-July, which was attended by the NGOs,
forest dwellers, and displaced tribals from all

over the country. Each group discussed the
points to be made in the draft The draft was then
taken back to the states and zones and translated
into local languages and each point was debated
with the local people.
More than 1,500 NGOs and about 20,000
people were involved in the process. Finally,
the Central Drafting Committee, of which CSE is
a member, along with other NGOs, performed
the Herculean task of incorporating these
suggestions together in the form of a draft.

THE ARAL SEA
The curse of the white gold
In September 1995, Anil Agarwal, director, CSE,
had a chance to visit Uzbekistan and the towns
of Nukus and Muynak. What he saw and heard
there shocked him out of his wits. The extent of
this disaster exceeded beyond his comprehen­
sion The scale of the Aral Sea crisis and its
impact on the lives of the people living in the
affected areas was absolutely mind-numbing.
Every nation and society has the right to use
its natural resources to improve its standard of
living and make life a little more easier. The erst­
while Soviet Union decided that Central Asia was
the proper place to grow cotton and meet the
needs of the entire nation. For this, it needed lots
of water to irrigate the cotton fields. The
overzealous Soviet engineers took so much water
out of the two major rivers of the region, the Amu
Darya and the Syr Darya, that there was almost no
flow left in these rivers in their lower reaches. The
people living in the lower reaches were basically
receiving the irrigation drainage from the upper
reaches As cotton farming demands high use of
pesticides and the Soviets over-liberally dosed
their fields with pesticides, the water reaching the
lower reaches was sated with poisons. Since
treated drinking water did not reach everywhere,
people continued to use water from the open
wells and canals for drinking.
International attention was drawn towards
this region due to the rare situation which pre­
vails there. Unlike most rivers which end up in
open seas, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya end
up in an inland sea called the Aral Sea. With so
much water being taken out of the rivers, there
was no water left to feed the sea and it began to
shrink rapidly. The process was hastened as the
area is a desert with low rainfall and high rate of
evaporation. Slowly, the surface area of the sea
dropped to about half of its original size. Those
who earlier fished on the shores of the Aral Sea
found it gone 50-100 km away Irom them.
Fishing occupations crashed and they were left
penniless.
The dried-up seabed was now a toxic waste­
land, full of accumulated poisons that irrigation
drainage had dumped into it. As the sea shrank,
its moderating effect on the local climate also
disappeared and the weather became drier with
frequent dust storms. The dust picked up from

A lot con be done to
ameliorate the lives

of the people. But

nothing can be done
to restore the Aral

Sea. It is clear that
the solution to the

region's ecological
problems is still far
from a permanent

solution

25

the seabed by these storms was highly toxic and
the whole atmosphere became polluted, with
million inhaling it into their lungs. Even the fish
they ate was now poisoned. Nobody yet knows
the scale and magnitude of the health problems
created by this poisoning of the environment.
There has been an incessant increase in cases of
oesophagal cancers, disorders of the reproduc­
tive system, and strange medical phenomenon.
What is most astounding is that it all hap­
pened under the aegis of the state authorities.
People knew that things were going wrong. But
nobody was prepared to talk about them or take
up cudgels against it. The disaster had to wait for
the general opening up of the Soviet system to
attract attention. What could be more pathetic? It
was not a sudden disaster, but due to the wrong­
doings of the state.
A lot can be done to ameliorate the lives of
the people. By transporting water over.long dis­
tances. the local people can still hope to get clean
drinking water By planting trees over the
exposed seabed, the dust storms and transport of
poisonous materials can be somewhat reduced.
By creating small wetlands near the human settle­
ments. which were once close to the shore of the
Aral Sea, some of the fishing activity can return
But nothing can be done to restore the Aral
Sea. The increasing salinity of the reducing
sea has meant the disappearance of floral and
faunal biodiversity, which existed in abundance
along its shore. This probably can never come
back. It is clear that the solution to the region's
ecological problems is still far from a permanent
solution.
Down To Earth has published a detailed report
on the Aral Sea crisis and a longer version of the
report has also been published as a booklet.

26

AIR POLLUTION
Breathing poison
As India is about to enter the 21st century, with
all the complexities arising out of a liberalised
economy, heavy population density, intense
poverty and considerable pressure on natural
resources, much has changed in terms of gover­
nance systems
The government has repeatedly stated that it
would pursue a path of economic development
that does not lead to environmental harm. Over
20 years ago, soon after the Stockholm
Conference, the country had enacted the Water
Pollution Control Act in 1974. In 1981, India
enacted the Air Pollution Control Act. Following
the Bhopal disaster in 1984, the government
realised that its legislative base was weak to deal
with industrial accidents, and enacted the
Omnibus Environment Protection Act in
1986. During this period, there was considerable
institutional development with the creation of a
full-fledged Ministry of Environment and Forests
and a Central Pollution Control Board at the
federal level and similar institutions in nearly all
the 20-odd states of India But despite this
legislative and institutional framework, and a
pollution control policy statement announced in
1991, precious little has actually changed on the
pollution front, which continues to increase
rapidly over time.
The Indian state has not cared to worry
about any of these two obligations. The dramatic
rise in air pollution in most Indian metropolises
over the last one decade is a direct result of
an inefficient state, both in terms of balancing
responsibilities and precautionary activities.

Recommendations on emission control
•
•

•

•
•

Each automobile firm should be asked to prepare a development plan for 10 years to indicate
technological changes they are planning to implement;
Industry and independent research organisations should develop a centralised inventory of the
world's best emission efficient technology for different models of vehicles as a reference scale for
comparison with Indian models;
Liberalisation has encouraged the Indian automobile industry to source new technology and
new products through Joint ventures;
The emission characteristics of each model of vehicle should be stated at the time of sale, to
enable the customers to make an environment-friendly choice;
The research and development cess collected from the industry should be allocated to give prior­
ity to research on emission efficient technology.

On Inspection and Maintenance Strategies
• Comprehensive rules should be formulated to ensure proper maintenance schedule for old vehi­
cles;
• Inspection and main tenance rules should be devised according to the age of vehicles;
• Parameters ofjudging road worthiness of a vehicle should be broadened to include emission cri­
teria;
• It is urgent to address the issue of scrapping very old and polluting vehicles from city roads;
• A package offiscal incentives and disincentives should be developed for vehicle owners.

Delhi and Calcutta are already rated as one of
the worst polluted cities in the world and many
others like Bangalore, once considered a garden
city, are rapidly deteriorating.
A study was conducted by CSE researchers
to review this highly complex problem and to
get an overview of the problem. The study
focusses on vehicular air pollution and not on air
pollution tn general. This is because if one looks
at the total emissions picture of a city in the
1950s or 1960s, one would find three types of
emissions: from industrial sources including
power plants; vehicular sources; and, household
sources.
The study confirms our worst fears.
Vehicular air pollution is the result of the follow­
ing combination:
• Bad vehicular technology, which means that

certain vehicles should not be allowed to
leave tire manufacturers’ gates.
• Poor fuel quality as India is generally short
on middle distillates (kerosene and diesel).
As the government produces the lethal
stuff and sets the standards, and is respon­
sible for ensuring that the standards are
met, we can be sure of a very' unhealthy
set of practices taking place in the Petroleum
Ministry which amounts to slow murder.
• Poor vehicular maintenance; improperly
maintained cars can be polluting.
• Non-existent traffic planning because it
is not enough to fine-tune individual
vehicles.
It is even more important to keep a strict
control on the total population of vehicles in a
city by:

Pirates of pollution
CSE study reveals that a number of factors contribute to vehicular air pollution, which relate to differ
ent regulatory agencies and interest groups:
Problems

Regulatory agency

Interest group

Bad automobile technology

Ministry ofEnvironment and Forests
Ministry of Industiy
Ministry ofSurface Transport

Automobile
industiy

Poorfuel quality

Ministry of Petroleum

State-owned refineries

Bad traffic planning

State/melmpolitan
transport authorities

Poorfleet maintenance

State/melmpolitan
traffic police

Disinterested public

Aging vehicularfleet

State/melmpolitan
traffic police

Public resistance
to phase out old
vehicles

27

Promoting non-vehicular mass transit sys­
tems so that a large proportion of passenger
trips can be undertaken on trains or electric
trams.
• Promoting non-motorised forms of personal
transport like bicycles.
• Restricting vehicles in congested areas by
allowing rars ending with odd numbers on
one day and even numbers on another day
• Declaring congested markets and residential
areas as pedestrian areas.
• Promoting car-pooling by corporate employ­
ees.
• Installing technology' like good traffic lights
that ensure smooth-moving vehicular traffic.
• Forcing car. bus, scooter and truck owners
to phase out old vehicles after some years,
when they start becoming heavy polluters.
As no single solution will provide lasting
relief, every' problem cited above will have to be
dealt with at appropriate times and in appropri­
ate measure and both a long-term and short-term
strategy will have to be identified and imple­
mented in a phased manner. But despite the seri­
ousness of the problem, the government has no
comprehensive strategy' to deal with die vehicu­
lar air pollution problem. The Ministry of
Environment and Forests today has no mecha­
nism whatsoever, except for some disorganised
boards and expert groups, to analyse or to imple­
ment complex issues. Such issues, even if they
arc well-analysed, will not move without the
involvement of none less than the Prime Minister.
if they happen to be inter-ministerial in nature.
The MEF has never produced a comprehen­
sive study' outlining all the issues involved and
explaining what measures arc needed. It has
shown no capacity to take quick decisions on
traffic planning or regulate its own refining indus­
try' or the privately-owned automobile industry.

•

And since the problem spans so many state and
central agencies, die pollution control board offi­
cials only complain about the lack of seriousness
amongst other agencies. Many pollution pro­
blems arise out of a complex set of problems and
will need comprehensive solutions. The MEF
cannot do anything about such problems

URBAN WETLANDS
Grim scenario
"A society is known by the water it keeps." This
is because water — earth's purest fluid — has the
uncanny ability to collect the human society's
ills, and slowly but steadily reflect them in its
own degradation. In India, urban wetlands have
been reduced to filthy, foul-smelling cesspools
with mosquito larvae drawing their lazy intricate
patterns on the green surfaces. The only time
lakes and tanks in urban areas draw a passerby's
appreciative glance is when purple hyacinths
bloom and disguise their filth. Orphans of a
wiser age. these water bodies have few cham­
pions to their cause today. Spread all over the
country, some of these urban wetlands are natural
formations but most have been humanmade.
And they were originally built to serve more use­
ful purposes than just guzzling the city's muck.
In the urban hubs of the arid central and
southern India, they store and supply water for
dnnking and irrigation and help in groundwater
recharging. In Madras, which receives about
1.400 mm of rainfall annually, residents still get
supplies once in two days. The reason being that
there are not enough clean storage tanks. In
cities enjoying perennial river sources they serve
as flood cushions and as in the case of Calcutta,
act as a resource recovery area.
One can even ask — do even the people

care? And yet, the resulting costs of ill-health,
energy and labour to reach ever-so-distant water
sources are enormous and increasing daily. The
urban wetland crisis is eating into the entrails of
Indian urban society. And it shows us that we
no longer know how to govern ourselves, to
manage our filth, and to live in harmony with our
very life source These are signs of a morbid
society, which is reflecting itself in the sickness
of our water systems.
Today, we are systematically destroying
them and in the name of development we are
digging our own graves CSE researchers toured
across the country’ to assess this tragic self­
destructive overdrive They encountered the
same horrifying tale everywhere. But the fact of
ecological destruction per se ts not so horrifying,
as much of this is reversible. But the fact that
very few care, is indeed, far more horrifying. The
most dramatic contrasts are seen in Cherrapunji
in Meghalaya, and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan: one
receives, on an average, 15,000 mm of rainfall
every year, and another just 100-200 mm of rain­
fall. There is surely no comparison between the
two places. How far the dysfunction between
water and society can go, is exemplified by this
case. Cherrapunji, one of the wettest places on
earth, receives the full force of the moisture­
laden monsoon clouds from the Bay of Bengal.
But today, due to a massive drinking water short­
age in Cherrapunji, the Rajiv Gandhi Drinking
Water Mission — a national programme dealing
with water problems — is supporting its water­
strapped villages.
Jaisalmer in the past cared for its water
sources and survived long droughts by carefully
collecting, storing and using water. The city site
was, in fact, carefully chosen keeping in mind
the threat of invasions and availability of water.
The residents built a glorious and fabulously
wealthy city around its limited water resources.
Today, Jaisalmer is wearing off that part of its
culture, and is becoming increasingly dependent
on groundwater — the last resort in the desert.
Cherrapunji and Jaisalmer together tell Delhi,
Hyderabad, Bangalore and Madras — all megacitics — that God may shower riches on us in
plenty but if we can’t live with them respectfully,
they will forsake us.
The answers lie not in Mother Nature but in
the nature of the societies we construct. Those
few NGOS and individuals from Calcutta to
Bangalore and Madras who are trying to reverse
the trend — while the rest don't even care —
deserve our full support and respect. They are
the true leaders of India.

Case studies
CSE team found that in Karnataka, with a major
part of the state in the Deccan Plateau's rain­
shadow region, lakes and tanks have been the
crucial source of drinking water and irrigation.
Tanks were built in Bangalore in the pre-British
days. A chain of such interlinked tanks was
created in each region. Situated in the same

catchment area, the surplus water from one Lank
would flow into the lower ones. Kempe Gowda,
the founder of modern Bangalore, and rulers
before him resorted to a simple yet sophisticated
technology of water harvesting, through which
Bangalore managed to store at least 60 to 70 per
cent of its rainwater.
But these tanks have been freely encroached
upon, polluted and reduced to half their capaci­
ty. The government departments are the major
culprits. They have built the city bus stand, a
sports stadium, residential complexes and city
markets on the tank bed. Today, these remain as
nothing more than sullage pits.
Water has always been scarce in Madras
since the time it was a small fishing village back
in the 17th century. Not many government offi­
cials are willing to discuss this sensitive subject.
And despite several projects being looked upon
as big hopes, experts insist that it is imperative to
renovate and modernise minor sources like the
temple tanks and harvest rainwater from every
rooftop.
There are 124 tanks in the Madras
Metropolitan Area. In addition, there are 36 tem­
ple tanks in the city, with wells located in them.
Experts hold that the system of tanks and wells
were linked with aquifers for groundwater
recharging.
With houses being built in the catchment
areas of these tanks, it is mostly sewage that
flows into them now Governmental residential
schemes, as well as slums, have come to
encroach upon the non-temple tanks.
Like Madras, tank building and maintenance
had been looked upon as a noble deed in
Hyderabad too, where most of the tanks
were created during the 16th to 20th centuries.
The first source of water supply to Hyderabad
was from the Hussain Sagar lake. It was used
to provide drinking water. As population
expanded, two other tanks — Himayatsagar and
Osamansagar — started supplying water to the
cities.
Yet, over the years, the twin problems of
water shortage and flooding have plagued the
city. Water supply in Hyderabad had been
restricted to alternate days since 1993- With the
population hitting the 5-million mark in 1994.
water requirements have gone up from 45 million
gallons (mgd) per day in 1961 to 170 mgd in
1993. The present availability is only 83 mgd.
The situation is critical. The lakes are in
abject conditions. Hussain Sagar, for instance, is
so highly polluted that divers who had gone
down to locate the 60-fect high Buddha statue
which had submerged while being erected, were
unable to locate it. Industrial effluents flow in
throughout the year, the rejuvenation takes place
only once annually during the monsoon. High
acidity water has led to large-scale destruction of
fishes and fishing as a livelihood has been
banned, affecting hundreds of families.
In central India, tank building has a long his­
tory. In the 11th century, the legendary king Bhoj

The urban wetland

crisis is eating into

the entrails of Indian

urban society. It
shows that we no

longer know how to

govern ourselves, to

manage our filth,
and to live in

harmony with our
very life source.

These are signs of a

morbid society,
which is reflecting
itself in the

sickness of our
water systems

29

constructed the Bhopal Lake over an area of 250
sq miles which was fed by 365 sources. The
population of Bhopal is expected to cross the
2-million mark by 2000 AD, and water require­
ment is assessed to be around 200 mgd. The
lakes of Bhopal clearly cannot keep pace with
the demand and hence, the government has to
bring water from outside.
History' seems to have come full circle in
Indore, the industrialand commercial capital of
Madhya Pradesh. One of the reasons that the
business community' in central India traditionally
favoured this 700-year-old city' in the Malwa
Plateau was its plentiful water supply. Today, no
one even considers investing in the textile indus­
try' of Indore because of acute water shortage
However, the situation of neighbouring Dewas is
worse. The crash-course industrialisation it had
set up in the 1970s has ended in a whimper due
to water crisis. Now, both Indore and Dewas
await water from the Narmada river.
The wetlands of Calcutta have a different
background. They are the remnants of the
numerous distributories of the river Ganga which
changed course in the 15th century. With the
onset of the zamindari system in the 18th cen­
tury, these areas were handed over to landless
farmers.
Calcutta’s main drainage line is river
Hooghly, a distributory of the Ganga. Towards
the beginning of the 19th century, the British
decided to dispose off the burgeoning city’s
sewage into the Bay of Bengal through an intri­
cate network of underground drains via salt
lakes. That was the beginning of the end of the

Vidyadhari river, due to massive siltation.
The significance of the east Calcutta wetlands
is enormous. It is a flood cushion for die eastern
metropolis. Besides, Calcutta does not have a
functional mechanical sewage treatment plant.
The natural eastward incline of the topography
lets the sewage flow eastwards. One-third of the
150 mgd of sewage that the wetlands receive are
treated in a natural process. The wetlands pro­
vide the city with fresh air, fish and vegetable,
livelihood to thousands, help groundwater
recharge and form a major recreational area.
Yet, since the 1960s, when the city’s first
planned extension was contemplated, the natur­

30

al choice of the development authorities fell on
the east. The Salt Lake City' (now Bidhan Nagar)
came up, taking away a large chunk of the wet­
lands. In the mid-1980s, the government was
goaded by the real estate mafia to hand over
larger areas of wetlands for housing estates and
fancy business centres. Surprisingly, while one
agency of the government has worked cease­
lessly to get these listed as wetlands of national
importance, the other wings are hell bent on
their destruction.
According to experts, incidence of city inun­
dations during monsoon have shot up; percent­
age of oxygen in ambient air has dropped signif­
icantly; average windflow has decelerated by at
least 1 km per hour, helping retain air pollution;
and there is almost 80 per cent drop in faunal
biodiversity.
The lesson is clear: It is futile to indulge in
high sounding jargonised rhetoric unless urban­
ites learn to live in harmony with nature in thenown habitat.

ARTISANS
The sad part of art
Ethnic may be in’ but craftspersons and artisans
are out’. Or so it would seem if one looks at the
plight of this section of society. Even as the num­
ber of craft exhibitions, fairs and melas mush­
room, the creators of the crafts continue to lan­
guish. falling victim to the twin tragedies of
government apathy and environmental degradauon that has eaten away at their resource base.
Researchers from CSE spent the greater part
of December 1995 travelling through the length
and breadth of the country to meet and gather
information on artisans from the best possible
source — the artisans themselves. A CSE team
met wood, cane and bamboo artisans, who
depend on forests for their raw materials, to see
how they have been affected by environmental
degradation and resource diversion. Similarly,
the leather and grass sectors, constrained by the
loss of common property resources and ivorycarving, killed by the government's 1986 ban on
ivory trade, were also investigated. In addition,
the team also had extensive interactions with
government officials as well as individuals and
NGOs working for the upliftment of the artisanal
sector.
What emerged is a sorry picture indeed. The
production in the handicrafts sector, a sub-sector
of the artisanal sector, is estimated at Rs 13,260
crore and employment at 48.25 lakh. This makes
the artisanal sector as a whole the second largest
employer after agriculture. Yet, despite the large
numbers involved and the tremendous employ­
ment and export potential represented by the
sector, artisans are largely a forgotten lot, left
stranded on the platform as the development
train chugs by.
Nowhere is this better reflected than in the
case of India’s bamboo workers, who together

with cane and fibre workers, numbered 8 2 lakh
in 1981 Although bamboo is found in almost
every forest in India, artisans experience acute
shortages of the material. This is because of
governmental subsidies to industry which
devours most of the available material, leaving
artisans high and dry. Paper and pulp industries
pay about Rs 2 for a standard length of bamboo,
while for an artisan in the Delhi market, the same
costs between Rs 30 and 50.
And yet, southeast Asia alone has a bamboo
products market of US $15 billion. The demand
for basketware alone, which includes bamboo,
wicker and rattan products, is substantial in
countries like the US, Germany, Japan and
France, with imports growing at 150 to 200 per
cent every year. Despite the abundance of raw
materials and vast repertoire of traditional craft
skills in India, this export market remains
untapped.
CSE team found that lack of raw materials is
a pressing problem almost everywhere. In the
case of grass, leather, cane and wood, this is due
to a large-scale deforestation, coupled with
reduced access to resources. In Sawai Madhopur,
for instance, an entire community of wooden
toy-makers, the khairalis, was pauperised when
the forests they depended on for their raw mate­
rial, the khimi (Wrightia tinctorid), was declared
part of a national park.
The crunch for raw material has led to a des­
perate search for alternative materials to work
with, which are more easily available. In
Karnataka, for example, as rosewood disappears
from the forests, more and more carvers have
switched to producing handicraft items made of
plywood.
Not that artisans are always hapless, passive
victims of changing circumstances. In a rather
dismal scenario, the collective action by
Calcutta's cane workers in Rambagan basti
shines like a beacon. Their association, Karmi
Brinda, set up in 1954, has successfully been able
to get better prices, organise raw materials and
even provide housing for its members through
collective action

POLITICAL PARTIES

i

Tall claims
Do our politicians consider environment to be an
important political priority? With an eye on the
1996 general elections, a team of researchers
from CSE travelled across the country to docu­
ment how the major parties of India — CongressI, Janata Dal (JD), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM)
were responding to environmental issues.
In this massive exercise which took months,
numerous senior politicians, including Union
ministers and chief ministers, were interviewed
along with lower levels of the political cadres of
different political parties and local environmental
activists and analysts.
,

The study shows that environmental issues
began to find a place in the manifestoes of
almost all the important political parties since the
1980s, with different parties taking slightly differ­
ent positions. The Janata Dal has generally
embraced a more radical position which empha­
sises the importance of maintaining a healthy
natural resource base for the survival and growth
of the poor The Congress-I, on the other hand.
has had a somewhat more conservationist
emphasis in its manifestoes. CPM continues to
give a marginal attention to environmental
issues, with a rhetorical use of the phrase "envi­
ronment policy tn line with sustainable develop­
ment” in its manifestoes. BJP manifestoes out­
lined a series of technological options to combat
environmental problems facing the country — a
far cry from a holistic policy.
But beyond the different shades of rhetoric,
our study shows that there is not much to be
happy about. The political action of almost all the
parties has been generally counter to the require­
ments of the environmental balance. There is a
big gulf between political rhetoric and real action
and it runs counter to the commitments made in
the manifesto of almost every party.
Each political part}’ tries to out-do the other
in degrading environment The JD-ruled states of
Karnataka and Bihar are going full steam with
controversial projects like Cogentrix and Koel
Karo, respectively Congress-I has also floated
anti-people moves like giving degraded forests
lands to the paper and pulp industry as captive
plantations, against the interest of the rural poor
who depend upon these lands to meet their bio­
mass, fuel and fodder needs.
BJP-ruled states do not show much environ­
mental awareness either, as BJP politicians have
not cared much for green causes. CPM leadership
is also supporting environmentally controversial
projects like Pooyamkutti power project and
Gosree tourist development project in Kerala.
CSE researchers' experience with the politi­
cians was also malafide. Then Janata Dal Chief
Minister of Karnataka, Deve Gowda (now the
Prime Minister), showed an open contempt for
the environmentalists and called them "publicity
hunters”.
Finding the Congress manifestoes was anoth­
er Herculean task as the central party office of
the Congress-I had only one manifesto of all the
elections held till now. Finally, the manifestoes
were located in a library’ in Delhi. The BJP and
CPM party offices were probably the most organ­
ised and party documents could be located
smoothly. Their political leaders were also more
accessible titan the others.

New cell
CSE has recently' established an Environmental
Economics Cell in order to address an area of
growing importance worldwide. Environmental
economics, as a subject area for detailed study.
has already made considerable advances abroad.
India, as is the case with most developing

The political action

of almost all the

parties has been
generally counter to

the requirements of
the environmental
balance. There is a
big gulf between

political rhetoric and

real action and it

runs counter to the
commitments made

in the manifesto of
almost every party

nations, has been a relative late starter in the
field. The objective that has been set out for the
Cell is to emerge, in point of time, as a major
group catalysing the pace of research and acti­
vities in the field of environmental economics in
the country and to lobby for the incorporation of
environmental concerns in economic policymaking.

GREEN RATING
Greening of industrial investments
The Cell has taken up a project to identify the
means of green rating of different industrial
plants. The purpose of such an exercise is to
make environmental considerations a major fac­
tor in the share market. With the recent spurt in
litigation and judgements in favour of safeguard­
ing the environment, the proposed environmen­
tal rating will help investors to identify those
companies where the risk of closure due to envi­
ronmental regulations is minimum The pro­
posed rating will also be a good tool in the hands
of both policy-makers and the industry for evalu­
ating their environmental performance.
Maintaining environmental balance with eco­
nomic growth is a subject of state policy in India
Since 1974, several environmental laws have
been enacted and numerous institutions have
been set up to implement the objectives of these
laws. But this form of governance — enacting a
law and then setting up a bureaucracy to imple­
ment that law — has proved to be a miserable
failure. Environmental pollution continues to
grow despite all the efforts of the isolated
agencies of the government, whose own perfor­
mance suffers deeply from lack of competence,
inadequacy of resources, bureaucratic inertia.
lack of transparency, and public accountability.
Government agencies have failed to keep the
public informed in a way that would enable
constant debate on how to reconcile the oft diffi­
cult contradictions between environment and
development and, thus, unleash an energy that
would overtake die woodenness of bureaucratic
institutions and corrupt practices of die bureau­
crats, industrialist and politicians involved. There
is, therefore, a widespread feeling in India that
alternative forms of governance should be
built which are built, on public participation,
transparency, non-bureaucratic institutions and
market-oriented policies.

32

A CSE paper attempts to present a marketoriented framework by which the environmental
impacts of industrialisation can be controlled and
influenced. It aims to create greater environmen­
tal awareness and responsibility in the investor
community. As a result of growing public interest
litigation, encouraged by an activist judiciary, a
number of industrial plants have recently been
closed down by the Supreme Court and the High
Courts. Major battles are currently going on in
the various courts against polluting industries in
Gujarat, Calcutta, New Delhi, and the trapezium
around the famous Taj Mahal, which could seal
the fate of thousands of industrial firms (see The
Courts. Deep in Dirty Waters, Down To Earth,
Society for Environmental Communications, NewDelhi, September 30, 1995). Though most , of
these finns involved are of a small and medium­
size because this sector of industry has proved
itself to be highly polluting, there is no reason to
believe that in the future large-scale industry’ will
also not get affected by anti-pollution litigation.
It is obvious that in case a company closes
down or its stock value goes down, investors can
lose substantial money, which for many could be
their life savings. Therefore, if investors can be
made environmentally conscious, they would
prefer to invest in projects where their invest­
ment will be safe from such potential dangers.
This, in turn, will put pressure on companies to
improve their environmental performance to
enable them to raise more funds from the mar­
ket. There is no available evidence to suggest
that Indian investors and the share market are
very conscious about the environment. It must
be admitted that till date no such event has taken
place, except for the Bhopal tragedy, which
could influence the stock market. However, peo­
ple involved with the functioning of the stock
market admitted to us in interviews that in the
event of the number of closures of polluting
industries increasing, the stock market will defi­
nitely respond to environmental concerns
Industrial confederations are already trying to
promote environmental awareness among their
members. They also agree that in the foreseeable
future, environment could become an important
factor affecting the share market.
The proposed measures basically aim to pro­
vide potential investors with information to judge
the possible environmental impacts of the pro­
duction unit they are planning to invest in and
the environmental track record of the companies
involved. Investors have reason to fear that their
investments could get affected if there was
adverse public opinion against the stocks they
have invested in. After the Bhopal tragedy in
1994, where a Union Carbide pesticide factory'
killed several thousand people, the share prices
of the company dipped sharply. The proposed
measures, thus, attempt to forewarn potential
investors about such dangers.
Apart from educating investors, these mea­
sures will also be useful to the industrial man­
agers to assess their own environmental perfor-

Assistance by financial institutions
Financial
institution

Reporting
ministry

Area of
work

Money disbursed (Rs crore)

1992-93

1993-94

NABARD

Agriculture

Investment in agriculture
and rural development

—

—

IDBI

Finance

Development of
big industries

6,041.8

ICICI

Finance

Development of
big industries

3,315.2

4,413-3

IFCI

Finance

Development of
big industries

1,732.5

2,163.1

im

Finance

Investment in
existing companies

6,229.8

5,937.7

SIDBI

Finance

Development of
small industries

1.291.2

1,778.7

mance and, equally, for regulatory agencies of
the government to take note of their perfor­
mance. These measures may also come in handy
for the government in the formulation of the
country's future industrial plans. In sum, such
measures have the potential to improve the cur­
rent standards and pattern of investment.

Funds for industrialisation
Investment funds for industrialisation in India
mainly come from two sources. Firsdy, govern­
ment financial institutions, and, secondly, private
investors (individuals and corporations). We
believe that different strategies are required to
influence these two different sources of industri­
al investment hinds.
It is difficult to determine the exact size of
the share market in India. However, a fairly
reliable estimate of the amount of money that
goes into the share market can be obtained from
the 1993-94 provisional estimates of Reserve
Bank of India which show that new capital issues
by non-government public limited companies
was Rs 19,501.3 crore. During 1992-93, the same
was Rs 19,825.6 crore. In addition, the assistance
from all-India financial institutions (that is,
excluding the state financial corporations)
amounted to Rs 22,197.3 crore during 1992-93
and Rs 25,632.5 crore during 1993-94,

Bid to influence companies
Western NGOs and environmentally concerned
individuals have basically adopted two approach­
es to use the share market to influence industry.
Firstly, some of them have bought shares of
environment-unfriendly companies to gain
Access to their annual general meetings to raise
their complaints in the presence of other stock­

holders and try' to get members' resolutions
passed. In some countries, a few NGOs have also
tried to influence large shareholders like the
church to put pressure on environmentally and
socially-indisciplined companies.
Secondly, several groups have made efforts
to set up green mutual funds which invest only
in clean companies. However, there are several
problems with this approach:
• It is difficult to determine which company is
truly green. Particularly, once a company has
acquired the reputation of being environ­
ment unfriendly, it is difficult to determine
when and whether the company has
improved its environmental performance or
not unless it becomes open to periodic
checks.
• Investments are made in a particular compa­
ny and not in a particular industrial plant.
The same company can have one good and
one bad plant from an environmental view­
point. In such a case, it becomes difficult to
judge whether to invest in the company or
not.
• Thirdly, financial returns from green funds
have often not been very high. Conse­
quently, managers of green mutual funds
have had to be very careful in choosing their
investment basket. As a result, it also
becomes difficult to mobilise large sums of
money for green mutual funds.
• As the number of green mutual funds and the
total amount of investment they make
remains small compared to the overall size of
the investment market this strategy, howso­
ever attractive, fails to affect the investment
market as a whole, and green mutual funds
remain fringe players.

33

r

PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS

I
Science and environment information

Initiatives taken so far...
Over the last one year. CSE's role in disseminating
information on environment and science has only
been enlarged. Down To Earth (DTE), one of
CSE's main associates in this initiative, has been
transformed from a purely niche magazine based
on environment and reaching only subscribers to
a regular magazine in the open market It was
inevitable because something like Down To Earth
could not have possibly been kept as the esoteric
preserve of the urban elite: a new intellectual fief
was not to be created. But going public had its
own far-reaching impact also.
It was required to talk in a layperson's
language and be far more responsive to mass
sensitivities and take up their issues, too. The
more far-reaching of these were the investigation
on captive plantation for the paper industry, the
status of India's urban wetlands, investigation into
the ecological impact of prawn farming in the
coastal regions, the state of India s artisans, the
major inquiry' into the environmental commit­
ments of the mainstream political parties, the
reflection of the worldwide struggle by the
indigenous people for their environmental
resources, which saw Ken Saro-Wiwa martyred
and Brazil's Yanomami-land looted.
One important investigation was conducted
through international database accessed from
Washington. It related to one of the most crucial
questions of our times, an issue which is a major
North-South irritant: the issue of patenting by
Northern multinationals of products of Southern
biodiversity. In this case, it was the question of
patenting of neem products, for which the race is
fast gathering pace, but the Indian scientific com­
munity is still either somnolent or is occasionally
griping about being fleeced. This report, startling
as it was, has elicited a broad range of responses;
most of them asking for a more responsive scien­
tific community and a more constructive science
policy for the country'. One obvious reason
behind such a widespread response is that the
Indian (non-scientific) community is starting to
hold the scientists responsible for carting away of
what was so common and evidently ours. That
people’s demand, albeit muted today, is bound to
grow.

.WINDS OF POISON
Global warming has been one of CSE's stated
concern. But global poisoning? Horrific as it may
seem, the one report, ‘Winds of Poison', clearly
established on a scientific basis the fact that
persistent organic chemicals like DDT and other

pesticides, which we are using mindlessly, take
wings, literally, from the tropical zones, where
they are most intensively used, and travel right up
to Arctic waters, where they affect the whole
ecosystem, which in turn poisons the entire food
chain.
Indeed, the report, which was sent to us by
one of our overseas environmentalist friends,
triggered off a new area of investigation, namely,
pesticides, herbicides, solvents and dyes, and
their linkages with cancer and heart/respiralory
problems.

SCIENCE COVERAGE
The Editor s Page has in recent times evoked
much debate and heat. And at least in one
instance, it has opened the doors of a hitherto
tightly shut bastion — the Indian scientific com­
munity. It is necessary to mention in brief what
that particular edition of the Editor's Page slated.
In response to a very senior scientist's regret that
we do not carry more news of Indian scientific
achievements and studies, the editor had pointed
out that most Indian scientists and the establish­
ment was reluctant to open its doors to maga­
zines like ours. The editor regretted that this is not
the situation in the West, where the establishment
regularly advertises its findings and let reporters
pick up reports.
This has opened a floodgate of outpourings
from scientists In fact, one senior scientist from
Goa has recently written to us saying that the
mandarins of the scientific establishment have
specifically ordered that only those theses by
Indian scientists, which are published in "high
impact" journals, that is foreign journals, will be
recognised as valid intellectual activity! The
debate is now on, and the science bosses will
have to change their stance or face internal ire,
which will not bode well for them.
Tlie problems of the scientific community are
many. Towards the middle of 1995, CSE had
looked into the whole issue of peer review, and
came up with the conclusion that the system of
scientific grants are not necessarily based on
merit. At least, there is no basic peer review sys­
tem through which the real merit of a scientific
achievement s real worth can be judged. And
then, it was also clear that most of the work
which attracted such grants did not boil down to
benefitting the common man who pays for
that research. In fact, in retrospect, it seems
that since that time, CSE has been working
towards the whole question of a correct science

policy. Some work has been done. Much is
in the pipeline for the coming year. But even­
tually, that will be the concrete result of
such endeavours.
However, despite such hiccups in coverage.
CSE continued to enrich its information base by
tracking the latest developments in the West,
including the historic journey of Galileo to Mars
and the remarkable baboon bone marrow' trans­
plant to save an AIDS patient.
On the Indian front, CSE devoted consider­
able time to examine the claims of auyrveda prac­
titioners that certain metals, purified and
processed, can lead to medicines which can cure
critical diseases. This is undoubtedly a premier
research on the issue of alternative medicine.

TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE
CSE reporters looked into the Supreme Court
orders for relocation of polluting units in Delhi,
West Bengal and Gujarat and the ensuing con­
troversy around the issue. While exploring the
issue they found that nothing has really hap­
pened on the ground, except for a couple of
industrial units being closed down in West
Bengal and Gujarat The travesty of justice is per­
haps most glaring tn Delhi, right under the nose
of the Supreme Court. CSE, however, had
analysed the issue indepth and concluded that
the- all-round failure of the executive in taking
care of pollution and health issues has forced the
judiciary to don that mantle, which is bound to
have far-reaching impact in terms of policy,
especially, as one of our later researches
showed, since none of the mainstream political
parties have any real urge to address these
crucial issues.
But the worst example of the travesty of
justice came to light through our investigation into
the Bichhri affair. Seven years ago, this hamlet in
the downstream of Udaisagar lake of Rajasthan,
had been devastated by sludge and effluents from

two factories producing H-acid, whose production
has been banned the world over. Public agitation
had already forced the factories to be shut down
seven years ago. In the meanwhile, a public
interest litigation, praying for compensation for
the villagers and the restoration of the environ­
ment there, was being heard. In April this year,
the Supreme Court ordered the (already closed)
factories to be closed! There was no immediate
compensation ordered for the people, and the
concerned authorities were asked to look into
what needs to be done to restore the environ­
ment, and to attach the property of the factory
owner The latter had, in fact, closed shop seven
years ago, and is now merrily polluting the
environment of Vapi, Gujarat. The court has not
addressed the problem of producing H-acid

RESOURCES AND RIGHTS
CSE has always held that environmental
resources are the property of the communities
which have been using them sustainably over the
ages. We have been especially strident about the
environmental rights of the indigenous people
wherever they may be. The grassroots-level
struggle of the Yanomami people in Brazil had
started gathering strength since May last year.
especially with the demarcation of their land
being challenged through a legislation being
pushed by Brazil’s minister of justice. CSE kept a
watch over the situation, determined to follow
the struggle to finish. We also did a major report
for DTE, when the outrageous murder of Ken
Saro-Wiwa, the Ogoni people's leader in Nigeria.
look place. The inhuman regime of general Sani
Abacha had exterminated a shining torch of the
stniggle of indigenous people for their rights to
environmental resources It made a sad cover
story for us, but the combined report on Ogoni
and Yanomami-lands reflected the gathering
strength of the indigenous people's movement
worldwide.

CSE has been
working towards the

whole question of a

correct science
policy. Some work

has been done.
Much is in the

pipeline for the
coming year. But

eventually, that will

be the concrete
result of such

endeavours

31

PEOPLE'S FIRE BRIGADE
There has, of course, been a sunshine side, and
DTE has not failed to report that either. In early
July 1995, after devastating fires had razed
thousands of hectares of prime forests in tile hills
of northern India. CSE sent its reporter to Patial. a
small village in the Sivalik foothills in Hoshiarpur

district, Punjab, whose fire-fighting and fire­
prevention skills are legendary in tire area. Staying
in Patial. talking to the women and the village
elders, he discovered that the secret of their
success lay in the strong community spirit of the
village backed by commonsense and unwritten
laws: trenches are dug around the forest, the
forest floor cleared regularly and there is a social
taboo against smoking in the forest. And in the
unlikely event of a fire, the enure village rushed as
one to battle the it. Evidently, local people are the
best managers of their natural resources, provided
they are empowered to do so. This is something
w hich CSE has long believed in, a belief which
was strengthened by the example of Patial.

AUTO DRIVER'S INNOVATION
Similar was the quaint report of an individual’s
struggle against pollution in August, a CSE
researcher, while travelling in an autorickshaw,
met 30-year-old Mohanlal Madan, who has never
stepped into a college in his life, but is the brain
behind an ingenious method of reducing dust
from the air filters in autorickshaws. Madan cut
out the filter from his brother’s vehicle, welded
the L-shaped pipe and lifted it 50 cm above the
vehicle's roof It cost him Rs 100, and saved him

Paradise Lost
In the land of Kalashnikovs and Wazwan,
CSE reporter Max Martin narrates his
experience with the Mujahideen mili­
tants, army officers and local people,
while on a visit to Kashmir in November
1995, to report on the ecological degra­
dation and unchecked deforestation as a
direct result of separatist movement in
the state.
“1 have seen militants destroying
Kashmirforests." It all began with this
statement of a spirited army officer.
Antennae up, 1 combed the Environ­
ment Ministry yielding next to nothing
and the army source too went "dry".
Worse, the story bad already been sold
and the editor was on my back, refusing
to accept any innovative excuses snow­
fall — avalanche, kidnapping...
“Meetyou in 15 days, inshah allah,” /
told my colleagues and packed up for
Kashmir. What the newspaper col­
leagues would call "startling info"start­
ed pouring in right during my flight,
again from army officers. But no fig­
ures, dates, not even location were dis­
closed to lead me to a definite place.
“...Somewhere in the northern sector,"
was the usual reply.
In Srinagar, myfirst step was to con­
duct a few rapidfire interviews with
officials all admitting to deforestation,

again in vague terms, with ancient
data. So 1 bad to cool my heels.
My first break came after I gained
access to a meeting of top bureaucrats,
who discussed in detail Kashmir's defor­
estation and the choked Dal Lake. I
soon became a familiar face with these
top guns. Some talked, some gave me a
few government reports. The informa­
tion began tofall in place. So, now I bad
a story, figures, confirmations and alle­
gations.
But still the key to the whole issue
was missing. Where exactly was this ille­
gal felling going on now? A guide took
me on a five-hour bumpy ride to a god­
forsaken place in Anantnag and made
me trek for three hours into the forest.
There was no trace offelling. In fact,
there was no proof that a forest existed
there in the recorded time.
On my way back, a local militant
leader got into my car, with
Kalashnikov, ammunition pack and
all. “Hukum kijiye," said the handsome
young man, in a tone that reminded me
of Aladdin's Djin. To the horror of the
driver, I grilled him on bis group's
involvement in illegal limber trade. He
very politely denied all allegations and
happily posedfor a photograph.
Where do they fell trees? I asked
everybody? Even the bardboiled local

"journos" had no ansivers. They said
their beat was to cover only human toll
.-1 19-year-old bubbly Kashmiri girl,
whom I had befriended, took me to a
village and introduced me to a man
who was an assistant to a bigtime tim­
ber smuggler. That made my story. 1
saw and shot the entire logging opera­
tion, which was going on like clock­
work.
My return from the logging site was
equally dramatic. I was on a hilltop, at
the height that required a good twohour climb. Somebody trekked up and
told me that an army patrol had
detained my driver and was lookingfor
me. Later I got to know that they bad
been combing for militants, and
thought that I had come to cover the
operation, or to meet the militants.
?ls / rushed downbill, I could see at
least a dozen armed personnel march­
ing up and down in search of me. One
man carried a rocket-launcher. My
heart skipped several beats. "Take me to
your officer," 1 said cockily, but ner­
vously eyeing the rocket-launcher. The
officer chided me for venturing out into
the jungle when an operation was
going on. Seeing myself, my camera, the
car and the driver, all in working con­
dition, I quipped: “You should have told
me that earlier.

thousands otherwise spent on repairs. Madan's
innovation drew excited letters from DTE readers,
who urged him to apply for a patent.

Brains trust: external contributors' cell

^EEUN&ISSUE-S====
The report that the government is planning seven
high-speed national cargo highways, and supple­
mented by the running debate in Western
European countries over which is more environ­
mentally benign, railways or vehicular highways,
CSE set up a team of two researchers to investi­
gate the issue in India. The investigation revealed
that by ignoring capable and cost-effective
indigenous technology, the policy-makers are
pushing for capital-intensive technology import,
despite being ticked off for that by Parliamentary
standing committee on railways. Interestingly,
CSE also brought out that the World Bank, in a
pioneering study on Indian railways, found that
electrification was more expensive than settling
for diesel engines.

Tire issue of the communities' right to information
suddenly surged up in November-December last
year, first, due to a new set of rules by the
Ministry of Environment and Forests (MEF) noti­
fied under the existing environment protection
statutes. Though this came from top, the right to

know also made a powerful entry from the subal­
tern level, when the people in a small township
in Rajasthan, during the recent election campaign,
forced the chief minister of the state to grant them
the right, albeit quite superficially, and said that
villagers are entitled to access any document

When one talks about globalisation, it would be unwise to keep intellectual
interaction out of it. CSE has been aiming at creating a globalforum for writ­
ers, thinkers and planners across the world to express their ideas and views
on issues of local regional and global significance in the arena of environ­
ment, science, technology, development, health, energy, etc. The Cell is thus a
means to access research information on a variety of topical issuesfrom per­
sons who are pre-eminent in their respective fields. There are our regular con­
tributors from India, who, apart from research inputs, keep us abreast of the
latest developments from the far-flung comers of the country. The specialists
based in other countries feed into the Centre's research work, enhancing the
value of the inputs provided by our in-house staff. The Cell undertook the task
of identifying experts in variousfields of interest. The response has been excel­
lent, and our brains trust has grown remarkably over the last year.
REGULAR
CONTRIBUTORS

Rahul
Indore

D Balasubramaniam
Hyderabad

Bhanusingha Ghosh
New Delhi

Reena Mohan
New Delhi

Fred Pearce
United Kingdom

Chris Furedy
Canada

Sanjay Ghose
New Delhi

Ge Qiufang
China

Fans Tuinstra
China

Sanjay Kak
New Delhi

John Kurien
Trivandrum

Frederick Noronha
Panaji

S Rajendran
Bangalore

Khalid Husain
Pakistan

J B Dash
Baripapa

Shigeki Wakayama
Japan

Kirit Parikh
Bombay

Joseph Anthony
Trivandrum

Sujata Rao
Russia

LAK Singh
Baripada

Judith Perera
United Kingdom

V M Sharma
Jabalpur

Noel Rajesh
Thailand

Keya Acharya
Bangalore

V Sreeraj
Trivandrum

Pamela Chasek
United States

Kishore Jethanandani
New Delhi

SPECIALIST
CONTRIBUTORS

Peter Stone
Switzerland

Leonissah Munjoma
Zimbabwe

Adil Khan
Australia

SCIENCE
CONTRIBUTORS

Mostafa K Majumder
Dhaka, Bangladesh

Adil Najam
United States

J R Malhotra
New Delhi

Nalaka Gunawardene
Kotte, Sri Lanka

Austin Uganwa
Nigeria

Raghavendra Gadagkar
Bangalore

Otula Owuor
Nairobi, Kenya

Bharat Jhunjhunwala
New Delhi

Shobhit Mahajan
New Delhi

Prakash Khanal
Kathmandu, Nepal

Carlos Tautz
Brazil

V Nanjundaiah
Bangalore

31

relating to developmental projects in their respec­
tive areas. CSE was not only the first to scoop the
news about the MEF rules, which our director and
deputy director sniffed out in Washington, but
also reported the subaltern-level moves It was
our grassroots-level networking that allowed us
to do so, and DTE was the only one in the Indian
media which could rise over petty election cover­
age to bring out one of the genuine people's
issues.

THE UNIQUE EXPERIMENT
CSE also sent its reporter to the adivasi area of
Mendha in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra to
witness a unique gathering where the urbane
intellectuals joined hands with the Gond tribals
to chalk out a plan for developing the adivasi
hamlets. The residents of this nondescript village
have raised the revolutionary' banner of mat a
nate rnava raj (our rale in our villages), and
waged a war with the authorities to gain control
over their own natural resources. Twice a year.
in September and March, scientists from urban

Film and Television Unit
Last year, CSEfinished the production of its maiden video venture, a
series of three videos on sustainable village ecology called The
Wealth of the Nation. The video Harvest of Rain was selected in the
competition section of the first video festival on science and develop­
ment in Thiruvananthapuram. Tire video deals with the traditional
Indian knotvledge on water harvesting and the social institutions
that protected it from ages. The video was well received among the
audience.
Tire other video of the series, The Village Republic was selected in
the Mumbai Short Film Festival. We take this only as the beginning
of a long innings in environmental communication.
This year, CSE has started shooting a 16 mm documentary film
on sacred groves. The first location shooting for the film in a village
called Ahupe in Pune district, has already finished. The other loca­
tions where the film will take us are in Karnataka, Rajasthan and
Meghalaya.
Thefilm will explore a unique system that has preserved all these
forests for hundreds ofyears. It will also outline the threats these
forests are facing as well as the erosion of values that undermines
the value of god. The film will tty to learn the lessons from sacred
groves Io go forward to a more secularform ofprotecting resources.

areas rub shoulders with the adivasis to study
the village's 18.000 ha of forests. These ‘out­
siders' help the villagers to study the region's
pristine forest for proper resource planning.

STEPS FORWARD
Steadily pursuing its objective of ensuring a wider
dissemination of information and sensitising the
readers of the global print media on a whole vari­
ety of issues, the CSE/Down To Earth Feature
Service — the first green feature service in India
— has been making rapid progress, notching up
many of firsts' on its list, including a new column
— Green Politics. It analyses the economic, social
and political considerations behind environmen­
tal processes and presents forcefully the Southern
perspective. Newspapers and newsmagazines
have responded enthusiastically to this. Many of
our analyses and debates on the realpolitik
behind green issues have been reproduced in a
cross-section of the media. Among those who
have given exposure to CSE Feature Service are
FAO Newsletter. Bangladesh Observer, Himal, The
Hindustan Times, The Times of India, The'Week,
The Telegraph. Deccan Chronicle. Newstime. The
Tribune and .1/ P Chronicle, to name a few.
An international edition of the service has
also been launched this year to increase the rele­
vance of the service and widen its subscriber
base. This specialised, ready-to-use package of
articles, comprising features to interest an interna­
tional readership, has been received enthusiasti­
cally and has generated a lot of curiosity among
prospective buyers.
An exhaustive mailing list has been drawn up
for this brand new addition and we are now
awaiting responses from readers and prospective
readers.

FAIR DEALS
With DTE having gone public, one inevitable task
for the furtherance of advocacy was to establish a
market presence and identity. It was widely felt
that the outreach must be expanded as soon as
and as swiftly as possible. One of the best ways
that came our way were the two major book fairs,
the International Book Fair in New Delhi, and the
Calcutta Book Fair, both extremely high impact
affairs.
An inter-departmental team of six, coordinat­
ed by the deputy director, was set up to deal with
the task. It was much tougher than had been esti­
mated at the early stages, requiring rigorous
deadlines and hard intellectual and physical activ­
ity. However, the rewards have been not just
more than rewarding, they have been enlighten­
ing, too.
The first realisation is that environmental
awareness, or more precisely speaking, environ­
mental curiosity as it exists today among the
urban literate section is much more widespread

Environment update
The Book and Newsletter Production Unit of the
Cell for Science and Environment Information
works on the editing of the Centre's publica­
tions, newsletters, pamphlets and other printed
materials.
In an effort to disseminate information and
create awareness amongst our readers about dif­
ferent environmental issues, the unit has
launched a series of booklets on the state of envi­
ronment. The State of the Environment Series
deals with indepth studies and critical analyses
of various national and international issues on
environment.
The Curse of the White Gold
The first of our series focusses on the Aral Sea
crisis — the result of economic processes set in
motion by the planners of the erstwhile Soviet
Union in the 1950s. It is one of the biggest eco­
logical disasters, second only to Chernobyl.
Protection of Nature Parks: Whose
Business?
Our second publication is on protected areas
anil wildlife conservation. It presents the
proceedings of a debate on the state of our
national parks and sanctuaries, and whether
the people living in and around these protected
areas should be involved in their management
or not.

In the pipeline
Slow Murder: A Deadly Story of
Vehicular Emission in India
This booklet on vehicular air pollution reveals
the grim story of state-supervised slow mur­
der. Vehicular pollution emerges as the key
culprit in the overall problem of air pollution.
There Is no coherent policy to deal with the
problem except an absolute mish-mash of ad
hoc ideas.

more concerned about greenbacks than green
issues, who go to the polls with an agenda of
development that destroys the very resource
needed — environment. Behind the tall claims
and pledges of their manifestoes, are they really
serious about the problems that plague our
environment?

The booklet on the state of India's urban wet­
lands assesses the tragic destruction of this life­
line of India's cities which for centuries have
been protected by tradition and preserved by
people.
The unit will shortly bring out two major publi­
cations which are in an advanced stage of pro­
duction:

Traditional Water Harvesting Systems
This book looks into the water harvesting sys­
tems that have existed traditionally in different
parts of India. The book traces the history of
water harvesting in India, dating back to the
prehistoric period. Different sections cover the
systems found in different ecological regions of
the country such as zings in Ladakh, kuhls in
Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, bamboo
drip irrigation in Meghalaya, ahars, pynes and
johads of the Indo-Gangetic Plains, khadins of
Rajasthan, bandharas of the Deccan Plateau,
and tanks in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and
Kathiawar. The book is in the final stages of
production.

The booklet on political parties and their ‘green'
promises deals with Indian political parties,

The Challenge of the Ecological Balance
With the opening up of the economy to liberali­
sation and a market framework, the integra­
tion of economics with environment has
become urgent. There are ecological costs of the
process of economic growth. What are these
costs and how do we quantify them? How do we
ensure that consumers pay these costs? The book
sets down the attempts of eminent economists
and environmentalists to answer these ques­
tions and evolve public policies on these issues.

than wc had estimated. Our editions of DTE, of
the various books, some of the video films and
even some of the advocacy posters that had been
designed specially for the book fairs, were swept
off the market. Some readers, after having
browsed through some recent copies, came back
to buy entire old stocks. It was a major break­
through for the Centre’s Environmental
Information Dissemination Unit, and indeed, for
the whole of CSE.
The heartening fact was that the market

revealed a very sharply-focussed need. People,
for instance, wanted to buy "everything related
to biodiversity,” or say, related to wetlands, or
vehicular pollution, etc. This meant that the level
of urban environmental literacy was higher than
we knew. People were not buying a fashion­
able, almost elitist, talking-point of our times:
environment. They were buying real information
on real problems. And DTE was not just another
glossy. It had taken environmental issues off the
coffee table and placed it firmly on the streets.

39

PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS

I
Environmental resources

Green wisdom

'Libsys', an
integrated library
management

software package,

has been installed

to take care

of indexing,
abstracting,
subscription orders

and other financial
management of the
section. This

multi-user package

Over the past 14 years, CSE has acquired a vast
treasury of material on environmental issues.
This material is in various forms — textual, visu­
al and audio-visual. CSE has been trying to
strengthen its environmental resource unit
(ERU) with a view to systematically document
and disseminate this material. ERU has four dis­
tinct sections — books, documents and periodi­
cals; newspapers and newsmagazines; audio­
visuals; and a database section. With the inten­
tion of expanding its sphere, the unit has under­
taken several innovative projects to make itself
more accessible and user-friendly. All four sec­
tions in this unit are knit together by a common
thesaurus of keywords to retrieve information.
This year was marked by efforts to upgrade the
technological base of the unit to cater to new
development

Green leaves
The section has reading and reference material
on science, technology and environment, includ­
ing their interfaces with industry', energy’, agricul­
ture, economy, health, history, art and culture
and education for information, research, and pol­
icy-making at national and international levels.
The books, documents and periodicals track
down the progress made in various branches of
environment and development throughout the
world. Hence, the section is a primary target for
freelance researchers, doctoral and post-doctoral
fellows, journalists, media persons and the like.
A thesaurus of more than 4,000 selected termi­
nology helps the user in locating the classified

choice There is also an exhaustive section on
various statistical references.
The total holding of books is around 30,000.
The Centre also subscribes to 117 Indian and for­
eign periodicals and receives about 585 on com­
plimentary basis. These include bulletins, jour­
nals, newsletters and reviews.
In an attempt to strengthen it further, the CSE
library went in for a complete overhaul, with
modem furniture and new computers. All books
have been taken stock of, duplicate books were
weeded out, old books bound and revitalised,
and missing books identified Keywords on the
stacks and computers will help the user to locate
books faster and easily. Libsys’, an integrated
library management software package, has been
installed to take care of indexing, abstracting,
subscription orders and other financial manage­
ment of the section. This multi-user package runs
on the LAN system which has made the library
more accessible.
The section has introduced a Book and
Journal Attention Service since July 1995. It offers
a concise description of the environment-related
themes and reviews as presented by researchers
and activists. It also provides details regarding
the author, publisher, year of publication, price
and availability of the written material.

Green news
Newspapers and newsmagazines, a crucial sec­
tion of ERU, plays a major role in the day-to-day
work of the unit. It provides a newspaper clip­
ping service in the fields of environment, science

runs on the LAN

Making of the Green Files
system which has
made the library

more accessible

Each day the Centre receives around 35 newspapers and news magazines from around the world.
These are marked for relevant articles, which are then selected, cut and pasted, and filed subject and
section-wise. Each section has a code and the marked clippings are classified into 25 sections. On an
average, around 500 clippings are filed daily.
These clippings not only come in handy for the staff members but are also used for making the
Green Files.
The newspaper and newsmagazine section publishes India Green File and South Asia Green file
every month. Each file is divided into 16 sections such as environment, agriculture, dams, forests, liv­
ing resources, health, pollution, energy, etc. India Green File is a compilation ofabout 350 clippings on
various issues while South Asia Green File carries around 200-250 clippings.
For the Green Files photocopies of the clippings are used, reduced or enlarged depending on the
column size of the original clippings. The photocopies are arranged as per section, issue and date.
These are then given to a paste-up artist to do the page layout.
Each article is keyworded and an index made for easy reference. Both the Green Files carry an
executive summary which is done section-wise to provide a bird’s eye-view of the contents.
Selection of clippingsfor the Green Files is indeed a tough Job owing to the vast volume of mater­
ial available and the constraints of space. Utmost importance is given to environment-related news
items.

and technology, including their interfaces with
other issues of importance to the society. The
section subscribes to a total of 47 Indian and
international newspapers and nine news­
magazines. These are scanned daily and marked
for clippings
Since July 1995. the section has introduced a
daily bulletin board, w’hich draw's attention to the
latest news appearing in the national and
international newspapers and newsmagazines. It
covers important issues like environment, health,
agriculture, energy, science and technology
The tremendous response received for the
India Green File, published every month since
1988, led to the birth of the South Asia Green File
in August 1995. India Given Fife deals exclusive­
ly with new's articles related to Indian environ­
ment while the South Asia Green File carries
news items on all South Asian countries.
The section has also compiled clippings on
Enron and Nylon 6,6 issues into two booklets. It
has put together all available information on die
Enron and Nylon 6,6 project, starting from the
stage of negotiations till the events at the end of
September 1995.

Pictorial guide
The audio-visual section provides audio-visual
products as an aid to enhance awareness in the
field of environment, science and technology. It
has collected a total of 228 films on environ­
ment from different parts of die world. CSE has
been granted the right to copying many of these

films. The section boasts of an exclusive collec­
tion of slides. In 1995, CSE acquired some new
films and audio cassettes from the US and other
countries.
The section has slide shows and photo exhi­
bitions on its agenda. These shows and exhibi­
tions will be organised in schools and colleges.
The first slide show package — The Story of a
River — captures the environmental crisis in
India, focussing on the pollution of river Ganga,
both by the industrial and domestic polluting
agents.

Databank package
To facilitate researchers, planners, NGOs and
journalists, the database section has strengthened
its reference and research base on environment
and other related materials, and plans to make it
available in digital forms to provide easy and
integrated access. The section has developed a
resource persons databank, categorised under
various headings — individuals, universities,
NGOs working in the field of environment, for­
est, wildlife, etc. This database is now available
on a single platform with a user-friendly inter­
face. Within a year, over 880 lists have been
developed from this data. Some of the lists are
regarding NGOs, journalists, wildlife, protected
areas, global climate change, ongoing research
on environmental issues in India, CSE resource
persons, government departments and officials.
pollution control boards and researchers in the
field of biodiversity.

41

PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS

Events
Lecture on Sustainable Development and
People’s Participation at PRIA. New Delhi.

Mitra participated.

April 1995: Anil Agarwal delivered a talk.
Workshop on Ecology and Politics at Delhi
University, organised by the Centre for
Professional Development in Higher Education.
New Delhi. April 1995: Anil Agarwal participated
as a resource person.

nised by the National Committee for Protection
of Common Land Resources (NCPCLR),
Bangalore. August 1995: Anil Agarwal chaired
the session on Leasing of Forest Lands to
Industries Supriya Akerkar attended and pre­
sented recommendations on the future course of
action at lite concluding session.

Third National Consultation of the State
Forest Ministers, organised by the Ministry of

Environment and Forests, New Delhi, May 1995;
Amit Mitra attended.
Delhi’s Water Crisis and the Role of
Students — a talk delivered to students and

Faculty of Delhi University Women's Home
Science College. New Delhi, May 1995: Lecture
by Amit Mitra
Water Shortage and an Agenda for Action.

organised by the Centre for Social Action. New
Delhi, June 1995: Amit Mitra spoke to village
women around Vasant Kunj.
Multipurpose Workshop on Environment
Education for school teachers of Tibetan

schools, organised by Tibet House, New
Delhi, June 1995: Anil Agarwal delivered the
valedictory lecture.
National Seminar on the Linkages between
Forest and other Sectors of the Indian
Economy, organised by the Indian Institute of

National Workshop on Forest Lands, orga­

15th World Conference of the International
Union for Health Promotion and Education

Tokyo. August 1995: Anil Agarwal delivered the
keynote address.
A National Consultation on Child Labour,

organised by the International Working Group on
Child Labour. The Campaign Against Child
Labour. The Defence for Children International
and the India International Centre, New Delhi,
September 1995: Amit Mitra attended the meeting.
Deliberations on People's Draft Forest Bill.

Indian Social Institute, New Delhi, September
1995: Amit Mitra participated
International Conference on Sustainable
Development of the Aral Sea Basin States at
Nukus. Uzbekistan. September 1995: Anil

Agarwal participated.
Meeting of the Board of Directors of ETC. The

Agarwal.

Hague. The Netherlands, September 1995: Anil
Agarwal attended the meeting.
First Indian Video Film Festival, Thiruvananthapuram, September 1995. Pradip Saha and
Harsh Singhal attended the festival to present
CSE's film. Harvest of Rain, in the competition
section

Meeting on Conflict
Resolution
in
Biodiversity Conservation, organised by WWF

Workshop on Environmental Pollution and
Human Health, organised by the University

and IPCO, Bhopal. June 1995: Neena Singh
attended the meeting.
Adivasi Women’s Conference, Rourkela, June
1995; Supriya Akerkar attended.

College of Medical Sciences and GTB Hospital,
New Delhi. October 1995: Anil Agarwal
delivered the keynote lecture.

Forest Management, Bhopal. June 1995: Anil
Agarwal delivered the inaugural address.
Interview by ZEE TV on Deforestation and
Industry, June 1995: Interview with Anil

Meeting of the Delhi Core Group on
Resettlement and Rehabilitation. Indian

Social Institute, New Delhi, July 1995: Amit Mitra
attended the deliberations.
Making Forest Policy Work, summer course
programme, organised by the Oxford Forestry
Institute, Oxford, UK, July 1995: Sunita Narain
gave the opening lecture.
Meeting of NGOs to finalise People’s Forest
Bill and Draft Rehabilitation Policy.

Anandwan, Warora.July 1995: Amit Mitra attended
the meeting.
Interview by BITV on Environment for the
Series Eco-Logic, July 1995: Interview with Anil

Agarwal.
Workshop on Children and Environment

organised by the Centre of Concern for
Child Labour, New Delhi, August 1995: Anil
Agarwal delivered the keynote lecture. Amit

Programme Policy Committee Meeting of the
Urban Waste Expertise Programme of
WASTE consultants, Gouda, The Netherlands,

October 1995’ Sunita Narain participated as a
member of the three-person committee set up at
the request of the Netherlands Ministry of
Development Cooperation.
The Photography Symposium, New Delhi,
October 1995: Kalpana Bandiwdekar attended
the symposium.
Film on Environmental Science by Insight
Productions telecast by ZEE TV, October 1995.
New Delhi: Anil Agarwal participated.
Business Breakfast by Television Bazaar tele­
cast by Doordarshan's national channel, October
1995: Anil Agarwal reviewed the business head­
lines with Jairam Ramesh.
International Conference on the Cultural
Dimension of Education and Ecology, organ­

ised by UNESCO and the Indira Gandhi National

Centre for Arts, New Delhi, October 1995; Amit
Mitra participated.
NGO Consultation for Global Environmental
Facility, Washington DC, October 1995- Ravi

Sharma presented a critique of the GEF
Operational Strategy on climate change and bio­
diversity.
Meeting of the International NGO Forum.

Manila, November 1995; Ravi Sharma coordi­
nated the environment and development net­
works of South Asia and was elected the Asian
representative to the International Facilitating
Committee.
20th Anniversary Celebrations CRIDEV,

Rennes France, November 1995: Anil Agarwal
participated in these celebrations and gave a
series of talks at Rennes, Caen, Lyons and Lorient.
Round Table with Gunter Pauli, meeting on
zero emissions, organised by the Tata Energy
Research Institute, New Delhi, November 1995:
Harsh Singhal attended the meeting.
Seventh Meeting of the Montreal Protocol,

Vienna, December 1995: Ravi Sharma presented
a paper at the meeting to celebrate the 10th
anniversary of the Vienna Convention.
Meeting on Biodiversity Convention, orga­
nised by Worldwide Fund for Nature, New Delhi,
December 1996; Sumita Dasgupta attended the
meeting.

Issues in the Manifestoes of Political Parties,

organised by Lokshakti Abhiyan, Jan Vikas
Andolan, People's Science Institute, New Delhi,
February 1996: Supriya Akerkar attended the
seminar.
Head to Head Debates, organised by the
Oxford Centre for the Environment, Ethics and
Society, Oxford, UK, February 1996: Sunita
Narain debated with Andrew Steer, director of
the environment department of the World Bank.
on the issue of Global Environment Concern —
At whose expense?
Protest Campaign against Non-implementation of the Bhuria Committee Report, organ­

ised by Bharat Jan Andolan on New Delhi,
February 1996: Supriya Akerkar participated.
National Convention of Voluntary Activists
on Nation Building, organised by VAN!,

AVARD and VHAI, New Delhi, February 1996:
Amit Mitra attended the meeting.
Workshop on the Rights of Tribals and
Indigenous Peoples, organised by the

Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and the
Minority Rights Group. New Delhi, February
1996: Amit Mitra attended the meeting.
Meeting on Ecology and Development —
The Role of Academics organised by the Indian

Social Institute. New Delhi. February 1996: Amit
Mitra attended the meeting.

Meeting to draft People’s Land Acquisition
Act, in lieu of The Land Acquisition Act, 1896

Meeting of the Task Force of the Planning
Commission on River Cleaning Systems.

and discussing the People s Rehabilitation and
Resettlement Policy organised by the Indian
Social Institute, New Delhi, January 1996: Amit
Mitra attended the meeting.

New Delhi,
attended.

Himalayan Women’s Workshop on National
Policy on Women, organised by Himalayan

Institute, March 1996: Neena Singh attended the
meeting.

Action Research Centre, Dehradun and the
Society For Participatory' Research in Asia, New
Delhi, January 1996: Amit Mitra participated.
Workshop on Farmers’ Rights, organised by
M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, Madras,
January 1996; Sumita Dasgupta attended the
meeting.

Meeting on Impoverishment Risks in
Involuntary Resettlement, organised by the

Meeting on Tribal Culture and Identity,

Indian Social Institute, New Delhi, January 1996:
Amit Mitra participated.
NGOs Meet on Environment, organised by
Ministry of Environment and Forests, New Delhi,
January 1996: Amit Mitra attended.
The Second Development, Management and
Education Programme on Sustainable
Development, organised by PRIA, New Delhi.

January 1996: Amit Mitra spoke to the partici­
pants.
Meeting on Community Forest Management
of Protected Areas, organised by Rural

Litigation Entitlement Kendra in Dehradun.
Febmary 1996: Sunita Narain and Neena Singh
attended the meeting.
Seminar on Inclusion of Environmental

March

1996:

Harsh

Singhal

NGO Meeting to Discuss Changes in the
Wildlife Act. organised by Indian Social

Social Development Unit, The World Bank. New
Delhi, March 1996: Amit Mitra attended.
First Session of the Independent Expert
Group, established by the Swiss-Peruvian

governments as their initiative on forests,
Geneva, March 1996: Sunita Narain attended the
meeting as the representative of NGOs.
Meeting on Consumption Patterns, organised
by Consumption Production Systems Change
Action Network, East London. South Africa,
March 1996: Ravi Sharma participated.
Framework Convention on Climate Change,

Geneva, March 1996 Ravi Sharma presented a
paper on NGO involvement in climate change
negotiations.
GEF Council Meeting, NGO Consultations.

Washington DC. March 1996: Ravi Shanna pre­
sented a critique of GEF funded ecodevelopment
projects.
Environment and the Poor, organised at the
World Bank. March 1996: Lunch lecture by Anil
Agarwal.

43

PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS
____•- ■■■■■ I

21__ -

In print
What we wrote
CSE researchers and writers prepared a senes of
reports on science, environment, health and
energy issues in 1995-96. which include:

Down To Earth, New Delhi, April 15
1. Anumita Roycboudhary 1995. Writing off
the World's Forests A report on the spi­
ralling consumption of wood by the paper
industry and global initiatives to direct the
industry towards sustainability.
2.

Anjani Khanna anil Devendra Chauhan
1995, Teasing Death The report analyses
the existing system of drug trials which has
gaping holes in the methodology' of the trials
and leaves room for misinformation and sup­
pression of evidence.

Down To Earth, New Delhi, April 30
3. Rabid Shrivastava 1995. A Question of
Industry. A report on the Supreme Court
order against polluting industries to clean up
or shift out of the capital.

4.

5.

Anto Akkara 1995, Spirited Battle. A report
on the united action by tribal women in
Kerala against the liquor lobby strongly
entrenched in the tribal belts.

Rakesb Kalsbian 1995, A Matter of the
Mind. The report analyses the current swing
towards mind and body medicine which
accords an important role for attitudes,
beliefs, and emotional state of the mind in
influencing physical health.

Down To Earth, New Delhi, May 15
6. Max Martin 1995, The Mystery of the
Aquadeaths. The report examines die rea­
sons behind the devastating white spot dis­
ease which destroyed the entire season's
crop of shrimps in the country and looks at
its impact on the pisciculture industry.

7.

Anjani Khanna 1995, Visionary. An inter­
view with Carl Kupfer, director, National Eye
Institute, Bethseda, on the current state of
eye research and future directions.

Down To Earth, New Delhi, May 31
8. Rita Anand 1995, The Forgotten Waters of
Sanchl. A report on the Archaeological
Survey of India's efforts to revive the ancient
water harvesting system in Sanchi.

9.

Uday Shankar 1995. Power Struggle. An
analysis of the review of Nepal's controver­

sial Arun III dam by the recently constituted
inspection panel of the World Bank.
10 Sumita Dasgupta 1995. Greens Scream
Blue Murder A report on the response from
environmentalists to Republican moves to
modify key environmental Acts such as the
1972 Clean Water Act and the Endangered
Species Act.
Down To Earth, New Delhi. June 15
11 Rabid 1995. Windowdressing Forestry. A
report on the plight of tribals under the
tyranny of forest department in Harda in
Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh.
where the World Bank had sanctioned a loan
of Rs 800 crore for forest development.

12. Shobbit Mahajan 1995. Top Quirk A
detailed report on how the elusive top quark,
which had been detected for nearly two
decades, was finally pinned down at the
Fermi Lab in Batavia, Illinois, USA thus prov­
ing the Standard Model — the theoretical
framework of sub-atomic phenomena.

13 Ainit Mitra 1995, Dang and Blast The
report traces the history of exploitation of the
forests belonging to the Dang tribals result­
ing in their poverty.
Down To Earth, New Delhi, June 30
14. Snjit Cbakraborty 1995, Muckraking A
report on the innovative waste management
techniques employed by the Calcutta
Metropolitan Water and Sanitation Authority.
15.

Rakesb Kalsbian 1995, The Essence of
Being. The article explores the elusive men­

tal phenomena of consciousness.
Down To Earth. New Delhi, July 15
16. Supriya Akerkar 1995, Sustainability and
the Southern Perspective. A critical analy­
sis of Towards Sustainable Europe' — a
report brought out by Friends of the Earth.
17.

Max Martin 1995, Hellfires in the Hills. A
special report on the forest fires in Pauri
Garhwal and the reasons for apathy of both
the forest department as well as local people.

Down To Earth, New Delhi, July 31
18. Sumita Dasgupta 1995, The Great Nuke
Snobbery. A special report on France’s plans
to go ahead with nuclear experiments in South
Pacific in the face of international opposition.

19.

Rakesh Kalshian 1995, Killer Chlorine. An
analysis of the recent findings on hazardous
effects of chlorine, once hailed as a boon to
health.

Down To Earth, New Delhi, August 15
20. Rakesh Agarwal 1995, Extinguished. The
story of a unique village of Patial in
Hoshiarpur, Punjab, which has framed its
own rules to protect forests. Today, this selfsufficiency is being threatened by alien sys­
tems of governance brought about by urban
politics.

21

Kavita Charanji 1995, The Last Frontier.
An analytical report on the over-drive of the
world's fishing industry' backed by belliger­
ent politics.

Down To Earth, New Delhi, August 31
22 Manjula Balakrishnan 1995, Damned
Bodyblow. A special report on the proposed
Rathong Chu dam in Sikkim, touted as a har­
binger of prosperity currently caught in legal
action by environmentalists protesting
against the environmental impact of the dam.

23

Asbisb Vachbani 1995, Sex on the Brain A
report on the controversial findings on gen­
der differences in the brain.

Down To Eartit, New Delhi, September 15
24. Supriya Akerkar 1995, Fencing
Territory, Fencing out Inequality

Supriya Akerkar 1995, Oiling the Wheels of
Globalisation. An analysis of the report:

Our Global Governance, brought out by the
Commission on Global Neighbourhood
which calls for a democratic world gover­
nance.
Down To Earth, New Delhi, September 30
26. Max Martin, Madhumita Dutta, Himanshu
Thakkar and Sujit Chakraborty 1995, Green
Justice: Up in Smoke? A special report on
polluting units across the country in the light
of court orders to shut down units.

27.

Rakesh Kalshian 1995, Power Crunch in
Paradise. An analysis of the developmental

policies of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

28.

30 Rustam Vania 1995, A Sandy Paradox. A
report on the changing agricultural practices
in western Rajasthan, with water-intensive
agriculture pushing out the sewan grasslands
which are the traditional pasturelands.
Down To Earth, New Delhi, October 31
31. Meera Iyer 1995, Blood on its Hands. A
report on the pollution and hazardous waste
from the chemical unit zone, packed with
1,500 units in Ankleshwar.

32. Ambika Sharma. Anju Sharma, Uday
Shankar, 1995 Criminal Waste. A feature
analysing the state of the country's urban
wetlands which are being destroyed system­
atically by developmental forces.
Down To Earth, New Delhi, November 15
33 Supriya Akerkar 1995, Major Battle for
Minor Stuff A report on the movement by
Ekta Parishad, a coalition of tribal groups to
fight for their rights over minor forest pro­
duce.

34.

Manjula Balakrishnan 1995, Swamped by
Sewage. A report on the environmental con­

ditions of small towns taking Aligarh as a
case study.
Down To Earth, New Delhi, October 15
29- Neena Singh 1995, Conservation Crunches.
A review of panda conservation and social
development — a study based on an assess­

Anil Agarwal 1995, Will the Aral Sea Ever
Come Back? A report on one of the world's

greatest ecological disasters — drying up of
the Aral Sea, once the world's fourth largest
lake.

in
A

report on the adivasi women's conference in
Rourkela, Orissa, a forerunner to the Beijing
World Conference of Women.

25.

ment of Wolong and other panda reserves in
China, 1994.

Down To Earth, New Delhi, November 30
35. Anupam Goswami 1995, The Price of
Power. A report on the movement against
the Cogentrix power plant against the back­
ground of opposition to industrialisation of
the pristine Dakshin Kannada region.

36.

Meera Iyer 1995, Alimentary Cases. A spe­
cial report on the trial brought by
McDonald's against two nondescript environ­
mental activists in the United Kingdom,
which boomeranged.

37.

Rakesh Kalshian 1995, Mystique of Metal
Therapy. An analysis of the therapeutic
powers of metals as practised by ayurvedic
and metal therapy practitioners of today.

38.

Sunita Raina 1995, Plagued by Rats. The
report examines different aspects of the
plague problem.

Down To Earth, New Delhi, December 15
39. Sumita Dasgupta 1995, Patent Paradox. A
report exposing the greed behind plant utili­
ty patent models developed by US firms
being pushed as ideal systems to be adopted
by the signatories of the World Trade
Agreement.
40. Sumita Dasgupta 1995. Outrage. A report on
the Ogonis' battle to preserve their lands

45

against developmental ravage by multina­
tionals culminating in the execution of Ken
Saro-Wiwa, the leader of the Movement for
the Survival of the Ogoni People.

report on the unique movement to bring
about a change in educational system to
inculcate a spirit of enquiry in students.

51.

Ambika Sbanna 1996, The Original Mas
The report analyses the theory that the house
mouse had its origins in India, established by
researchers at the National Institute of
Immunology,
in
collaboration
with
researchers in France.

52.

Manjula Balakrisbnan 1996. Pest of a
Problem A special report on the continued

Down To Earth, New Delhi. December 31
41. Rakesh Agarwal 1995, The Swaraj Dream. A
report on the unique experiment to chalk out
planning and development in adiuasi ham­
lets, initiated by Gram Niyojan Evam Vikas
Parishad, with die help of academicians.

42.

Max Martin 1996, Of Barren Hills and
Barren Smoke. An analysis of the environ­
mental ravage in the last green frontiers of
Kashmir by militants while the anny looks on
passively.

Down To Earth, New Delhi, January 15
43. Max Martin 1996, Crisis in Krishna A spe­
cial report on deforestation in Krishna district
of Andhra Pradesh, with active connivance
from political heavyweights of various hues.

44.

Asbisb Vachbani 1996, Encounter Jovis
Pater A report on the space exploration
venture to Jupiter by the Galileo spacecraft.

Down To Earth, New Delhi, January’ 31
45. Meera Iyer 1996, The Dam Sham. A report
on the controversial Bakun dam project
across.river Balui in Malaysia, which has
been opposed by environmentalists on vari­
ous grounds.

46.

47.

Mustafa Kamal Majumdar and Sumita
Dasgupta 1996, Prioritising People. A
report on the two-day meeting of donor
agencies of Flood Action Programme
launched in 1988, in Bangladesh.

use of DDT in India, while it is banned in
developed countries as a substance highly
stressful to the environment.

Down To Earth, New Delhi, February 29
53- Asbish Vachbani and Rajat Banerjee 1996,
Geared to Derail A special report on the
state of the Indian railways, the largest rail­
way network in the world, and its future
plans.

54. Rakesh Agarwal 1996. Pouring Prosperity
A report on the successful efforts of a local
NGO, the Marathwada Navnirman Lokayat,
which introduced a micro-watershed devel­
opment project in tire village of Ambajogai,
in Beed district of Maharashtra.
Down To Earth. New Delhi, March 15
55 Karita Cbaranji 1996, Hour of the Green
Crusader. The report looks into the
American response to the announcement of
a third party candidate in the form of Ralph
Nader, the renowned crusader for consumer
rights.

56.

Rakesh Kalsbian 1996, Evolution with Full
Stops and Commas A report on the recent

research findings which lend credence to the
punctuated equilibrium theory championed
by Niles Eldredge and Stephan Gould.
48.

Meera Iyer 1996, The Dam Sham A report
on the proposed Bakun dam across river
Balui, in the face of opposition from envi­
ronmentalists.

Down To Earth, New Delhi, February 15
49. Satimya Cbaudbri 1996, To Sell a Resource.
In the face of growing demand for water, the
report projects solutions for future manage­
ment of water through tradable property
rights in water and development of water
markets.
50. Joseph Antony 1996, Vigyanotsavam. A

Anil Agarwal 1996. What’s in a Neem? An
analytical report which exposes the inaction
on the part of Indian scientists to cash in on
the wonders of the neem tree, while there
have been a flurry of patents taken out
by Western companies on neem-based
products.

Dow n To Earth, New Delhi, March 31
57. Frederick Noronha 1996. Unveiling the
Past. A report on the Second Congress on
Traditional Sciences and Technologies of
India.
58.

Amit Mitra. Meera Iyer and Rakesh Agarwal
1996, Artisans — The Untold Story.
A detailed report on the despair and devasta­
tion facing the artisans of India, due to
vanishing resources, administrative apathy
in marketing their produce and lack of
technology.

HUMAN RESOURCES

What others said
"It is high time ti e wake up to the realities ofpol­
lution ami take preventive measures rather than
wait for it to take its loll on us," writes Anil
Agarwal The Hindustan Times, New Delhi,
January 1, 1996.
On the Montreal Protocol amendment, Ravi
Shanna of CSE wrote: ‘All stakeholders should be
involved in planning and global negotiations."
Business Standard, New Delhi, January 15, 1996.
On the US environmentalism, a newspaper
wrote, “Americans are good al acting locally, but
not thinking globally, as the editor o/Down To
Earth fortnightly. Anil Agarwal recently told, this
may be a phenomenon associated with countries
of continental dimensions and in that sense too,
Indians tended to be more preoccupied with
national (though not necessarily local) issues
than world ones Frontier Post, Pakistan,
December 6, 1995.
In a letter to Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao,
the Centre for Science and Environment has
demanded a white paper on the status of wildlife
in the country and a reassessment of the Wildlife
Act 1972, amended in 1991. Economic Tinies,
New Delhi, December 8, 1995.
Ravi Sharma was quoted on the Montreal
Protocol, “According to the new agreement, the
production of CFCs have to stop completely by
2010 The Asian Age, New Delhi, December 8,
1995
On the Wildlife Management a newspaper wrote,
“The Centre for Science and Environment, an
NGO, has demanded that the government
reassess the Wildlife Act and introduce suitable
modifications allowing local communities to par­
ticipate in the management ofprotected areas
CSE has written letters to Prime Minister P V
Narasimha Rao and Minister of Stale for
Environment and Forests Rajesb Pilot, putting
forth this and several other demands." The
Pioneer, New Delhi, December 10, 1995.
On wildlife management, Anil Agarwal was quot­
ed, “It is most unfortunate that India today lags
behind in a world that is fast realising that to
conserve biodiversity local people have to be
active and equal partners in the process The
Pioneer, New Delhi, December 27, 1995In an interview, Anil Agarwal was quoted, “I
havefound that politicians are mote interested in
the environment than the bureaucrats because
they seek vote on the issue." Sunday Observer.
New Delhi, November 12, 1995.
On conservation of national parks and sanctuar­
ies, a journalist wrote, “People's movement
activists like Anil Agarwal of the Centre for
Science and Environment advocate giving over
protected areas to local people because they know
best how to manage local resources in sustainable
manner." Indian Express, New Delhi,
November 15, 1995.
On the Basal Convention ban Ravi Sharma was
quoted, “Enforcement of the ban, however, is still

doubted by many, including NGOs like the Centre
for Science and Environment. The Statesman
Calcutta, November 25, 1995.
Reporting on a debate on joint forest manage­
ment organised by CSE, Anil Agarwal was quot­
ed. “Our wildlife is under a serious threat. With
too many park-people conflicts, we have to ask if
we are saving the wildlife and biodiversity with
our existing policies." The Economic Times.
New Delhi, October 15, 1995.
In a workshop on environmental pollution and
human health, held in New Delhi, .Anil Agarwal
was quoted as saying, “Prevention ofphysical
and chemical hazards in work environment and
food safety against contamination are a must. "
The Hindustan Times, New Delhi. October 16,
1995.
On the Montreal Protocol treaty, a journalist
wrote, “The Centre for Science and Environment
has opined that the processes adopted by the
treaty establish wrong precedentsfor solving glob­
al problems. Indian Express. New Delhi.
September 16, 1995.
On the shuffling out of Kamal Nath from the
Ministry of Environment and Forests, just a day
before the Geneva meet on Basal convention,
Vinayaka Rao of CSE has been quoted as saying.
"Needless to say, Kamal Nath bad very strong cre­
dentials as an acting environment ministerfrom a
major developing country. The environmental
issue aiva today calls for more expertise than ever
before. Given the politics ofquick transfers, it is not
possible to pm hopes on the bureaucracy main­
taining institutional memory. The Economic
Times. New Delhi, September 17, 1995.
Writing about the Himalayan region, Anil
Agarwal has been quoted as saying. "Cultural
diversity is not a historical accident It is the
direct out'-ome of the local people learning to
live in harmony with the region s extraordinary
biological diversity. North East Observer,
Guwahati, September 21, 1995.
In an interview regarding granting of forest land
to private parties, Anil Agarwal was quoted as
saying, “It is my considered view that the first
claims overforest lands must be with the commu­
nities that have been installing them traditional­
ly. They should have the right to lease out thefor­
est lands if at all." Legal News and Views.
September 1995.
Writing on a workshop on children and environ­
ment, Anil Agarwal has been quoted as saying,
“The Environment Ministry before clearing pro­
jects for new industries in backward districts
should present an index on the impact of such
industries on the local children. The Pioneer,
New Delhi, August 5, 1995.
On Sukhomajri and its development, Anil
Agarwal has been quoted as saying, “The lesson of
Sukhomajri is that the starling point for environ­
mental regeneration is water and not trees." The
Hindustan Times, New Delhi, May 18, 1995.

47

HUMAN RESOURCES
____________ —_______ .___

I

CSE's Executive Board
Dr G D Agarwal Chairperson

Environmental Engineer; former Dean of Faculty, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur- former
Member-Secretary’ of Central Pollution Control Board; now works in an honorary capacity in
Chitrakoot Gramoday VLshwa Vidyalaya. Chitrakoot
V K Laroia Treasurer

Management Expert, Managing Director of Industrial Development Sen-ices, which offers consultan­
cies to industries. He is also on the Board of Directors of several leading industrial enterprises, such
as Shriram Industrial Enterprises Ltd. INALSA Ltd. Punjab Scooters Ltd. and others
Anil Agarwal Director

Environmentalist and journalist, former science correspondent of The Hindustan Times and the
Indian Express, and Fellow of the International Institute of Environment and Development. London
Sunita Narain Deputy Director

Environmentalist and journalist; author and co-editor of several books on environment

Ela Bhatt Member

Noted social worker; founder of SEWA; and fonner Member of
the Planning Commission

Mridula Garg Member
Journalist and noted Hindi writer; author of several novels

Dr Virendra Kumar Member
Dr Kamla Chowdhry Member

Management Expert; former Chairperson of the National
Wastelands Development Board; currently. Chairperson of the
Society for Promotion of Wastelands Development

Professor of botany, environmentalist, an expert on the Hora of
the Himalaya, and fonner Adviser (hill areas) to the Planning
Commission
Avinindar Singh Member

Dr V Ramalingaswanii Member

Eminent medical scientist; former Director of tire All India
Institute of Medical Sciences; former Director General of the
Indian Council of Medical Research; currently a National
Research Professor
Anupam Mishra Member
Journalist and environmentalist, author of numerous books;
works with the Gandhi Peace Foundation's Environmental Cell

Industrialist, Managing Director of Indfoss Industries, and
former Chairperson of the environment committee of the
Confederation of Indian Industry
B G Verghcse Member
Eminent journalist: former Editor of Tire Hindustan
Times and the Indian Express; currently works
with the Centre for Policy Research on South
Asian Water Issues

In remembrance
With the passing away of Dr Anand Prakash on
February 12, 1996, the Centre has lost an hon­
oured Board Member and a ver)’ dear well-wish­
er. Dr Prakash has had longyears in the legal pro­
fession and was well-known for his tremendous
depth of knowledge, ability and wisdom. For us,
Dr Prakash was much more than a lawyer. Like
all other growing institutions, CSE needed experi­
enced friends who could guide its young man­
agers towards success. Institution building, par­
ticularly in a country like India, requires energy,

patience and above all an experienced head. And,
Dr Prakash was a great help with all his years of
competence and expertise.
Dr Prakash, in just a few years of bis associ­
ation with CSE, provided the strength to keep
going. The Centre needed his support to stay at
theforefront, facing ail challenges. He gave us his
precious time and guidance. U'e will miss bis use­
ful advice and most of all his understanding
about what it takes to build an institution. We
are deeply grateful to bint for his help.

HUMAN RESOURCES

f
Who's who at CSE
Director

Anil Agarwal

Environment, Science and
Technology Reporting Team
Coordinator-. Sujit Chakroborty

Database Unit
Coordinator: Kanak Mittal

Director’s Office

Harsh V Singhal
Gita Kavarana
Jainanuna George

Rajat Banerji
Max Martin
Sunita Raina

Deputy Director

Copy Team

Sunita Narain

Souparno Banerjee
Nabina Das
Manjula Balakrishnan
Shubha Aravindan
Rama Nair
Deepan Joshi

Deputy Director’s Office

V S Rao
Cell for Global Environmental
Governance
Coordinator: Ravi Sharma

Sumita Dasgupta
Vinayak Rao
Raksha Khushlani
Cell for Environmental
Research and Advocacy

Policy Research Unit

Anumita Roychoudhary
Anju Sharma
N Raghuram

Venkat Bharadhwaj
Environment Information
Dissemination Unit
Coordinator-. Kaustav Das

Samapli Praharaj
Sourav Banerjee
Ikhlaque Khan
F Vallabha Reddy
Cell for Management Support

Art Team
Coordinator: Reema Barooah

Accounts and Finance
Manager: S Veeraraghavan

Amit Shanker
Book Publishing Unit
Coordinator: Srabani Sen

Debjani Chatterjee
Nandita Bhardwaj
Bindu Nambiar
Film and Television Unit
Coordinator: Pradip Saha

Anupam Varma
B Venkateswaran
Ajay Kumar
Sales and Despatch
Manager: Subir Banerjee

K C R Raja
R Kalyani

Cell for Environment Resource

A DMINISTRA TION
Manager: K Sivasankaran

Meera Iyer
Rakesh Agarwal

Books, Documents and
Journals Unit
Coordinator:

R K Shukla
Suresh Kumar
C C Shahira

Advocacy Unit

Kalpana Bandiwdekar

Grassroots Unit
Coordinator: Amit Mitra

Supriya Akerkar
Neena Singh
Himanshu Thakkar
Cell for Environmental Education
Coordinator-. Malini Rajendran

Anasuya Kesavan
Reeta Rajasekharan
K M Sheeja
D Thapliyal
Audio-Visual Resources

Cell for Science and Environment
Information
Editor Anil Agarwal

Sabari Chodhury
Anita Chowdhury
Arundhati Rao
Newspapers and Newsmagazines Unit
Coordinator: Kiran Pandey

Production
Manager: B Paul William

R Arokia Raj
Shri Krishan
Anand Singh Rawat
Kirpal Singh
Surender Singh
Systems and Communications
Coordinator: Col Sudhir Manchanda

K S R Srinivasan

Madhumita Paul
Pushpa Thapliyal
Tito Joseph
Inder Kumar

49

HUMAN RESOURCES

Our partners worldwide
The Centre interacts with numerous organisations, both in India and abroad. It works with like-minded
organisations to lobby for the inclusion of Southern perspectives in international fora. Nationally, CSE works
with several groups to support the concept of ‘environmental rights’.

Some of the partners with whom CSE has been collaborating are as follows:

Akshara Prakashana has made CSE's State ofIndia's Environment
reports available in Kannada

CSE assisted CPSW to produce its State of the Environment
report on Orissa by providing available information on the
state.

Approtech Asia, Manila

Creative Learning for Change (CLC), New Delhi

CSE is a founding member of this Asia-wide appropriate
technology network.

It coordinates the production of CSE’s series of children's story
books on environmental issues.

Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS), Dhaka

Desertification Network, Genera
CSE worked with African NGOs to formulate positions on
the Desertification Control Convention at a meeting in
Ougadougu, Mali. Since then, CSE has been an active
member of the network, formed globally to prevent deser­
tification.

Akshara Prakashana, Karnataka

CSE and BCAS work together on issues of global warming and
poverty-environment interface.
Both Ends, Amsterdam

CSE and Both Ends keep in regular contact on issues of
environment.

CSE and CES work together on issues of biodiversity.

Economic et Humanisme, Lyon
CSE works with Economic et Humanisme on environmental
issues.

Centre de Reflexiond’ Information et de Solidaritc (CRISLA)

Environment and Development Research Centre (EDRC),

This organisation has published CSE’s publications including the
Slate ofIndia Environment reports in French.

Brussels
CSE is the South Asian member of the international Network on
Trade and Environment which is located at EDRC.

Centre for Ecological Sciences, Bangalore

Centre International de Recherche sur I’Environncment
et le Developpement (CIRED), Paris

CSE and CIRED exchange information regularly on scientific and
political issues of global warming.
Centre rennais d’information pour 1c developpement,
(CRIDEV), Rennes

Environment Liaison Centre International (ELCI), Nairobi
CSE is a member of ELCI. CSE’s director. Anil Agarwal, was
chairperson of ELCI from 198-1-87. CSE is a founding member
representing South Asia in the International Interim Committee
to Liaison on Biodiversity Convention, whose secretariat is also
located at ELCI.

CSE works with CRIDEV on numerous international issues.
Educational Training Consultancy (ETC), Amsterdam

Climate Action Network (CAN), Washington

CSE is an active member of the global Climate Action
Network, which has members in all regions of the world
to lobby governments to strengthen the Climate Change
Convention.
Community Aid Abroad (CAA), Melbourne

CAA has assisted CSE in reporting on environmental deve­
lopments in Australia and the Pacific.
Concerned Citizens, Sikkim
CSE works with Concerned Citizens on environmental issues in
Sikkim.
Council

for

Bhubaneshwar

Professional

Social

Workers

(CPSW),

CSE’s director is a member of the foundation’s board of
directors. The foundation is deeply involved in promoting low
external input agriculture.
Folkekirkens Nodhjaclp, Copenhagen
This organisation collaborates with CSE to generate reports on
environmental issues worldwide.
Foundation for Community Organisation and
Management Technology (FCOMT), Manila

CSE is helping FCOMT to popularise the concept of community­
based national accounting systems.
Foundation for the Progress of Humanity (FPH), Paris
FPH and CSE work together to promote concepts of global
democracy.

Friends of the Earth-Canada (FOE-Canada), Ottawa

CSE and FOE-Canada have a joint project to monitor the
Montreal Protocol to phase out ozone depleting substances.
Friends of the Earth, International (FOE-I), Amsterdam

FOE-1 and CSE have an agreement to consult each other before
initiating campaigns on international environmental issues. CSE
also plans to attend the annual meetings of FOE-I partners and
members.

erage of environmental events.
Parivartan Prabodhinl, Maharahstra
CSE and Parivartan Prabodhini work together on issues of envi­
ronment and development, in particular on issues of tribal
rights.

Project Swarajya, Orissa

Project Swarajya has translated CSE’s environmental publica­
tions into Oriya.

Friends of the Earth-Netherlands (FOE-Nctherlands),

Amsterdam
CSE has a collaborative project with FOE-Netherlands on strate­
gies to change consumption patterns of the North.

Royal Society for the Protection of Nature (RSPN),

Thimphu
CSE is assisting the Society to produce its report on the state of
environment of Bhutan

Gandhi Peace Foundation (GPF), New Delhi

GPF and CSE have collaborated in the past to translate
and produce the first two citizens' reports on the State of
India's Environment. CSE continues to collaborate with GPF on
the latter’s studies on traditional water harvesting systems.

Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra (RLEK), Dehradun
CSE is working with RLEK to build up a movement to empower
local communities to manage national parks, sanctuaries and
other protected areas.

Indian Social Institute (ISI), Neu> Delhi
CSE is working with ISI on the draft forest bill and the draft
rehabilitation policy of the Central government

Shirkat Gah, Lahore
CSE and Shirkat Gah work together to draw up common
positions on global environmental issues and exchange news
clippings to produce a South Asian Green File.

International Institute for Environment and
Development (1IED), London

IIED collaborates with CSE to report on environmental events
worldwide and to undertake joint analytical projects.
RJCN-Nepal, Kathmandu

It is an active member of the South Asian NGO Network
initiated by CSE, without whose help the Third South
Asian NGO Summit could not have been organised in
Kathmandu.
lUCN-Nethcrlands, Amsterdam
CSE has been collaborating with the World Conservative
Union's Netherlands chapter on the issues of institutional
change in Global Forest Policy.

Society for Hill Resource Management School
(SHRMS), Bihar

CSE assists SHRMS in promoting its ideas of wealth creation by
the poor through participation and good natural resource
management.
South Asian NGO Network

Several leading environmental NGOs in India. Pakistan,
Bangladesh. Sri Lanka and Nepal are working together to deve­
lop and strengthen an environment and development NGO
network in South Asia.
Sri Lanka Environmental Journalists Forum, Colombo

It assists CSE in distributing its feature service to Sri Lanka's
media.

lUCN-Pakistan, Karachi

CSE and lUCN-Pakistan jointly organised a major India-Pakistan
Environment Conference in Lahore,whose proceedings have
been published by lUCN-Pakistan.

Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDP1), Lahore

Kashtakari Sangathana, Maharashtra

Swedish Society for Conservation of Nature (SSCN), Stockholm
The society collaborates with CSE to generate reports on
environmental events w orldwide.

CSE was involved with the Sangathana on their campaign for
tribal self-rule.

CSE and SDPI work together to draw up common South Asian
positions on global environmental issues.

Mihikatha Trust Fund (MTF), Colombo
CSE is working with the Fund on South Asian environmental
issues.

Tarun Bharat Sangh ( TBS), Rajasthan

Mohammad Adi Society (MAS), Karachi

Telcvision Trust for the Environment (TTE), London

MAS and CSE work together on issues relating to poverty and
environment, with CSE resource persons in training workshops
and seminars.

It works with CSE to help make environmental videos available
to Indian and South Asian institutions.

CSE works with the Sangh on environmental campaigns to save
the Sariska sanctuary.

Ubeshwar Vikas Mandal (LIVM) Rajasthan
Orissa Mahakrushak Sangh (OMS), Orissa

CSE works with UVM on environmental issues in Rajasthan.

CSE has been involved with the Sangh in campaigns to save the
Chilika lake.

Waste Consultants, Netherlands

Panos Institute, London

Panos provides CSE with regular inputs for its worldwide cov-

CSE's deputy director is a member of its programme policy
committee. Centre works with Waste Consultants on hazardous
and municipal waste management issues.

’Km?'

NEW TITLES

_____

.

E

S

R

E

’*

A. ’ '

A’.'

'

5'»

S

THE CURSE OF THE WHITE GOLD

The first of our series focusses on the Aral Sea crisis — the result of economic

processes set in motion by the planners of the erstwhile Soviet Union in the 1950s.
E
W

It is one of the biggest ecological disasters, second only to Chernobyl, leading to a

5

total collapse of the socio-economic life of the people in the region.

&
US
!£!
©

PROTECTION OF NATURE PARKS: WHOSE BUSINESS?

©
U.

Our second publication is on protected areas and wildlife conservation.

©

It presents the proceedings of a debate on the state of our national parks and

UJ

sanctuaries, and whether the people living in and around these protected areas

Ot

should be involved in their management.

rliNDER PROPyCTiOM

I

VEHICULAR POLLUTION AND URBAN AIR QUALITY

REVIEW OF POLITICAL PARTIES’ ELECTION MANIFESTOES
STATUS OF INDIAN URBAN WETLANDS
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF PAPER INDUSTRY

SPECIAL DISCOUNT
Each book cost.sItCMritfilil
Rs. 75-OQl and you will end up paying

iRjassswM for the series of 7 books.
If you subscribe to the series now, you pay |Rs. 399-001
only |Rs. 57.1

per book. On payment, you will receive the

first two titles immediately and the rest by the end of this
vear at regular intervals.

ALIGARH: A STUDY OF CIVIC BREAKDOWN

That is not all.
If you are already a subscriber to Down To Earth, you can

For subscription, write to:
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Centre for Science and Environment

C

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41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area,
New Delhi-1 10062
Tel.: 91-1 1-69811 10, 6981124, 6983394
Fax: 91-1 1-698 5879
Email: csedel@cse.unv.ernet.in

avail of a special discount: just send your subscription
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And if you want a fresh subscription to Down To Earth

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A

All visuals are from CSE library
Cartoons ami graphics arc by Rustam Vania
Designed by Pradip Saha
Printed at Excellent Printing House, New Delhi

.

o

.

•

yelaWy
Inside pages are printed onjenvironment-frieiidly paper made out of bagasse and cover
is printed on paper made out of 100% recycled waste

, j Centre for Science and Environment
41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area
New Delhi 110 062
J. i Tel: 91-1106981110, 6981124, 6986399, 6983394
: Fax: 91-11-6985879, 6980870

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<

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-. <

newsletter from the Centre for Science and Environment
No 5 April-June 1996
—- -—........................................:

Dearfriends.
India's environmental governance
systems are in a state of crisis. On top
of that, the current government and its
leadership does not appear to have any
interest in good environmental man­
agement. The fust major step that this
government is proposing to take in this
field is to take power away from the
Union .Ministry of Environment and
Forests (MEF)for clearing power sta­
tions and devolving this power onto the
state governments. Since state govern­
ments are also proponents ofthese pro­
jects, it is unlikely that they will strike a
balance between economic devel­
opment and environment con­
servation. The MEF has
strangely not uttered a word
against these decisions.
.Many people suspect that
nobody less than the Prime
Minister H D Deve Gowda
(PM) is behind this move. /Is
chief minister of Karnataka, he
had strongly opposed envi­
ronmentalist concerns
on the coal-based
Cogentrix-sponsored power sta­
tion. But instead
of making the
decision-making
structures
more
transparent, bis gov­
ernment is out to sabotage
the little that exists in the name ofenvi­
ronmental governance.
H D Deve Gowda was the chief
minister of Karnataka when my col­
league, Supriya Akerkar, interviewed
him. \t7e were then hying to document
the tecords of different political parties
in environmental management. And
Deve Gowda, deeply involved with the
controversial Cogentrix power project,
was extremely piqued with environ­
mentalists. He offered gratuitous
advice to Supriya: Often, people are
being misled by environmentalists who
tend to be anti-development. Take my

.... -r-goMw—

advice...you are young and have
a bright future ahead, don’t be led
IN THIS ISSUE
by such people," (Down To Earth,
VW 5, No 3).
CELL FOR NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL
Ifound this statement by a person
ADVOCACY
who has since become chief executive
of the cou ntry quite bewildering It is
World Bank plays foul...
2
extremely important to note that envi­
ronmental management is an issue
Skewed Approach,
which by its very nature constantly
Mr Prime Minister!
3
demands Prime Ministerial interven­
Out with vengeance
3
tion. Every environmental dispute
4
In conversation
becomes an inter-ministerial or
Centre-state conflict and if the envi­
NEERI threatens legal action
6
ronment minister does not have PM’s
ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS
support,
environmental
issues
will steadily recede
Bridging the gap
5
into the background
and environmental­
CELL FOR ENVIRONMENTAL GLOBAL
ly destructive devel­
GOVERNANCE
opment will come to
the fore. Deve Gowda's
Sharing benefits in biodiversity 7
attitude, therefore, consti­
Nothing substantial, but...
8
tutes a very serious threat
Entitlements
in
climate
to
the
enviromental
for a better future
8
movement
To me, Deve Gowda's
CELL FOR SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT
stance shows that the coun­
INFORMATION
try is going back on its envi­
ronmental commitments.
9
Saving water the Gond way
And the environmental
Spreading the green word
10
' movement has failed to
10
Environment in motion
acquire enough power to
10
Shot in the arm
force the political system to
accept the value of its
arguments.
I am glad that Supriya unnecessarily. /Is the council of minis­
did not take Deve Gowda's advice and ters meeting was about to end, the
continues to work with me and trust Parliamentary Affairs minister said
me. What is even more bewildering to that the same presentation be made to
me is that by Deve Gowda's standards, all MPs. Rajiv, however, said that to
I am an anti-national person. Yet, ensure any serious discussion I should
exactly 10 years ago, the then PM, address all the parliamentary consulta­
Rajiv Gandhi who bad seen our report tive committees. Since every MP was a
on the state of India's environment, member of one committee or Ibe other.
had asked me to address bis entire every MP would be reached in this
council of ministers on this important manner. Moreover, he recommended
subject. So, while one PM felt that our that each minister should ensure
work on environment was important that the discussion focus on the
enough to be brought to the notice of environmental role bis or her ministry
all bis colleagues. The current PMfeels can play.
it is bolding up India’s development
Two days later I came to know

notebook
szsmthrough T N Sesban, the redoubtable chief election commis­
sioner (the then secretary, environment), that 1 had to
address as many as 27 committees. 1 told Sesban that I would
address about 15 committees whose ministries were more
central to environmental management and suggested that
the rest be addressed by bis staff.
Sesban must have conveyed this to Rajiv. My first
presentation was to the Ministry of Planning chaired by
Rajiv himself as minister ofplanning. 77>e moment he sat
down he leaned over to ask me whether 1 would deliver all
the lectures. Amazed by the PM’s extraordinary interest. I
somehow tried to explain my position. He was clearly
unhappy, and asked, "So which ones are you leaving out?"
"Commerce, defence, finance, etc". 1 answered. He
politely said, "Mr Agarwal, 1 would strongly urge you to

reconsider. I want you to reach every MP. Even I as a PM
cannot do much for the environment unless the Parliament
backs me. W hen droughts strike, more MPs want to dig tube­
wells rather than undertake water conservation measures I
would like you to address all the committees." I. obviously,
bad no answer. "Ofcourse, sir, bow can 1 say "no ’ to a PM, "
was all I could mumble.
So what has gone wrong over the last decade that the
present PM should take such a negative position? It is possi­
ble to dismiss this as a personality trait and say that he is
insensitive to the green cause, which is probably true. But
clearly, it cannot be the entire story. The question to ask is:
Is environmental governance in India going to be built on
such whims ofsuccessive leaders?
Anil Agarwal

CELL FOR NATIONAL

ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCACY

World Bank plays
foul...
he ecodevelopment project is an
attempt by the Ministry of
Environment and Forests, jointly fund­
ed by the Global Environment
Facility and the World Bank. The pro­
ject, designed to reduce dependency
of the people on protected areas, has
certain basic flaws. It hopes to mitigate
pressures on protected areas by giving
alternative resources and income-gen­
erating activities to people, believing
that poverty is the single-most impor­
tant reason for people to depend on
natural resources.
Centre
for
Science
and
Environment (CSE) has been very
critical of this project because the
people who will be affected have
been totally ignored in the conceptu­
alisation stage. The Centre believes
that the problem of forest-based peo­
ple is not only poverty but disem­
powerment by wildlife laws and
alienation from their habitat. People
will continue to use forest resources
unless they have a stake in managing
and protecting the forests.
While campaigning against this
project, CSE became a victim of
what can only be called the classic
doubletalk of the World Bank.
The skill and ease with which they
co-opted adverse opinions, or
simply pushed all dissent under
the carpet, proved to be an
eye-opener.

T

In May, CSE was contacted by the
resettlement and rehabilitation spe­
cialist of the World Bank, and was
verbally invited for a one-day meet
on the ecodevelopment project. The
World Bank also wanted CSE to rec­
ommend names of non-governmen­
tal organisations (NGOs) who could
be invited for the meeting. CSE imme­
diately faxed a list of eight NGOs
who had never laeen given an oppor­
tunity’ to air their opinions to tire pro­
ject designers.
Meanwhile, CSE contacted all
the
recommended
NGOs
to
appraise them of the meeting.
Ironically, the World Bank did not

send an invitation either to CSE or
to the NGOs recommended by it
Anita Cheria, an activist who works
with the adivasis of Nagarhole in
Maharashtra, and whose name was
recommended by CSE for the
World Bank meet, relentlessly pur­
sued the matter individually, and
forced an invitation at the last
minute. Avdhesh Kaushal of Rural
Litigation hnd Entitlement Kendra
(RLEK). received the invitation on
the day of the meeting, and hence
could not attend.
A series of letters were immedi­
ately sent to David Marsden, chief of
the social development unit. World

notebook
Skewed approach, Mr Prime Minister!
"Often, people are mis­
led by environmentalists
who tend to be anti­
development. Take my
advice...you are young
and have a bright future
ahead of you. Don't be
led by such people," was

the advice given by the Prime
Minister of India, H D Deve
Gowda, to a CSE researcher
interviewing him. By counter­
posing environment with development, Deve Gowda
betrayed his ignorance about the impoverished state of mil­
lions of people in this country due to degradation of natural
resources. The interview was conducted when he was the
Chief Minister of Karnataka.
Most of Deve Gowda's responses projected similar insularism concerning environmental issues affecting his state.

Bank, protesting against this blatant
doubletalk. A copy was also direct­
ed to. Jessica Mott, task manager,
ecodevelopment project and to sev­
eral NGOs in India.
CSE also organised a joint press
conference with the Indian Social
Institute and released a statement
against ecodevelopment, signed
by a group of eminent people.
Among the signatories were Anil
Agarwal and Sunita Narain (CSE),
Madhav Gadgil and Ramchandra
Guha (Indian Institute of Science),
Medha Patkar (Narmada Bachao
Andolan), Baba Amte (social
activist),
George
Fernandes
(Member of Parliament), Walter
Fernandes (Indian Social Institute),
Soli Sorabjee (former solicitor gen­
eral), and Rajni Kothari and
Avdhesh Kaushal (RLEK).
The statement was sent to
national and international organisa­
tions, with the request to campaign
at their own levels.
Unfortunately, showing total
insensitivity to the protests, the
World Bank has gone ahead with the
final negotiations with the Ministry of
Environment and Forests. According
to tlie feedback received, the meet­
ing broadly endorsed the project.
barring a few minor changes which
do not redress the concerns raised. If
this is an indication of things to
come, we have a long and hard bat­
tle ahead of us. o

He added, "environmentalists criticise that industrial efflu­
ents released in water affect the fish. But this is not true.
Industries and refineries in other states (Gujarat, for
instance) have been releasing effluents into the sea. But, nei­
ther the fish nor its consumption, have been affected in these
areas." This was said in the wake of protests by fisherfolk in
Karnataka and other parts of the country against the rising
pollution in rivers.
Deve Gowda dreams of making Karnataka the most
industrialised state, by inviting liberal amounts of private
capital. Almost all his responses lacked weight and were
cliches. Most queries were met with the oft-repeated idiom,
"we will take steps on that."
Indeed, state protocol and democratic functioning
require Deve Gowda to react in a more rational manner
in the future, especially on becoming the Prime Minister.
One can only hope that Deve Gowda will take cognisance
of environmental issues in the country in a far more
serious vein.

Out with vengeance
The wildlife policies
of the government
have been coming
under
increased
scrutiny and flak, as
NGOs do vigorous
research on wildlife-people issues.
refuting most of the bureaucratic
policies. This on-going tussle takes
a new turn when the wildlife
bureaucracy recently reacted, in a
manner that reflects its intense
resentment at being questioned.
A recent press report in Tbe
Pioneer (August 16. 1996), quotes
S C Dey. additional inspector gen­
eral of forest, expressing “concern
over the negative publicity being
created by certain NGOs regarding
official
wildlife
conservation
activities.”
Dey bos directed all chief wildlife
wardens of tbe states to ensure checks
on tbe activities ofsuch organisations
and ensure that unauthorised per­
sons are not allowed to carry out
tvsearch on wildlife in India, special­
ly protected areas. Dey accuses NGOs
to be "publicity mongers", who get a
lot of foreign funds and indulge
in all kinds of activities to get press
coverage.
CSE immediately reacted by
sending a letter to Dey, asking him
to verify the authenticity of the
3 -----

report and to clarify his position.
It has also sent a response to the
editor of Tbe Pioneer. The matter
has been brought to the notice of
the Minister for Environment and
Forests. Jai Narain Prasad Nishad.
The Centre will send a copy of
the report to other NGOs as it has
serious implications for them.
especially for NGOs working in
protected areas. 1

Ecological history:
conference planned
CSE is organising a meeting to
understand how people in the past
dealt with ecological issues and how
they used their knowledge to solve
environmental and developmental
problems.
With this objective, the Centre is
organising a three-day workshop on
ecological history7 and sciences in
October 1996. The seminar will
focus on how our communities
managed their natural resources.
biodiversity, forestry, wildlife, etc.
and bring to the fore key lessons for
sustainable ecological management.
Interested readers are invited to par­
ticipate in the exercise by writing to
the Centre.
A database of ecological histori­
ans is also being compiled which
will eventually be made into a
directory.

notebook

If you are not already

suffocated, we have @n
suggestion:
buy this book...
— 3 -------

The deadly story of
vehicular pollution in India

Centre for
Science andjyM
Environment' v-BS

Study directed by Anil Agarwal
SVntte" iff Anju Shirma
a-C Anutnita Roychowdhury

Rs. 75.00 per copy'

and read the smog in detail
*For details, write to:

The Marketing Manager
Centre for Science and Environemnt
41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area, New Delhi -110 062
Phone: 6981124, 6981110, 6983394 Fax: 91-11-6985879
Email: csedel@cse.unv.emet.in

notebook
i— ■ .J_------- —ZZZ-- ,-- 1.---------- Z.________ Z-ZZ'-L-jZ^ Ir r J,
Readers, join in...
To intensify our campaign on captive plantations and the ecodevelopment project, in the coming months CSE will concentrate
on building public opinion against the issues.

Madhya Pradesh Forest Development Corporation has invited tenders from the private industry to grow plantations on
3,500 acres of forest lands. The move is a death knell for scores of rural poor dependent on these forest lands for their
fuel and fodder needs. CSE is contesting this move as it violates local people's fundamental right to life by impinging on
their livelihood needs. The Centre will be liasioning with Madhya Pradesh NGOs to build up a public opinion against the
move.
□ The months of September and October would be crucial for the campaign against ecodevelopment. The board of direc­
tors, of the ecodevelopment project, would meet on September 5, to discuss various issues of the project including the
agreement on dispersal of the ecodevelopment fund. Another crucial meeting in October, to endorse ecodevelopment
proposal by the GEF Council, is in the offing. CSE's thrust would be to bring together people and NGOs working on the
issue, to create effective pressures. It would also meet some sympathetic Members of Parliament and lobby with some
key international institutions.
Readers are invited to air their opinions which will help us form a consensus, so please write to us at the Centre's address,
and let us know if you support us and would like to work with us on these campaigns. Suggestions on how to go about the
campaigns are most welcome.
□

extend your vision
(people in Srikakulam muse know how Sukhomajri made it)

HARVEST OF RAIN

THAR: SECRETS OF THE DESERT

THE VILLAGE REPUBLIC

As misdirected hydraulics country­
wide build mammoth dams and
canals to solve the water crisis, this
video turns to the wisdom of tradi­
tional water management. We have
forgotten the basic principle: con­
serve water where it falls.

The Indira Gandhi Canal: all malar­
ia, no development. But once, a rich
culture and trade bloomed in the
world's most populous desert. The
video shows how humans, animals
and nature interacted in those flour­
ishing times.

Progress helps those who help them­
selves. Empowerment begins in the
village; it does not end there. This
video is about those who thought
so and put their heads, and
resources, together: small, and huge,
success stories.

48 mins PAL VHS

52 mins PAL VHS

50 mins PAL VHS

Dir: Sanjay Kak

Dir: Sanjeev Shah

Dir: Christopher Rego

For details contact:

WEALTH OF THE NATION

Marketing Manager
Centre for Science and Environment
41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area
New Delhi 110 062
Tel: 698 1110, 1124, 6399, 3394
Fax: 698 5879
Email: csedel@cse.unv.ernet.in

A series of 3 videos
Produced by
Centre for Science and Environment

Each VHS Cassette is Rs 850.00
Series of 3 Cassettes is Rs 2000.00
A discount of more than 20%
Special offer for educational institutions

notebook
NEERI threatens legal action

against Down to Earth, if an apology was not published
immediately. The rejoinder not only contended all allega­
tions to be baseless and malafide, it also questioned the
motive of the editor in publishing the article. The rejoinder
alleged "the editor by publishing the aforesaid article,
demoralises the scientists and their selfish motives. If the edi­
tor contends that NEERI scientists are against Agra
Foundary Association, then through this article, he (the edi­
tor) has shown vested interest in small-scale industries locat­
ed in the Taj Trapezium by publishing the aforesaid article
without careful perusal of NEERI reports and without verifi­
cation of facts from NEERI."
By mid-June, a detailed point-by-point rebuttal was sent
to NEERI, defending the story and affirming the magazine's
stand on it.
On July 19, rhe Press Council of India wrote to Down To
Earth, decreeing that NEERI has complained against the
magazine for the same article. NEERI's complaint claimed
that Down To Earth had not responded to the objections filed
by them regarding the article.
In its reply to the Council, Down To Earth clarified that a
response was sent to NEERI's objections, and reiterated its
position that scientific and environmental facts cannot be
altered by administrative positions and legal threats. It reaf­
firmed its stand on the article. A copy of the rebuttal that
was sent to NEERI was also enclosed.

A recently published article,
'The Trouble with
the
Trapezium' in Down To Earth
(April 15, 1996), on Taj pollu­
tion and the role of scientists,
especially those of the
National Environmental Engi­
neering Research Institute
(NEERI), which had conducted studies on air pollution in the
Taj Trapezium in 1993, has sparked off a controversy.
The story vindicated, contrary to the claims of NEERI sci­
entists, that even after two decades of scientific research on
air pollution in and around Agra, and the feared conse­
quential damage to the Taj Mahal, experts are still groping
in the dark. The article pointed out that it is unjustifiable on
the part of scientific bodies and expert committees, includ­
ing NEERI, to target some specific industries and exonerate
others, as there was not enough evidence regarding source­
wise contribution of various industries to the total pollution
load. The story also described several discrepancies in
NEERI reports, as pointed out by various scientists.
Perhaps, the idea of being made accountable for their
claims did not appeal to NEERI. In May, it sent a 20-page
rejoinder to a five-page story, threatening legal action

ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS

Bridging the gap
y—x.
[ Kj (

CJ
ylLH /|
/ v

I

*

l|

?T_,he
three-day
1 workshop
on
environment
and
economics by the
CSE in New Delhi
(June 27-29. 1996),

was well-attended by
economists, business persons and
environmentalists.
The aim of the workshop was to
bring
□ to centrestage the new concepts
towards
forging
stronger
alliances between environment
and economics: and.
□ to attract more economists at the
national level and direct their
research in this area.
The workshop discussed several
issues like
□ natural resource accounting, use
of market-based instruments for
pollution control and economics
of trade and environment;
□ ozone protection and resource
conservation.
Ramprasad
Sen
Gupta,

Jawaharlal Nehru University, while
delivering the opening lecture, high­
lighted the "gaps'' in understanding
the subject of climate change which
have been widened due to uncer­
tainties arising from the work of cli­
matologists and economists who are
ascertaining the impacts of climate
change on economy.
N C Saxena, director. Lal Bahadur
Shastri Academy. Mussoorie. while
acknowledging joint forest manage­
ment (JFM) as the route to the future.
cautioned against some of the inher­
ent Haws in the approach being
implemented .
The session on economics of bio­
diversity conservation highlighted
the important issue of conserving not
only the genetic resources but also
the traditional knowledge systems
possessed by lire local communities.
“Without this we are left with a
library full of valuable and rare docu­
ments but no catalogue." said Anil K
Gupta.
Indian
Institute
of
Management. Ahmedabad. who
delivered the keynote address.
P R Sheshagiri Rao of the Indian
Institute of Sciences. Bangalore,
dwelt on the issue of sharing profits,
arising from commercialisation of
resources, with the people or com­

6

munities who, for generations, have
been protecting them sustainably.
The discussion emphasised the need
to build a concrete model of “shar­
ing” that will give people what is
rightfully theirs.
The session on economics of
sustainable water management
stressed that large irrigation projects
should be taken up only as a last
resort: the need of the hour is
demand-based management mea­
sures like proper pricing. CSEs
paper at the workshop, pointed out
how cost-benefit calculations of
such projects are manipulated to get
sanctions for the projects. This ses­
sion was chaired by L C Jain, for­
mer Planning Commission member.
and the keynote address was deliv­
ered by Ramaswamy R Iyer, former
secretary of the Union Ministry of
Water Resources.
The workshop concluded with
Parthasarathy Shome. director,
National Institute of Public Finance
and Policy', deliberating on the issue
of levying pollution taxes on indus­
tries both at the global and local lev­
els. His paper talked of the feasibili­
ty of internalising the environmental
costs of production which are nor­
mally externalised, o

notebook
CELL FOR GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL

GOVERNANCE

Sharing benefits in
biodiversity

he issue of sharing benefits, aris­
ing out of the commercialisation
of natural resources with local com­
munities — one of the central themes
of the Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD) — is a key element of
CSE’s work on biodiversity. The
Centre is organising a workshop in
August to explore this specific area, in
a bid to chalk out a set of concrete
principles which will help develop a
model of fair and equitable “benefit­
sharing” with the people. During the
workshop, various alternative mecha­
nisms, offered by expens both at the
national and the international level,
will be put under scrutiny. CSE
believes that organising a forum of
this nature at this particular time, is of
crucial importance.
The third Conference of Parties of
the CBD is coming up in early
November and the issue is expected
to be taken up for negotiations.
Through the August workshop, CSE
hopes to initiate an international
debate which can form the ground­
work for the negotiations.
Meanwhile, the experiences of the
fourth
International
Technical
Conference
on
Plant
Genetic
Resources, convened by Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in
Leipzig from June 17-23, are helping
in preparing ground for a strong and
concerted campaign to start an
international debate on the issue. The
highlight of the conference was a
charter — the global plan of action
(GPA) for conservation of plant

T

Defining rights
Basmati, the long-grained, fragrant rice,
typical to the subcontinent, is in a hot­
pot. It is being grown in the US as
"Texmati" rice by a US-based company
called Rice Tech, which had taken the
germplasm from the gene bank,
International Rice Research Institute in
the Philippines. The rice variety is being
sold not only in the US but also in coun­
tries like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the
UK. Till recently, these countries were
markets for India and
Pakistan.
In other words, the legitimate
stakeholders, India and Pakistan, are
losing their share of profits. The exist­
ing intellectual property regime under World Trade Organisation (WTO),
acknowledges the claim of a region over products that are associated in a "spe­
cial and specific" way only with that region. The Trade Related Intellectual
Property Rights chapter of the WTO, in a clause named 'geographical indica­
tion', offers proprietary rights to a specific geographical area over the products
associated with it. The clause has been used very effectively by the European
nations in the past to preserve their monopoly over speciality products like
champagne.
CSE contacted the Agriculture and Processed Food Products Export
Development Authority (APEDA), a government agency, whose primary task is
to safeguard exporters' interest, and was told that some measures, albeit
temporary, have been taken. APEDA in collaboration with the All India Rice
Exporters' Association Economic Court had issued a litigation against Rice Tech.
And earlier this year, they have entered into an out-of-court settlement with the
company, which bans the latter from exporting Texmati to the UK for the next
three years.
The Centre, however, believes that the time has come to chalk out a strategy
for a more permanent solution, which centres around the much-awaited Plant
Varieties Protection Act. The legislation would protect the rights of Basmati
growers in India and likewise other products that are being commercially
exploited. India can launch its offensives by brandishing the Convention on
Biological Diversity (CBD) which endows the nation states sovereign rights over
its genetic resources, and forbids any other party from accessing them without
the "prior informed consent" of the country of its origin.

genetic resources — originally
drawn up in 1993 but finalised in
Leipzig. The GPA gave official
recognition to one of die most wide­
ly discussed issues in the interna­
tional arena, that of the farmers’
rights in conserving, improving and
making available plant genetic
resources and it also allows them to
share the benefits derived from their
improved use.
CSE has been following these
development with avid interest. It
believes that this is a step forward
towards ensuring fanners their right
to profit. The issue till now was only
being debated upon, with the indus­

/b < \JBR RV
a

trialised nations refusing to make any
concrete commitment. Now it is a
part of an official document. The
Centre feels that developing coun­
tries must make a united effort
to activate GPA. and use FAO forum
to assert the rights of the farming
community.

Trade and environment:
Undesirable linkages
Fifty-five delegates from five South
Asian countries — India. Nepal,
Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka
met in Kathmandu from May 20-24,

notebook
1996, to discuss the inclusion of a
social clause in the World Trade
Organisation (WTO). The meeting
was attended by labour organisations,
environmental organisations like CSE,
and trade unions.
A South Asian charter was drawn
up. suggesting that while labour issues
and environmental standards should
not lx* linked to trade, countries in tire
South Asian region should, neverthe­
less. take steps to ensure that atleast
minimum standards are adhered to.
CSE
representative
Raksha
Khushalani, participated in the confer­
ence and presented a paper on environ­

mental standards to a working group on
environment. Ten representatives from
the five South Asian countries formed
this working group.
A set of guidelines were des eloped
in an attempt to put into perspective
the aims, objectives, implications of
and alternatives to environmental stan­
dards. While labour and environment
standards received a general consen­
sus, it was against die linkage of these
standards to trade. There are better
and more equitable instruments avail­
able to ensure that developing coun­
tries enforce their environmental and
labour standards. 3

Entitlements in climate
for a betterfuture
Global Wanning in an Unequal World,
a Centre for Science and Environment
publication, has inspired discussions,
debates, papers and research work all
over the world. CSE deputy director,
Stinita Narain, recounts the remarks
the publication incited at a meeting
she attended in the US.

GLOBAL WARMING
IN AN UNEQUAL WORLD

Nothing substantial, but...
"Issues in which the economic interests of industrialised
countries coincide with their ecological interests are accept­
able in the UN; the rest is usually a sham," writes Anil
Agarwal after attending the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) meeting in April. Excerpts from the
write up that ensued after the meeting.
At a recent UNDP meeting in New York, to discuss the
upcoming special session of the UN General Assembly
in June 1997, which will consider the development
made on the recommendations of the 1992 Rio
Conference, several environmentalists and experts
expressed considerable disappointment at the lack of
progress on the environmental front.
...I agree that little has happened since Rio. The only clear agenda put for­
ward at Rio was by the Western nations, which wanted a certain set of
global treaties to protect their long-term economic interests. The three most
important treaties they had chosen were on biodiversity conservation, prevention
of global warming and forest conservation. They got the first two, but the third on
forest conservation was strongly opposed by developing countries at the Rio
Conference itself.
In biodiversity conservation, there has been no progress because of the extra­
ordinary clauses in the treaty like any company or country taking a genetic
resource from another country will have to share its research...with the donor
country, ...industrialised countries will never agree to this.
A forest conservation treaty may now well be on the horizon — a major eco­
nomic benefit for industrialised governments because keeping forests intact is a
cheaper and popular way to reduce future emissions of green house gases
(GHG), than cutting down the number of cars in the US and Europe. ...So, on all
issues that Western governments were interested in, there has been a slow but
steady progress.
Issues which had interested developing nations at Rio: The African nations
were keen about a desertification convention. There has been progress here, but
the convention has not attracted any money worth the name. On the contrary, in
Rio, Canada had expressed its great keenness for a conference on straddling fish
stocks. Several rounds of talks on this issue have already taken place and despite
the extraordinary legal complexity involved, the world may soon see another
treaty.
The lesson, therefore, of Rio and its aftermath is clear. Issues in which the eco­
nomic interests of industrialised countries coincide with their ecological interests
are acceptable in the UN; the rest is usually a sham.

8

ANIL AGARWAL
SUNITA NARAIN

CENTRE TOR SCIENCE ANO ENVIRONMENT

Global Warming in an Unequal

World has been reprinted and is
available in a new package at the

Centre, for Rs 30.

The Centre’s publication. Global
Warming in an Unequal World, has
made a seminal contribution to the
discussion on a cooler and greener
earth. The booklet published in 1991,
at the height of the discussions for a
framework convention on climate
change, raised the issue of ecological
space and demanded that the South
should be entitled to a fair share of the
earth's common resource — the
atmosphere. The report has been
widely used, discussed and debated
all over the world. We know of many
different schools in the US which use
the book as teaching material; it has
spawned many research papers
and books. It has also helped in

notebook
building a school of thought on 'equi­
ty and entitlement’ in environmental
negotiations.
In May, our work was further
recognised when Anil Agarwal and I
were invited by a group of academi­
cians from the US who were
organising
a
meeting
on
'Environmental Justice and Global
Change' The organisers — Michel
Gelobter, assistant professor, Rutgers
University and Bunyan Bryant, profes­
sor of Natural Resources and
Environmental Policy at the University
of Michigan — have been deeply
involved in the environmental justice
movement in the US which has
made forceful links between environ­
mental degradation and different
human races.
This group of academicians,
working closely with the grassroots
movement in their country, has
focussed the nation’s attention on the
fact that it is more than just coincidence
that toxic waste sites are located near
the homes of poor, black Americans. It
Itad resulted in President Clinton sign­
ing the environmental justice executive
order and to the setting up of an office

of environmental equity in the
Environmental Protection Agency.
Having worked for environmental
justice at the national level, this
group was attracted to the concepts
put forward in the book by us. asking
for justice in global environmental
governance. Michel Gelobter is
already working with a student,
Niraj Kumar, to explore the empirical
implications of a concept we had
raised, 'survival versus luxury’
emissions’.
The first meeting which I attend­
ed — Anil having gone to Paris for
medical treatment — brought togeth­
er a stimulating group of academi­
cians and analysts. During the meet­
ing, it was also agreed that all of us
would work together in the future,
on research and advocacy for envi­
ronmental equity.
CSE is committed to help facilitate
a second meeting during its
International
Conference
on
Entitlements, Joint Implementation
and Tradable Permits. At the end of
the meeting, Michel Gelobter wrote
to all participants saying, “I realised
during the first workshop what a

spirlH-uol odyssey
A story on spiritual healing took CSE reporter Sunita Raina
to an ashram, Shantikunj in Hardwar. The work of the ashram's
research wing left her agog. Here she shares her experience...
Writing about spiritual healing was a challenge in itself. I,
personally wouldn't have taken up the assignment had it not
defied my sense of reason. While a lot of scientific research
has validated spiritual healing in the West, the area remains
largely neglected and somewhat scorned in Indian scientific
circles. Hoping to find some research inputs for my story, I
planned a trip to Shantikunj in Hardwar.
Dressed in casual denims, I landed this ashram, which in
retrospect I would rather call a university. With saffron-clad
inhabitants all around me, initially I felt slightly uneasy in
my away-from-the-norm attire. Reminding myself that I was
just a reporter and not a sadhak, as these ashram dwellers
are called, I set out on my task of interviewing a number of
scientists. These intellectuals, hailing from various streams of
science, have dedicated their lives to the ashram's work.
I was fairly impressed by the scientific work the research
wing of the ashram — the Bhramvarchas Research Institute
— is doing. It has an impressive herbal farmland on its
premises, a well-equipped laboratory to test the effects of
spiritual practices on human health and a strict and simple
lifestyle for its inhabitants.
Shantikunj certainly fits the image of an institute where
tradition and modernity coexist. The aim is to recognise the

conceptual debt we owe Sunita and
Anil Agarwal for their 1991 work on
green house gases." We are very
grateful to Michel for this acknowl­
edgement. o
CELL FOR SCIENCE AND

ENVIRONMENT INFORMATION

Saving water the
Gond way
SE reporter Rakesh Agarwal,
travelled to the Gond region of
Orissa, to document the traditional
water harvesting systems for the
Centre's forthcoming book on tradi­
tional water harvesting systems of
India. Gond region covers the
districts
of
Bhubaneswar,
Sambalpur and Balangir. The
Gonds have built remarkable water
harvesting structures on the gentlysloping lands of the region. Most
important of these are katas or
tanks which are large reservoirs for
the storage of runoff water.
The Gonds received patronage

C

richness of our culture and to propagate it to those who seek
it. It wouldn't be wrong to call it a university where human
virtues are taught to people as an integral part of their men­
tal, physical and spiritual development. Besides this, a holis­
tic approach to health through ayurveda and spiritual heal­
ing form an integral part of health management here.
What intrigued me most was the reluctance of some sci­
entists to give me the details of their work. The reason given
was
—
their
lack
of
interest
in
publicity. It took some effort on my part to convince them
that renouncing the world should not be a deterrent in pro­
viding direction to humanity at large. Skeptical as some
were regarding my intentions, I had to assure them that I
was not out to hunt for some sensational scoop. Rather, it
was a genuine effort to inform our readers of the advan­
tages of meditation, relaxation and prayers in coping with
diseases. Finally, they saw reason and were ready to
answer my queries.
To get the feel of things and to authenticate my story, I
decided to participate in all the activities of the ashram.
Measuring my mental tranquillity and concentration on a
special alpha wave recorder, devised by the institute, the
scientist-in-charge felt that I possessed all the attributes that
a sadhak should have. Elated, I ventured further into the
unfathomed realm of spirituality. Before I could understand
what was happening, I was deeply into it. A metamorphosis
took place. The reporter clad in a pair of worn-out jeans
throughout, was last seen in a saffron coloured saree. The
journey to realise the self had just begun.

notebook
iSL--------------------from the kings for the construction
of these structures. The village
headmen called gauntias were
offered revenue-free land from
these kings to take care of these
structures.
In most places, these structures
are lying in utter neglect and are
fast becoming derelict. Some katas
are still functioning but are heavily
silted up and are full of weeds.
The possible solution to revive
these structures is to give land
and water rights, forests and the
catchment areas to the people, and
their institutions.

Spreading the green word
CSE/Down To Earth Feature Service
offers a well-packaged selection
of deeply researched articles on
environment, science, technology,
health, energy, sustainable develop­
ment and trade. The attempt is to
cover a wide range of topics to suit
the needs of the various theme pages
of the newspapers.
The Green Politics column of the
feature service analyses the realpolitik
behind the green issues and is written
by leading experts in their fields of
specialisation.
The international packet of the
feature sendee presents a southern
perspective to the international
readers while the national packet
gives the national perspective. Each
packet of the feature service is accom­
panied with a cartoon page or a statis­
tics page. The feature service will

Graph surfers
The Sales and Despatch unit looks after the sales of CSE publications as well as their
despatch. The unit is headed by a manager, and has two sales assistants.
S Banerjee, head of the unit, is a commerce graduate with a diploma in market­
ing management. As manager, he is responsible for maintaining sales and sub­
scriptions and the smooth functioning of the despatch section.
KCR Raja is a science graduate with a post-graduate diploma in systems man­
agement. As a senior sales assistant, he handles the subscription database of the
unit. He also supervises the timely despatch of periodicals.
R Kalyani, a post graduate in economics, works as a junior sales assistant.
She assists in the day-to-day clerical functions of the unit and maintenance of
stocks.

soon be available on the Bulletin
Board Service.

Environment in motion
For a long time, CSE has been putting
its research and newsgathering efforts
on paper. Now, the time has come to
move to the audio-visual medium. Its
first venture is a 16 mm film on sacred
groves in India. The film shot in
Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan and
Meghalaya, explores the dynamic rela­
tionship between man, nature and the
‘sacred’.
CSE is also producing a series of
well-researched,
short
videos,
focussing on different issues of
sustainable development and gover­
nance. The first in the series is
on vehicular pollution and has been
shot in Mumbai, Calcutta and Delhi.
Currently, the film is on the editing
table, o

On the horizon
□

□

□

Sh&t ini the arrm
Availability of Down To Earth on
newsstands brought it into the lime­
light. The marketing department has
been receiving numerous apprecia­
tive responses. Ananda Dasgupta of
British Oxygen Corporation, feels
that the "niche into which the Down
To Earth readership falls is of a very
high standard." He likes the maga­
zine's appearance and appreciates
its availability on the newsstands.
Sabyasachi Ghosh, media plan­
ner, Hindustan Thomson Associates,
(HTA), Calcutta, finds the magazine
of "international standards" and
wants data on subscribers' profile to
convince some of his clients.
Indrani Sen, vice president, HTA,
Calcutta, is sure that with proper pub­
licity and necessary inputs, the maga­
zine will be an "important niche mag­
azine with a readership profile of the
best class of people."

Centre for Science and Environment

The newspaper and newsmagazine section of the Environment Resource Unit
(ERU) is coming out with four booklets — a compilation of newsclippings on
India's forest issues, mining issues, wildlife issues and renewable energy in
India over the last decade. The booklet on forest issues is nearing completion.
It has been compiled statewise, covering the topics like resource apprasial,
afforestation, deforestation, conservation, etc. These booklets will help serve
as comprehensive references on a particular issue.
The books and journals section of ERU will soon launch a 16-page quarterly book
review supplement, which will contain indepth reviews, book abstracts and sug­
gested list of books in the area of environment, environmental economics, multi­
media, and science and technology, along with the name of the publisher, num­
ber of pages and price. It will also carry a spolight on films on the aforesaid
issues.
The communications and systems section of the Management Support Unit will
soon display a few CSE publications on the bulletin board service, these include
CSE/Down To Earth Feature Service, Notebook, etc.

10

41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area

New Delhi-1 10 062

Telephones:

91-11-6981110, 6981124,
6981125, 6983394, 6986399
Fax: 91-11-6985879, 6980870
Email: csedel @ cse.unv.ernet.in

Notebook is published by Sunita Narain
for the Centrefor Science and Environment.
It is printed at Excellent Printing House,

New Delhi. This newsletter is for
private circulation and notfor sale.
Director ■ Anil Agarwal
Deputy Director: Sunita Narain

Printed on relatively environment
friendly bagasse paper
Media
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