PIL raises grave concerns on prevailing weaknesses in Biodiversity Act that is contributing to biodiversity loss and associated traditional rights
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Leo F. Saldanha, the coordinator of the non-profit Environment Support Group, which has been litigating for lake preservation for over two decades, says,
“All these were natural agricultural wetlands. But while putting up buildings, planners should have ensured space for water to collect and interlinkages to lakes downstream if they overflowed. It was a very simple thing to do, but we ignored it and the citizens are paying the price—as we all experienced in the recent floods.”
The concretising didn’t stop with roads; like a cancer it spread across to pavements, as paved regions into parks, and even into urban forests like Turahalli where, thankfully, public resistance stopped it. But the phenomenon is so widespread now, that it shows up in satellite imageries, and when it rains, the city floods in no time as there is simply no open ground for water to percolate. And in summer ‘heat islands’ result, desiccating what little greenery is left.
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The city needs granular administrative and planning responses to help identify the poor who are forced to live in flood prone areas out of sheer necessity. They cannot be evicted and thrown to the streets.
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Bengaluru witnessed torrential rains and floods that created a disastrous impact. As a result, a large part of #Bengaluru was underwater.
The New Indian Express spoke to experts to understand the cause and effect of this concerning issue.Experts go on to state that rapid construction, encroachment, and corruption are behind the crisis.
‘ESG Imaginaries to Make Cities Work’ is a webinar series co-organised by ESG in collaboration with Habitat Forum – INHAF
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The @CompCoRe_STS project organised the first (semi-)in person meeting at @HarvardSTS . Leo Saldanha and Bhargavi Rao of ESG are part of this network and writing the India paper as part of a 50 country study on how COVID was managed, an international research effort led by Prof. Sheila Jananoff of Harvard Kennedy School and Prof. Stephen Hiltgartner of Cornell University.
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There has been systematic dilution of India’s forest and biodiversity protection laws for several years now. But the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change now proposes to fundamentally change the essential characteristic of India’s environmental jurisprudence with fundamental changes that it proposes to India’s umbrella environmental law, the Environment Protection Act, 1986, and also the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 and Public Liability Insurance Act, 1991.
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At a time when the meeting of minds is so very rare, this effort by the All Saints Church congregation, BMRCL, Government of Karnataka, and various supporters of the cause, including ESG, stands out as representative of the enormous possibilities of democratic engagement. The conciliation mechanism organised by EIB helped in this process. This also helped ensure that the contestations did not end up in Court, burdening further the judiciary, and without a clear outcome in sight.
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ESG conducted the Young Climate Explorers summer workshop for kids, an experiential workshop to sensitise children to climate change through the themes of water, waste, food and forests in an event packed, exciting 5 days summer camp.
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Environment Support Group has been involved in initiating resilient and sustainable structural reforms in waste management through field, policy and legal interventions for over two decades now. Our work, primarily based out of Bangalore metropolitan area (14 million) and Karnataka State, is in coordination with similar efforts nationwide. We work closely with trade unions advancing labour, occupational and health rights of those handling waste, and we also work with vulnerable communities suffering serious contamination due to waste disposal, to ensure their Rights to Health, Clean Environment, Life and Livelihoods is upheld.
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In the final hours of the 2021-22 Financial Year, we invite you to support ESG’s critical efforts advancing environmental justice.
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The CNDP, therefore, demands that the Government of India, as the first step, provide a credible explanation regarding the mislaunch and about its failure to alert the Pakistani Government immediately thereafter in violation of agreed norms.
We also urge the governments of India and Pakistan to immediately work out credible and effective confidence-building measures (CBMs), revive the multiple channels of communication to avoid any misunderstandings and set up a functioning joint monitoring mechanism to avert the possibility of a disaster arising out of any accident in future.
Report of the workshop organised by Karnataka Tank Conservation and Development Authority (Chitradurga division), Deputy Commissioner – Chitradurga, District Lake Protection Committee – Chitradurga and Environment Support Group
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A key strategy promoted to tackle climate change, especially from the North, is to keep coal, oil and gas in the ground and shift to renewables. Which, as Thea Riofrancos argues in Foreign Policy, is fraught with serious inconsistencies even if this involves shifting the mining of minerals critical to the renewable energy transition to the Global North. ”Global north onshoring does not repair the forms of environmental harm disproportionally meted out in the global south”, he argues. Besides, this would create new problems which primarily affect oppressed populations within affluent countries.
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The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 appears poised to be the next victim of the continuing onslaught on environmental protections by the Union Government. The Wildlife Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2021 endangers several common but declining species of wildlife by allowing them to be classified as “vermin” and thus be opened up to being hunted. Several species that were previously protected under the Schedules of the Act have been removed in the amendments without any justification.
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Demand immediate and complete withdrawal of proposed Biodiversity Act Amendment Bill 2021. A Statement issued by Coalition for Environmental Justice in India on the occasion of 73rd Republic Day of India, 26 January 2022
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Leading environmentalist, rationalist, educator and philosopher from Kerala, Prof. M K Prasad, lost his battle with COVID on 17th January 2022. Prof. Prasad was the inspirational force behind the successful Save Silent Valley Movement, which forced former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to stop the dam that would have destroyed the rainforest
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View Recording “Analytically sharp and empirically robust, Arvind Narrain’s ‘Undeclared Emergency … ‘ throws a sharp focus on the punitive
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By: Janani S, The author is an architect and researcher on inclusive urbanism at Environment Support Group. Pachnady was still over 2 kilometres away but the stench of garbage reached us early. In 2019, the Pachnady landfill was in the news due to its slide down during the monsoons engulfing the residences and a temple in the vicinity. The solid waste of the city has polluted the groundwater here beyond repair rendering it unfit for drinking. Many of the farmers and other victims await their full compensation even after two years and their livelihoods witness a standstill as they are unable to cultivate in these degraded lands. In this context, we, researchers from the Environment Support Group, visited the waste management facility of Pachanady, Mangalore to get a better understanding of the prevailing situation.
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This issue of the news digest takes a detailed look at the environmental and social justice issues that marked 2021, and how ESG engaged with them.
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Environment Support Group conducted Making Mangaluru an Environmentally Just City of South India, the second session in a 3-part workshop conducted across India with support from Break Free From Plastic. The session was attended by representatives of local waste worker unions, fishing unions, student unions, local administrators, and NGOs. This was the latest in ESG’s longstanding efforts to work with communities in different parts of the country to address the challenges posed by waste mismanagement to environmental and public health and to use these as an opportunity to promote decentralized and democratic urban governance.
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Functioning of lake protection committees at municipal, district & apex levels Date: 25 – 28 October 2021 As part of
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On 9th October 2021, the floating village Champu khangpok at Loktak Lake, Manipur celebrated World Migratory Bird Day organised by All Loktak Lake Areas Fisheries Union Manipur (ALLAFUM) in partnership with Ngamee Lup, Pumlen Pat Khoidum Lamjao Kanba Apunba Lup, Environment Support Group and Indigenous Perspectives. Renowned ornithologist Dr. S. Subramanya spoke on the critical importance of protecting wetlands like Loktak for protecting and conserving water birds, as he highlighted the wetland is a habitat of the Central Asian-Indian Flyway and East Asian-Australasia Flyway for migratory birds.
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