We invite you to join this campaign to save Loktak Wetland Region for posterity by signing the Statement initiated by Ngaamee Lup, Indigenous Perspectives and Environment Support Group.
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Excerpt – ESG invites you to join a movement to save and rejuvenate each and every lake, pond, well, every stretch of raja Kaluve, everywhere across Karnataka from encroachment, degradation, pollution and decay. Lakes/tanks are gifts we have received from the past which we must pass on in a better state for the benefit of future generations. If we work collectively, it is possible to make Karnataka a water, food and biodiversity secure region that also builds healthy and sustainable livelihoods.
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Based on the petitions filed by ESG, WP 817/2008 and WP 38401/2014 – PILs relating to protection, conservation and rehabilitation
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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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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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The All Saints Church congregation and the wide public came together on 28th November demanding the 150-year-old heritage church be protected from a concrete station box which Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (BMRCL) proposes to build by destroying the biodiversity-rich sacred grove. Steps for emergency acquisition of the grove were initiated by Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB). This section of the Metro is financed by the European Investment Bank. Besides destroying the biodiversity-rich garden, which foregrounds the heritage Church, it is a space used for all church gatherings. Besides, students of Arpana Special School and residents of the Old Age Home run by the church use this space every day. Cutting soil, uprooting 150-200 years old trees, digging deep, blasting and construction activities merely 20 meters from the fragile church could result in its collapse.
Read More“In response to the aforesaid notification inviting public comments on the Draft Regulations on Extended Producer Responsibility under the Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016, please find enclosed our detailed comments and objections.
Given the enormous impacts of plastic on public health and the environment, we believe that every last producer in the chain, including petrochemical corporations, should be held accountable under any EPR regime. However, not only have petrochemical corporations been completely let off the hook, the proposed regulations fail to define the very subject of the regulations – “plastic packaging” and “EPR Targets”. This will undoubtedly make efforts to ensure compliance incredibly difficult, if not impossible.”
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The project involved creating a network of Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) – a form of self organised local parastatal and outside the representative Panchayat Raj institutional network. The project thus sidestepped the mandate of the 11th Schedule of the Constitution which requires “agriculture including agriculture extension” to be governed through Panchayats. There was no extensive debate or discussion in launching the project, even in the State Assembly.
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“Despite its obvious failures to step up to the grave impacts of climate change the world is now suffering from, the conservative view is that “it is better than letting the effort slide, just as the UN-sanctioned circus of the COPs is better than leaving the world without any such forum at all”.
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The 26th Conference of Parties (COP) of UN Climate Change Conference, hosted by the UK in partnership with Italy, will take place from 31 October to 12 November 2021 in Glasgow, UK. There simply could not have been a more divided world in which such a critical global summit is organised, especially given that decisions taken here have planetary implications. Following the collapse of the 25th COP held in Madrid, and no COP in 2020 due to COVID pandemic, much hope rested on taking forward a global pact to address climate change and its challenges in this year’s effort.
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” This Diwali Don’t Burn Your Money, instead help ESG do more to advance environmental and social justice. “
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As part of the Pan-India Awareness and Outreach Campaign proposed by the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) to commemorate 75 years of India’s Independence, ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’, Karnataka State Legal Services Authority (KSLSA), and Environment Support Group (ESG) organised a virtual Legal Awareness Workshop relating to the functioning of Lake Protection Committees at Municipal, District and Apex Levels constituted in accordance with directions of the Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka in WP 817/2008. The workshop was organised from 25 Oct to 28Oct 2021 for members of the Apex Lake protection Committee and administrators of Bangalore Division, Kalaburagi Division, Belgaum Division, and Mysore Division.
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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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9th October 2021 is World Migratory Bird Day! We are celebrating this day at Champu Khagpok Floating Village which is in the midst of Manipur’s Loktak, a prominent Ramsar site of North East India. The event is being organized by Champu Khangpok Floating Village Committee and All Loktak Area Fishermen’s Union (ALLAFUM) in association with Environment Support Group, Bangalore, and Indigenous Perspectives, Imphal. Dr. S. Subramanya, a noted ornithologist and wetland expert, who recently authored the report “Avifaunal patterns in the Lakes of Bangalore over three decades:1989-2020” will be speaking at the event.
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Cyclone Gulab, and it’s Arabian Sea counterpart Shaheen, are drawing interest from experts who have commented on the rarity of cross-peninsula cyclonic activity. This is only the latest evidence of how the climate crisis is manifesting in India, bringing with it new vulnerabilities and amplifying existing ones. Anil Padmanabhan, drawing upon the work of meteorologist Sulochana Gadgil, argues that it is time for a tectonic shift in how we understand the monsoon and its increasingly uneven distribution – across regions and time – due to climate change.
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Lake Walk @ Uttarahalli Kere & Subramanyapura Kere Bengaluru was once called ‘the city of thousand lakes’. Have you ever
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During March and June 2021, ESG worked with administrators of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike and Karnataka Government, senior representatives of regulatory agencies, representatives of multiple sectors across Bengaluru, academicians and experts, and importantly the wide public, in 9 webinars held through the 2nd major lockdowns imposed due to COVID in developing “Make Bengaluru Climate Friendly: A blueprint for integrated, participatory and inclusive urban governance”.
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Download the Bengaluru’s Climate Action Report by ESG India. Available for download in English & Kannada.
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Happy Ganesh Chaturthi to one & all.
Let us amply please Ganesha with lots of laddoos while ensuring his favourite lakes are saved from acid reflux, as sages did back then using Cynodon dactylon (kan: garike hullu; hin: durva grass) to save him from acid reflux after he consumed a polluted demon!
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“Leafing through the field notes, this annotated page in particular is very worrying. Over the last 2 years, the pandemic has devastated life everywhere and changed the social order. While the rich can plan to leave the pandemic affected planet for a few minutes into zero gravity with space travel, the poor are grappling for breath every minute…”. Bhargavi S Rao, Trustee, ESG presents the lesser known ground realities which are largely hidden by prevailing aggressive promotion of mega solar parks such as in Pavagada.
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The undersigned unequivocally, and in a single, strong, and clear voice absolutely condemn this assault on the honour of the High Court of Karnataka, on the rule of law, and on those who are working tirelessly to protect lakes as commons for the sake of present and future generations. At a time when the world is grappling with the critical importance of saving such biodiversity-rich wetlands as a means of tackling the adverse consequences of climate change
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The first ‘Lake walk’ (originally scheduled for Saturday, 7th August 2021) is now rescheduled for Saturday, 21st August at Subramanyapura kere and Uttarahalli kere in Bangalore South. By participating in this walk, you would be able to appreciate the importance of protecting the natural terrain to ensure lakes are functional, besides also appreciating distinctive narratives of the lakes: their history, ecology, life of lake communities, in addition to overarching legal frameworks that assist in building progressive imaginaries.
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Come join us for the walk and conversation on lakes woven around history, ecology, livelihoods, legality and imaginations of food and water security.
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By Janani S, ESG. In Bengaluru, 800 km of Rajakaluve streams crisscross the city. The patches of urban farming and fruit trees that can be grown on its banks, in the no development zone, is a humongous opportunity for the wide public. School children, who currently have very minimal ground connect, would be exposed to touch, feel and stay connected to the earth and water, birds and seasons.
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Scientists have provided fresh evidence linking heatwaves that ravaged western Canada and the US with climate change. They termed the occurrence of the phenomenon “virtually impossible” without human influence. This explainer in the Indian Express decodes the phenomenon of ‘heat dome’, the basis of the unprecedented heatwave in North America. Lou Del Bello in conversation with climate resilience entrepreneur Barath Mahadevan, provides a glimpse of what went wrong in the West and some lessons for South Asia in countering heatwaves.
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