22.01.08
Dear Friends,
Today we were given a patient hearing and good time by the Hon'ble Court. Sri SM Agrawal, Convenor, HC appointed Usha Mehra Committee for removal of encroachments from Yamuna has completed his submissions. On Sri Parikh's initiation we were then given time to make a power point presentation to the Hon'ble court in their Committee room for over some 30 minutes. The next date has now been fixed for 29.1.08 (Tuesday) when hopefully the submissions would conclude.
Kindly peruse an excellent article written jointly by Prof. Soni and Sri Parikh which was published recently in DNA.
DNA
Nothing green about it
Vikram Soni/Sanjay Parikh
Tuesday, January 08, 2008 09:12 IST
False notions of 'sustainable development' are blinding us to the loss of bio-diversity Language is such a powerful medium of human communication that it colours all our metaphors, beliefs and imagination. But language can also craft deception. It can wash over common sense and sensibility. This has happened in the present climate of extreme material consumption powered by the global free market. Let us see how. Today, the seductive vision of development has become so preemptive that our remaining original forests, our biodiversity treasury, are being extinguished for huge mines, dams or even real estate projects, and this is supposed to be fine provided there is 'compensatory afforestation'. This term suggests that whatever damage was done can be undone or compensated for by artificial plantation. It then seems to the unsuspecting that this is a fair trade-off for development. But it is like giving sanction to the insane notion that it is fine to kill all wild tigers as long as we replace them by farming the same population in captivity. Can valuable natural biodiversity, created by evolution, ever be equated to compensatory plantation? Yet such a subterfuge is being practiced now by the courts and the government through the now dangerous cliché of 'sustainable development'. If sustainable development of this ilk is going to finish off all our biodiversity, heritage and resources, is it admissible? 'Green buildings' are acceptable currency for eliminating valuable natural heritage. In the popular imagination, the word 'green' is so comforting that it clouds the real loss which is irreplaceable. So are terms like 'eco-tourism' and 'eco-friendly development', where the prefix 'eco' lulls the mind. Natural water resources are used up by commercial buildings for short-term needs and substituted by the magical phrase, 'water harvesting'. It is a well-kept secret that water harvesting can harvest not more than five percent of the original resource. Another notion is that poverty is itself a cause of pollution and that economic development will remove poverty and better the environment. Poverty alleviation in terms of right to shelter and right to employment is often misused to justify development at the cost of environment degradation. What about people who have no link with the global economy but live simply amidst pure unpolluted streams, pure air and forests? This is what gives their life a quality that cannot be bought, and they have been able to preserve it, as their simple lifestyle is non-invasive. But now this basic and essential resource is being whittled away by big companies that acquire large swathes of virgin land for mining or development. These people are then left mute and destitute. This indicates that appreciation of concerns for the nature requires a different mind-set: a consciousness which sees life in totality. The market economy does not address these concerns. We should learn from China. The southern part of China, Fuqing, which used to be the biggest exporter of sea-food, has suffered a setback because of contamination of all its water resources. The sea-food now carries with it the risk of cancer, liver diseases and other health problems. Japan and many European countries have imposed a ban on such contaminated imports. China is now spending US$30 billion a year in cleaning its water. Also, the mandatory Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is so notoriously manipulated that it has ceased to be effective. Instead, we should have a Nature's Rights Commission made up of concerned citizens and scientists whose integrity is above any political and monetary affiliation. There is a precedent for this. The Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, has set up the Israeli Commission for Future Generations as an inner parliamentary entity. Its charter is to safeguard valuable natural resources by overviewing each legislative process, with special regard to long-term issues, and prevent potentially damaging legislation. We need just one simple law: a public trust doctrine. These doctrines have their basis in ancient wisdom — that nature's laws impose certain conditions on human beings' relationship with nature. This relationship has to be kept in absolute trust. This is why in Roman law the concept of jus gentium, a law for all people and nations, was developed, to protect nature's irreplaceable resources. Later, this led to the public trust doctrine in the Magna Carta of the 13th century. More recently, the Water Framework Directive of the EU recognises natural water resources as a protected heritage. We urgently need this singular and uncompromising governing code if we are to safeguard nature and preserve life on the planet.
(Vikram Soni is UGC Professor, National Physical Laboratory; Sanjay Parikh is an Advocate in the Supreme Court.)
