(Kuradi Chandrasekhara Kalkura)
The Western Ghats is second largest and the thickest, after the Himalayan Forest Range in India. It hosts thousands of flora and fauna. It is one of the most panoramic scenes in the world. It is known for exemplary bio-diversity. The Heaven showers copious rains up to 200″ per year.
Almost all the rivers of South India except a few tributaries of Godavari and rivers of North Coastal Andhra rise in the Ghats.
Aromatic Coffee, auspicious Cardamon and Areca, stimulating Tea and the medicinal Pepper are grown here. Since the last week of July 2019, the region has been in the news, for tragic reasons.
On 29th July 2019 Bengaluru based business magnate, V.G.Siddartha went missing. He had revolutionized the Coffee Trade with his trade brand Cafe Coffee Day, a multi-billion enterprise; he was managing a chain of popular coffee shops across India. Two days later, his mortal remains were found near Mangaluru, the Coastal City on the Bank of the Nethravathi River. The second and the more devastating is the havoc created by the excess, nonseasonal rains.
Usually, Monsoon sets in in the region by mid-June. There are instances of being as late as the last week of June or the first week of July. This year there was no trace of rain till the third of week of July 2019.
It was discussed that the whole of South India might face drought and famine as never before. On 10 and 11th July I was in Koppa, near the famous pilgrimage centre, Sringeri, in Chikkamagalur district.
Usually, it records a rainfall of 120″ to 140″ a year. The municipal town draws water from the river Tunga, at Hariharapura, just 10 km away. I met my elderly cousin, octogenarian Seethapathi Kalkura, a resident of Koppa for about seven decades. He said for the first time the daily water supply of town was discontinued and ration is enforced on supply. “We are getting water twice or thrice a week,” he said.
This was also the fate of other towns and cities as well on the banks of the Tunga and the Bhadra in the region, the catchment areas of the Tungabhadra. Almost the entire South India experienced the same trauma.
It all started, with a bang in the last week of July. It rained, not cats and dogs, but elephants and lions, not only were the backlog cleared but also a major portion of the prospective one also diverted. As often narrated by the poets the incessant rains for two weeks have erased the gap between the sky and the earth.
Media- print, electronic and social- are full of horrors stories caused by rains. They were not exaggerations. Kerala and Kodagu, the birthplace of Kavery, the lifeline of S.Tamilnadu and central Karnataka, are yet to recoup from the unprecedented holocaust of 2018.
The lower riparian states who always blame the upper riparian states for overuse of water must also take into account the untold miseries of their fraternity suffer.
Environmentalists, cutting the across the region have been agitating for decades for the preservation of the bio-diversity of the Western Ghats.
It resulted in the Govt of India forming the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) also known as the Gadgil Commission, after its Chairman, Environmental Expert Prof. Madhav Gadgil.
The Panel approached the project through a set of tasks such as 1.Compilation of readily available information about the Western Ghats, 2. Development of Geospatial database based on environmental sensitivity, and 3. Consultation with Government bodies and Civil society groups.
The Panel labored hard and submitted its report in August 2011. The panel recommended a National-level authority, Western Ghats Ecology Authority (WGEA). The report was considered valuable by the UNESCO which added the 39 serial sites of the Western Ghats on the World Heritage List.
However, the report was criticized by the ‘Development Lobby’ for being too environment-friendly. As a result, another Committee under the chairmanship of the renowned scientist Kasturirangan was appointed to take a re-look into the recommendations of the Gadgil Commission.
Within a year Kasturirangan report sought to bring just 37% of the Western Ghats under the Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) zones — down from the 64% suggested by the Gadgil panel. Dr. V.S. Vijayan, member of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) commented that the recommendations of the Kasturirangan report were undemocratic and anti-environmental.
It is now doubtful, even the 37% suggested by the Kasturirangan Report would be maintained?
When unnecessary and unusual pressure is put on a person either he goes mad or suffers a heart attack or brain hemorrhage? A madman has no direction or target to throw the stone.
Indiscriminate deforestation and creating ecological imbalance has rendered the Mother Nature insane. The monsoon which normally sets in during the first fortnight of June in the West Coast and all along the Western Ghats was delayed by more than a month and the unseasonal excess rain has caused untold horrors.
It uprooted the normal life of millions. Thousands of crores worth crops and properties are destroyed. As said above, we did have delayed Monsoons, excess and shortage and unseasonal rainfall. What happened during the first week of August 2019 and the previous year was unknown in recorded history of the Meteorological Department, particularly in Kerala, Kodagu, N.Karnatka and Konkan Coast of Maharashtra, all situated in the Western Ghats.
The rain has not only missed the calendar or chronology, but it is uneven geographically spread also. Though the Krishna and the Godavari basins are not threatened with floods, due to a shortage of rain, there have been droughts like conditions in many parts of Telangana and North Karnataka and almost the entire Andhra Pradesh.
Now the demand to implement the Gadgil panel recommendations has been revived. The environment is nature’s creation over a period of millennia.
Biodiversity is imperiled within months and years. It reminds me of a Kannada Proverb,” Potter takes a year to prepare a pot while stick breaks it in a split second. ( ಕುಂಬಾರಗೆ ವರುಷ, ದೊಣ್ಣೆಗೆ ನಿಮಿಷ). Is it possible to rebuild ecology within years?
Let my countrymen awake. At least from now onwards, development shall be subject to the Law of Nature.
(Photo:IndiaToday)