Karnataka - Hubli   

`Green' issues sidelined during elections

By Our Special Correspondent

HUBLI, MAY 2. Uttara Kannada is one of the few districts in the State affected by environmental problems. But these problems had hardly figured in any elections held here so far in the coastal district. The just concluded elections to the Assembly and the Lok Sabha were no different.

This remains so despite the efforts of environmentalists to turn the focus on myriad problems facing the district.

In 1991, the late Shivaram Karanth, environmentalist and Jnanpith Award winner, contested in the Lok Sabha election in the Kanara Lok Sabha Constituency. His poll plank was the environmental issues facing the district and the loss of forest area and forest wealth owing to several schemes undertaken by the Government. He did not campaign and went abroad, expecting the people to express their views. But he came a poor third in the contest.

The 2004 elections saw a conscious attempt being made by the environmentalists to turn the focus on the issues concerning natural resources. None of them contested the elections. But they wrote open letters to the political parties and the candidates on the problems faced by the people.

The initiative for this was taken by the Uttara Kannada District Parisara Samrakshana Samiti, with Ammembal Anand as president and Ananth Hegde Aseesar as general secretary, and other environmental groups such as the Vriksha Laksha Andolana, an organisation espousing the cause of tree plantation to make good the loss of forest cover, the Ankola Parisara Koota and the Anti- mining Action Committee of Yellapur, which has been opposing mining in the forest areas of the district.

None of the parties, including the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, bothered to respond to the detailed list of environmental issues sent to them by these organisations. The prominent candidates — R.V. Deshpande, Minister for Large and Medium-Scale Industries, who contested from the Haliyal Assembly Constituency, and Margaret Alva, who was in the fray in the Kanara Lok Sabha Constituency — responded to any of the points raised by them. Mr. Deshpande has been involved in the plans to promote industrial development in the district.

Apart from purely local issues, the environmentalists have demanded that the parties make their positions clear on some basic issues. One is about the absence of any commitment in the manifestos of the parties to protecting forests, rivers and water resources and the absence of any plan for safeguarding the biodiversity of the Western Ghats, which have been regarded a sensitive ecosystem. They have also expressed concern over the poor quality of work on coastal development and the environment management plans undertaken with the help of the Asian Development Bank. The governments have been silent on the plans for the diversion of the west-flowing rivers, which, the environmentalists say, will be detrimental to the environment of the district.

The issues include rehabilitation of the evacuees of the Kaiga Atomic Power Plant and the Sea Bird Naval Project. It has been pointed out that the people have not been advised about the coastal regulation zone rules, adverse effect on gazani land owing to prawn cultivation and plans for rehabilitating the fishermen hit by the present developments.

Though mining activities have been stopped in the forest areas, there is no guarantee that the licence will not be renewed.

The plea for empowering village forest committees formed under the joint forest management plan has not evoked any response.

While the Kalinadi continued to get polluted by the industries operating in the Dandeli area, the large-scale occupation of forest land by "outsiders" remain unchecked in Bhatkal and Honnavar taluks. The Government is yet to unveil its plan for the protection of the biodiversity of the district.

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