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ETHICS AND SHORT CUTS

IF THE RATIFICATION of the Kyoto protocol by Russia is seen as a landmark event that ushered in a new international framework for the reduction of greenhouse gas emission, the recently released eight-nation Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report published by the University of Cambridge reinforces its vital importance. The watershed study makes disquieting projections about the likely consequences of unchecked global warming. As ice caps melt and changes occur to the seas, indigenous people of the far North could be deprived of their food security, species such as the polar bear be driven to extinction, and the global climate be affected by the rise in sea levels. More immediate evidence of the effects of unbridled economic activity on the environment is available in the aftermath of the storms that have led to severe loss of life in the Philippines. Mindless logging by commercial interests caused deadly mudslides, leading to a belated ban on all logging in the archipelago. These seemingly unconnected events provide a new context for the debate on the far-reaching changes that are being proposed for environmental regulation in India.

There is well-founded concern among Indian conservationists that environmental laws are being portrayed as the major stumbling block to development. Delays in granting environmental clearances, in some cases solely on account of red tape, are cited as justification for downgrading the major instruments of due diligence in the clearance process. The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), through its notification in 1994, stipulated that an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and public hearings should be undertaken for specified types of projects, covering 32 categories at present. This requirement was controversially modified in 2002 to exempt some projects, such as installation of pipelines, from the EIA process. In its present form, the EIA mechanism is criticised for producing data that sometimes fail to stand up to scientific scrutiny. The EIA reports on the Dandeli dam in Karnataka and the Pathrakadavu hydroelectric project in Silent Valley are cited as examples. Scientists raise pertinent questions about the ethics of consultants being retained and compensated by project proponents to undertake the EIA. In some cases, the proponents are allowed to conduct a `rapid EIA' so that a more extensive study of forest areas can be avoided. New concerns have arisen in the wake of a move to re-engineer the clearance process as a component of the World Bank-assisted Environment Management Capacity Building programme. The controversial idea is to enable project proponents to commission EIAs and hold public hearings. This will do away with the requirement that these checks on behalf of the environment should be conducted by statutory agencies.

Any measure to modernise the functioning of the departments that deal with environmental clearance must be welcomed. The Govindarajan committee on investment reforms has submitted its recommendations in this regard. The basic objective of preserving the environment, however, cannot be sacrificed at the altar of speeding up sanction for projects. The Bhopal gas tragedy was a horrific example of inter-generational harm done to tens of thousands of people by a pliant bureaucracy that could not ensure elementary industrial compliance with environmental laws. (Post facto, the Government could do little to help the victims.) Scientific bodies in the country have advocated the introduction of a more transparent process of environmental and forest clearance and the immediate elimination of red tape in decision-making. The overriding concern of the Government must be to rule out obvious conflicts of interests. For one thing, common sense dictates that the EIA and public hearing process must be insulated from the project proponents' sphere of influence.

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