Year-ender 2024: Environment on edge!

The general environmental scenario of the State, as also the State capital Guwahati, has little to cheer about as we are nearing the end of another year. Indeed, over the years, the worrying trend of destruction and degradation of the natural environment, comprising forests, trees, wetlands, etc., has refused to abate despite the inevitable backlashes that the human vandalism perpetrated on nature has triggered. We certainly have one or two success stories involving Kaziranga, Manas, or Pobitora, but viewed against the overall degradation of forests in the State, this does not raise much hope for realizing the goal of long-term conservation or maintaining a healthy environment. The State is parting with large tracts of forestland every year, with the latest India State of Forest Report 2023 putting the loss of forests at 83.92 sq km between 2021 and 2023. Adding further to the ills, the canopy density inside the 'recorded forest area' has also degraded in 1.699 sq km area. Apart from the loss of forest cover, the State is also losing its tree cover outside forests at an alarming rate. Intrusive infrastructure development projects, especially road projects, which have resulted in the felling of lakhs of trees many of them mature specimens sheltering wide-ranging biodiversity have largely been responsible for the dwindling tree cover.

At the root of all this lies the failure of the government to enforce the laws meant for forest and environment protection. Another alarming trend concerns the government's penchant for endorsing a highly intrusive development model that rides roughshod over genuine environmental concerns. Recent decisions of the State government, such as the withdrawal of the preliminary notification for upgrading the city's biodivenity-rich Garbhanga Reserve Forest to a Wildlife Sanctuary, the allotment of traditional elephant territory in Kaziranga's periphery for high-end hotel construction, the granting of oil exploration activities in the eco-sensitive zone of Holongapar Gibbon Wild- life Sanctuary, and approving the electrification of a train track cutting through the same sanctuary, which boasts the country's highest primate diversity, etc., are some such acts of the State government that are at complete odds with the interests of wildlife. It may be noted that the dense forest cover in Assam, which shelters much of the State's biodiversity, is only about 13 per cent. Open cast coal mining, too, has resumed in the Dehing Patkai rainforests, which are Assam's only viable stretch of rainforests accounting for mega biodiversity.

This ongoing brazen desecration of the natural environment will prove to be all the more disastrous in view of the looming climate change threat that will impact multiple spheres. Preserving and enhancing this huge carbon sink in the form of forests, on the other hand, could play a critical role in climate change mitigation.

Unless the authorities realize the worth of the State's natural environment, especially its forests and wetlands, together with the amazing biodiversity they sustain, and desist from sacrificing this priceless bequest from Nature at the altar of a thought- less and insensitive developmental process, the damages will be catastrophic and irreversible.

It will not be out of place here to assess the environment of the State capital, Guwahati, which is reeling under the impact of 'development' over the past three-four years. All that the ongoing haphazard and ill-executed construction activities, which care little about maintaining the norms for checking dust pollution, have achieved is a shroud of dust hanging perennially over the city skyline. Exposure to this shocking and prolonged air pollution has made the citizens vulnerable to various respiratory and eye disorders, besides rendering commuting a perilous affair. It will be no exaggeration to say that the citizens' right to a healthy living has seriously been compromised in the face of this assault from the government authorities.

The city's Deepor Beel the State's lone Ramsar Site-is also literally gasping for breath amid the slew of polluting activities taking place in and around the wetland. Even strictures from the Gauhati High Court and National Green Tribunal have failed to move the State government into shifting the municipal waste dumping ground from the beels periphery. The city does not have a scientific solid and liquid waste treatment mechanism till date, aggravating its pollution levels manifold. The wetland has also shrunk rapidly due to growing anthropogenic and industrial pressures over the years, with the trend in no mood to ease.

Amid this gloom, one or two silver linings shine through, such as the thriving community conservation saga in the Dadara-Pacharia-Singimari area of Kamrup district on the North Bank of the Brahmaputra. Led by Green Oscar winner De Purnima Devi Barman, who spearheaded a community-led conservation movement involving the local villagers, the critically-endangered greater adjutant stork (hargila) population has made a remarkable comeback. From two dozen nests two de cades back, the count has increased to over 250 now, making the area the greater adjutant stork's largest breeding colony in the world. With a new hargila colony with 52 nests identified recently at Kulhati near Hajo, it is a clear indication that their growing numbers have made them seek out new pastures to breed and expand.

With a little push from the government, community conservation can emerge as a potent tool to protect our forests and wetlands, particularly those not falling under protected areas such as national parks and sanctuaries.

By Sivasish Thakur