‘Livelihood issues must be linked to environment’
What is the Appiko movement?
The Western Ghats run parallel to the coastline for nearly 1600 km and play a very important role in ‘guiding’ the monsoons to perform their critical role of providing adequate, timely rainfall to a significant part of India. Sundarlal Bahuguna recently said that wellforested hills are “the water towers of humankind”, inducing or attracting rain as well as conserving its water for a longer time. Critical ecological areas such as this deserve special protection. The Appiko movement or hug the trees movement could achieve a ban on commercial felling of green trees over a wide area but trees continued to be relentlessly felled due to the rapid escalation of many development projects. A campaign called Save the Western Ghats has been active for quite some time and has demanded protection of this ecologically sensitive region.
How did you highlight these issues in the run-up to elections?
We believe that if adequate efforts are made, then neglected issues of environment protection can also be brought to the forefront of the election campaign. This is particularly true of the Western Ghats region which is spread over five states – Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa, Kerala and Tamil Nadu – and has as many as 32 parliamentary constituencies. As elections approached, the Save Western Ghats campaign established contacts with more organisations and people to prepare a charter of citizens’ demands to save the Western Ghats. In all, about 85 organisationsand8,000peoplewereconsulted as part of this exercise.
Our charter included demands relating to checking destructive mining practices, protecting forests and rivers, and protecting rural livelihoods with special emphasis on the livelihood of tribals. There are also more specific demands like not using GM seeds. The campaign’s activists then started going to various candidates to elicit their support for these demands. It is hoped that once candidates extend support at this stage, then they will be somewhat more supportive of environment protection policies and laws after winning the election. This campaign is pleading with candidates that if they win, then the 32 MPs from this area should create a parliamentary forum for the protection of Western Ghats.
What are the lessons of this campaign?
A lesson that can be learnt from the Western Ghats campaign is the need to link livelihood issues to environment concerns. Protection of rivers, forests and farmland is linked closely to the livelihoods of the fishing community, tribals and farmers. These links need to be established and for this reason the sustainable aspects of development need to be emphasised.