IN the latest of a string of assaults on India鈥檚 wildlife sanctuaries, the Gujarat state assembly has stripped protection from more than 40 per cent of the Narayan Sarovar Sanctuary in Kutch. The sanctuary is a refuge for the country鈥檚 largest population of Indian gazelle, or chinkara. It is also home to other species protected under India鈥檚 Wildlife Protection Act, including the pangolin, caracal, desert cats and the Indian wolf.
In 1992, the Gujarat government鈥檚 department of mining and geology pointed out that there were huge deposits of lignite (brown coal), limestone, bentonite and bauxite inside the reserve. They argued that the ban on mining in the reserve was holding back development of the local economy.
In July 1993, the state government issued a decree abolishing the sanctuary and establishing a new one, consisting of 16 disjointed patches no more than an eighth the size of the original. Several environment groups challenged the decision in the courts, claiming that it was illegal because it had not been approved by the state legislative assembly. This March, the Gujarat High Court quashed the government decree, restoring the original sanctuary. But it refused to comment on the 鈥渄esirability or otherwise of the reduction of the sanctuary area鈥�.
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Earlier this month, the state legislative assembly took advantage of the court鈥檚 reluctance to support the sanctuary and approved a reduction in the size of the sanctuary from 766 to 444 square kilometres. The assembly maintained that there were around 1200 chinkaras and that the smaller area was more than adequate.
The boundaries of the smaller sanctuary are carefully drawn to exclude the rich limestone and mineral-bearing areas. Environment groups say cement makers, eager for new sources of limestone, were the main driving force behind the state government鈥檚 actions. The industry department has already received 10 applications to build cement factories. The powerful Sanghi Cement is likely to be the first to build a plant on the edge of the sanctuary.
The state assembly also stressed that a state such as Gujarat with its poor power supply cannot afford to ignore its brown coal deposits. A first lignite-fuelled power station was built inside the sanctuary in 1991 and a second is now planned in Akri.
Some miners moved inside the boundaries of the sanctuary even before the 1993 decree abolishing it. Since then, mining and quarrying have escalated.
Local forest officials believe that there are fewer than a thousand chinkara left in the sanctuary and that their numbers are dwindling, as their habitat is being destroyed. Pollution from the power station and the heavy traffic through the reserve also disrupts wildlife. Mining has made the water salty, driving villagers out of the area.
Conservationists see the assembly鈥檚 decision as a dangerous precedent. Chhatrapati Singh, director of the Centre of Environmental Law, says: 鈥淭here seems to be a general trend now to reconsider conservation under the liberalised economy鈥�. Such actions, he says, could trigger a chain of similar moves by politicians in other states.
鈥淢ore than forty national parks and sanctuaries face the threat of invasion by commercial interests,鈥� says Singh. A chunk of the Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan was denotified at the end of 1992 to allow mining. Last year, the Melghat Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra was reduced by one-third to allow forestry and construction of a dam. The Radhanagri bison sanctuary is threatened by bauxite mining.
The Centre for Environmental Law is now planning to challenge the state assembly鈥檚 decision. 鈥淯nless such acts are reversed, they will make a mockery of the protected areas programme of the country,鈥� says Singh.