Forest areas where miners cannot excavate demarcated

Assessment does not consider forests important to preserve water resources

In a report to the government, the Forest Survey of India (FSI) has demarcated forest areas that should not be mined, or inviolate forestlands. But as forest patches critical to protecting India’s water sources aren’t factored in, the inviolate area demarcated in the report is less than previously thought.

 

A source in the government said, it was now up to the ministry of environment and forests to take a decision.

 

The report on inviolate areas is an updated version of the go, no-go coal mining policy former environment minister Jairam Ramesh had initiated. After Ramesh’s cabinet colleagues objected, the policy was put on hold. As the next environment minister, Jayanthi Natarajan tasked a committee to review the policy and develop scientific criteria to demarcate forests that shouldn’t be mined. In its report in January 2013, the committee stated the criteria to identify such forests. But the United Progressive Alliance government continued to clear coal blocks on a case-to-case basis. Meanwhile, the FSI was tasked with using the criteria stated to demarcate such forests.

 

Experts in the ministry had suggested using several parameters to identify forests that shouldn’t be mined, including forest density, landscape integrity, biodiversity value and demarcation of legally protected wildlife zones. They had also recommended valuing forest areas important for hydrological purposes, or forests that were catchment areas for perennial and important seasonal rivers. But the FSI report does not take into account such forests.

 

Also, it doesn’t factor in hydrological value of forests. Sources in the government said the ministry of water resources, the repository of such information, had conveyed it didn’t have satellite-based data for catchments of perennial rivers. Consequently, FSI was left with no option but dropping such evaluation. This has led to an increase in the area classified as open to mining.

 

Sources in the ministry said through the past week, several meetings were held to debate the report. One of the differences between the FSI and the ministry was the means to verify the assessment carried out through analysis of satellite imagery. Following instructions from the environment ministry, the FSI used a method that reduced the protected area in some parts of the country, sources said. The FSI had been asked not to follow the process for such “ground-truthing”, prescribed by the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing.

 

Sources said a decision on the matter hadn’t been taken yet, adding it was unlikely the government would put the data generated from the exercise in public domain for a third-party assessment.

 

The FSI’s exercise was part of a larger programme of using satellite imagery-based assessment of forests for clearances. Earlier, the ministry had mandated it to ensure all project proponents seeking forest land should get the status of the land verified through satellite-based assessment. The FSI’s report on inviolate areas comes at a time when the Supreme Court has termed the allocation of coal blocks since 1993 illegal and is to decide their fate soon. Earlier, industry and the coal ministry had objected to the use of ‘go and no-go’ criteria, kick-started by Coal India. They had cautioned it retrospectively impacted several coal projects already allocated to industry.