In a significant direction, the South Zone Bench of the National Green Tribunal comprising of Justice M Chockalingam (Judicial Member) and R Nagendran (expert member) set up a two-member committee of experts to visit Challakere taluk in Chitradurga district and study the ecological and environmental consequences of diversion of 10,000 acres of 'Amrit Mahal Kaval' (traditional pasture grassland ecosystems and district forests) for a variety of defense, nuclear, industrial and infrastructure projects.
The tribunal was set up by an act of Parliament and has been mandated with providing a "speedy environmental justice and help reduce the burden of litigation in the higher courts".
The expert members named by the Tribunal are S Ravichandra Reddy, Retd. Professor of Ecology, Bangalore University, and K V Anantharaman, Deputy Director, Scientist 'C' (Retd.), Central Silk Board, Bangalore.
The decision to constitute the expert team was taken on March 21, 2013, based on applications filed by Leo F Saldanha and Environment Support Group (ESG) before the tribunal in February 2013. The ESG works with a environmental and social justice initiatives across India and the world. The applicants pointed out that the Karnataka government violated various forest, biodiversity and environmental protection laws while diverting about 10,000 acres of the 'Amrit Mahal Kaval' for defence, industrial and infrastructure development projects.
All this has also been done, without any statutory public hearings and in total secrecy, thus violating the principle of Free, prior and informed consent that forms a major basis of various environmental and human rights protection laws, ESG charged. Further, it has been vehemently contended that this diversion is in absolute contradiction to various policies of the Central government that seek to protect grasslands and livelihoods of pastoralists, it added.
The applications contended that all these gross illegalities have been committed despite the widely known fact that these ecologically-sensitive grassland ecosystems serve as a special and critical habitat to a variety of flora and fauna; large herds of the highly threatened antelope species such as the Black Buck (Antilope cervicapra) graze these grasslands, and the ecosystem is a typical habitat for critically-endangered birds such as Great Indian Bustard (Ardeotis nigriceps, only 250 individuals known to survive in all of South Asia) and Lesser Florican (Sypheotides indicus). These grassland ecosystems have for centuries supported the rearing of drought-tolerant locally bred variety of Amrit Mahal cattle, besides providing a wide range of livelihoods opportunities for communities in about 60 directly-impacted villages around the kaval.
It is in consideration of all these values that Karnataka had designated such Kaval land as district forests per the Karnataka Forest Rules, 1969 and their protection was made sacrosanct by directions of the Karnataka High Court in 2002 and subsequent orders of the state.
The Challakere Kaval land ranges over 12,000 acres, and constitute the last remaining large contiguous semi-arid grassland in Karnataka.
The state, which boasted at the time of Independence of possessing about 400,000 acres of 'Kaval' grasslands, is now, per the Forest Department submissions to the Supreme Court, left with only about 45,000 acres of such habitat.
