Policy to minimise impact on wildlife by roads, rail tracks

The Environment Ministry is preparing an "ecologically sound policy" to check the highly detrimental effects on wildlife habitats due to man-made infrastructure such as roads, powerlines and railway tracks.

Shankar Raman, one of the members of the Standing Committee of National Board for Wildlife, headed by Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, has been asked to draft a policy guideline to "minimise the adverse impact on wildlife and habitats" due to the linear intrusions.

Raman is a member of the Nature Conservation Foundation -- a non-governmental wildlife conservation and research organisation based in Mysore. He has been asked to submit the draft before the committee, which would take "a view" before taking a final decision.

Raman, who presented a background paper on the subject in the recently held Standing Committee meeting, said man-made linear infrastructure such as roads, highways, powerlines, railway lines, canals, pipelines into natural areas cause habitat loss and fragmentation, spread of invasive alien species, desiccation (process of extreme dryness), windthrow (trees uprooted or broken by wind), fires, animal injury and mortality as well as changes in animal behaviour.

Man-made linear infrastructure are now widely recognised to have many highly detrimental ecological effects in both terrestrial and aquatic natural ecosystems, he told the meeting held on January 24.

In the meeting, Raman brought out the need for putting in place policy guidelines to minimise the adverse impact on wildlife and habitats due to such linear intrusions.

According to the background paper prepared by him, "In present-day India, infrastructure expansion and proliferation of linear intrusions without heed to ecological and social impacts is creating immense pressures on natural areas, thereby compromising the long-term value of these areas, their ecosystem services, and imperilling the prospects for more holistic and sustainable development."

Most of the linear intrusions implicated in such ecological and social impacts are considered crucial infrastructure for economic sectors such as transportation, power and irrigation.

"Modern improvements, incorporating landscape and ecological considerations, on the design and placement of linear infrastructures are available but remain virtually ignored," it says.

While a range of legal stipulations, orders and guidelines exist, these are not well organised, often ignore important ecological and social science considerations, are poorly enforced by authorities, and frequently flouted by project proponents, the background paper says.