There are many reasons to feel proud to be an Indian; the Western Ghats should definitely be one of those reasons, especially for those who love nature. Along the west coast of India lies one of the world's great tropical forests and biodiversity hotspots. Kalidasa had likened these ranges to a comely young maiden, her head near Kanyakumari and feet near river Tapti.
However, the Western Ghats, the main water resource and backbone of economy for more than 25 crore people in Gujarat, Goa, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, is now threatened with over-exploitation of its resources by unsustainable development projects.
The recently released Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) report, a comprehensive, well-balanced, informative document, suggests various measures for ensuring sustainable livelihood in and ecological security of the Ghats.
Its message is clear: develop sustainably and conserve thoughtfully. The report highlights the need for development-conservation practices to be in the local context and the need to involve local communities, down to the gram sabha levels.
Since 75% of the Ghats is unprotected and largely used for agriculture, the farming practices in the region have a huge bearing on the sustenance of its rich biodiversity. Thus the recommendation by WGEEP to promote ecologically sustainable farming there has great significance. The two most-significant recommendations of the panel in terms of biodiversity conservation and food security are: replacing the use of agrochemicals with organic/ecological farming and banning genetically modified (GM) crops across the Western Ghats.
Agricultural biodiversity is the foundation for all food production and our food security. GM crops which have come up in the recent past are the greatest singular threat for biodiversity in general and centers of diversity in particular. It throws up a new challenge to biodiversity conservation - genetic contamination which is irreversible and irretrievable. A broad genetic base is vital for healthy agriculture and overcoming new epidemics of pests and diseases and for adapting to climate change. Such a base is immensely reduced in the case of GM crops as they encourage monoculture.
While there are irreversible risks from commercialized varieties of GM crops, like Bt cotton in India and several other crops the world over, we need to be equally wary of field trials that involve experimental GM crops which go through little or no risk assessment.
Today, 72 crops in India are at different stages of GM research and, the regulatory authority, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), has approved open-air field trials for 14 crops for rabi 2011-12 and kharif 2012, to be conducted across 16 states, totalling over a 100 trials across the country. Fortunately, states do have an option of not allowing these field trials. So far, none of the states in the Western Ghats have given an NOC (no-objection certificate), apart from Gujarat which has given NOC for GM corn and GM cotton. However, in order to completely protect the already threatened biodiversity of the Western Ghats, the states must go a step further and declare themselves GM-free as done by Kerala.
Scientist M S Swaminathan in his report "the MS Swaminathan Task Force Report on agricultural biotechnology" highlights that areas of biodiversity like the Western Ghats should be protected from GM crops. Unfortunately, the government has turned a blind eye to these recommendations and decided to introduce GM crops in India forcefully, by pushing through the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill, which proposes a single window clearance system manned mainly by biotechnologists to approve of GM crops.
The WGEEP report is spot-on in its recommendations for adopting a precautionary approach and strongly advising against the release of GM crops in the entire Western Ghats. The governments need to accept the recommendations of the WGEEP report and re-think their decision on introducing the BRAI Bill which is disastrous for our health, biodiversity, farming and environment. Most importantly, it is high time that our policy makers accept the bare fact that if food security, safety and farming have to sustain in our country, we have to farm along with nature and not against it.
The writer is a member of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel