THE CONTEXT: The Western Ghats faces a paradox: India’s official data show a marginal rise in forest cover, yet on-ground evidence points to fragmentation, monoculture expansion and weakening ecosystem services. The dissonance is rooted in opaque datasets, a command-and-control forest bureaucracy and inadequate implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (Forest Rights Act — FRA).
THE BACKGROUND:
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- Colonial legacy & department-dominated working plans: The Indian Forest Act 1927 and successive working plans privileged extraction over ecology.
- Misreporting of stocks: Independent verification of bamboo in Uttara Kannada (1975) and the National Remote Sensing Centre’s (NRSC) Landsat-based estimate (1970s) found the Forest Department (FD) over-stated stocks and forest area by 5–10 times.
- Industrial depletion: Examples include the West Coast Paper Mills–Dandeli lease and the Grasim rayon mill at Mavoor, Kozhikode, where cheap bamboo and eucalyptus allowed profits while transferring ecological and health costs to locals.
- Counter-narrative from communities: Pachgaon village, Chandrapur, demonstrates how Community Forest Resource (CFR) titles under FRA led to bamboo-based enterprises, revived sacred groves and reduced migration.
WHAT – KEY PROBLEMS:
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- Data Gap & Distortion: Forest Survey of India (FSI) releases district-level maps with a two-year lag; high-resolution Bhuvan and Sentinel-2 imagery are not mainstreamed, hampering early-warning systems for encroachment and fire.
- Slow FRA Roll-out: Only ≈43 percent of potential CFR titles have been issued nationally; in some Western Ghats districts the figure is below 20 percent.
- Monoculture Plantations: Commercial eucalyptus, Australian acacia and rubber replace native evergreen forests, lowering soil moisture and biodiversity.
- Institutional Silos: Overlap of the Forest Department, Biodiversity Boards and Gram Sabhas breeds conflict, delaying eco-sensitive-zone (ESZ) notifications.
- Climate Stress & Landslides: Extreme rainfall events (Kerala 2018, 2021) and “thirstwave” episodes exacerbate slope failure in deforested catchments.
WHY – DRIVERS OF DEGRADATION:
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- Rent-seeking incentives within timber- and pulp-oriented working plans.
- Revenue fetish: States rely on Net Present Value and Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) receipts, favouring quick-growing exotics.
- Policy Incoherence: The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act 2023 eases diversion along strategic corridors without prior Gram Sabha consent, weakening community veto.
- Information Asymmetry: Village-level FSI raw data are classified; communities thus cannot audit departmental claims.
- Socio-economic Pressures: Plantation labour, quarrying and hydropower provide short-term employment, incentivising conversion.
HOW – TECHNICAL SPECIFICITIES:
| Parameter | Legacy Approach | Emerging Science-based Alternative |
|---|---|---|
| Forest mapping | Visual interpretation, 1:250,000 scale, biennial | PlanetScope & Sentinel-2, 3–10 m resolution, near-real-time dashboards |
| Carbon accounting | All forests treated alike | Tier-3 ecosystem-specific dynamic models (Above-Ground Biomass & Soil Organic Carbon) |
| Performance metrics | Hectares planted | Biodiversity indicators, water yield, livelihood outcomes |
| Decision platform | Departmental working plan | Open-data geoportals (Bhuvan-Forest Watch) with Gram Sabha read-write access |
CURRENT SCENARIO & LATEST DATA
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- ISFR 2023: Western Ghats (six states) hold 59,611 square kilometres of forest cover, a net loss of 638 square kilometres since 2019; “very dense” class improved by only 0.13 percent.
- Green India Mission (GIM): 11.22 million ha plantation until 2021, but only 33 percent of the approved outlay released; evaluations flag invasive exotics and poor survival.
- Green Credit Rules 2023: New tradable credits for tree plantation create opportunities for Gram Sabhas to monetise conservation, provided safeguards against green washing.
- FRA Cells 2024-25: Dedicated cells opened in Kodagu and other districts to digitise claims and re-examine rejections, signalling a shift toward facilitative administration.
THE SIGNIFICANCE:
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- Hydrological Security – Western Ghats supply water to over 245 million people in peninsular India; intact shola–grassland mosaics regulate base-flow.
- Biodiversity – Home to >30 percent of India’s plant, 50 percent of amphibian and 67 percent of fish species; many are micro-endemic.
- Climate Commitments – India’s Nationally Determined Contribution pledges an additional 2.5–3 billion tonnes of carbon sink by 2030; Ghats’ restoration is indispensable.
THE ISSUES:
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- Legal Uncertainty: Overlapping designations (Reserve Forest, Wildlife Sanctuary, Eco-Sensitive Zone) create jurisdictional confusion and delay CFR recognition.
- Financial Rigidity: CAMPA funds disbursed through state treasuries often lapse because Gram Sabhas cannot directly access them.
- Human-Wildlife Conflict: Habitat fragmentation drives elephant and leopard incursions; compensation regimes are slow and under-funded.
- Technology Divide: High-resolution data exist, but Gram Sabhas lacks bandwidth and geospatial literacy to utilise them effectively.
- Gender & Equity: Women and Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) remain under-represented in Forest Rights Committees.
- Political Economy of Plantations: Paper and rubber lobbies influence land-use policy, perpetuating monocultures.
- Cross-border Coordination: Western Ghats span six states; absence of a legally binding inter-state river-basin authority hampers integrated planning.
THE WAY FORWARD:
| SOLUTION | ROAD-MAP |
|---|---|
| Open-Data Forest Observatory | Mandate FSI to downscale raw satellite layers to 1: 10,000, publish monthly change-detection maps, and integrate with NRSC’s Bhuvan portal. Gram Sabhas gets login rights and can trigger verification. This embeds transparency and crowdsourced vigilance. |
| Ecological Fiscal Transfers 2.0 | Expand the Fifteenth Finance Commission’s green-criterion, explicitly rewarding native-species richness and community-managed areas. Encourage states to devolve a share to Panchayats. Aligns state budgets with conservation outcomes. |
| Monoculture Exit Strategy | Impose a five-year moratorium on new eucalyptus/acacia plantations in Ecologically Sensitive Area-1, coupled with incentives to replace 20 percent exotics annually with endemic species. Leverage Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) for labour. Restores ecological integrity. |
| Landscape-Level Adaptation Plans | District Disaster Management Authorities prepare micro-zonation maps overlaying landslide-susceptible slopes, rainfall projections and forest loss. Integrate them into working plans and panchayat development plans. Reduces climate-induced hazards. |
| Women-Led Bio-Enterprise Hubs | Promote Non-Timber Forest Produce (NTFP) value-addition clusters (bio-resin, wild coffee, medicinal plants) under Self-Help Group federations; link them to e-commerce via Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). Provide incubation through Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation (TRIFED). Enhances inclusive livelihoods. |
| Inter-State Western Ghats Council | Establish a statutory body under Article 263 chaired by the Vice-Chairperson, NITI Aayog, featuring equal representation from six Ghats states and community observers. Empowered to approve river-basin restoration projects and resolve disputes. Fosters cooperative federalism. |
THE CONCLUSION:
By fusing open-data satellite dashboards with ecological fiscal transfers of Finance Commission devolution, the Centre and six Ghats States can catalyse a self-financing, community-led restoration economy that turns today’s biodiversity hotspot into tomorrow’s climate-resilience powerhouse.
UPSC PAST YEAR QUESTION:
Q. Differentiate the causes of landslides in the Himalayan region and Western Ghats. 2021
MAINS PRACTICE QUESTION:
Q. Critically examine whether the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act 2023 marks a departure from the principles of democratic decentralisation laid down by the Forest Rights Act 2006 and the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel.
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