The gold rush at the
Olympics in China may have just commenced. But the iron ore rush that
started some years ago to meet the Chinese demand has severely scarred
Karnatakas rich forest landscape and continues to threaten the States
ecological security.
There are three broad dimensions to the present mining mess. First,
Karnataka’s natural heritage has suffered serious damage due to an
extremely callous approach of granting mining permissions in forests
and ecologically sensitive areas. Open cast mining by its very nature
is an extremely destructive activity which causes severe damage to the
landscape. The cascading impacts increase several fold when mining is
allowed in high rainfall areas of the Western Ghats due to massive soil
erosion and siltation.
In Kudremukh, scientific studies accurately documented the
sedimentation impact on the Bhadra River due to mining of low grade
ore. The data irrefutably established that the mine which occupied less
than 1 per cent of the catchment area contributed over 50 per cent of
the total sedimentation in the river and reservoir. In Bellary too,
there are reports that the storage capacity in the Tungabhadra
reservoir has reduced from 133 TMC to less than 100 TMC due to
siltation.
Ecological research over the last quarter century has established the
deleterious effects of habitat fragmentation due to mining, highways
and such other intrusions on forests. When a large block of forest gets
fragmented into smaller bits, the edges of all these bits come into
contact with human activities, resulting in the degradation of the
entire forest.
Continuity of forested landscapes and corridors get disrupted affecting
several extinction prone species of wildlife. Habitat fragmentation is
therefore considered as the most serious threat to bio-diversity
conservation. Ad-hoc grants of forest lands to mining companies coupled
with rampant illegal mining is aggravating this threat.
Most mining companies adopt a “scoop and scoot” approach which
exacerbates the negative impacts. While several conditions on
environmental safeguards are imposed in mining leases, they are rarely
implemented on the ground. For instance, the careful storage of top
soil at the start of mining operations is crucial for restoration of
the mined area. The track record of mining companies on this front is
abysmally poor. Grave deviations of mining regulations on formation of
benches, roads and slope stability are overlooked for which the
department of Mines and Geology is comprehensively culpable.
The second issue is the scourge of illegal mining. Illegal mining
itself has two facets – wholly illegal miners and companies with
legitimate permits for a specified area who illegally extend outside
their lease boundaries and smuggle multiple consignments on a single
permit.
Such illegal operations obviously point to an entrenched nexus
with politicians and officials. As a result, there appears to be a
systemic collapse of monitoring illegal mining and transport of ore.
Officers with dubious service records are hand picked and posted to hot
beds of mining. Occasionally, a committed officer who lands up and
starts implementing the law is hounded out.
The third aspect concerns the absence of a credible long –term policy
on conservation and export of mineral resources. Policy planners
estimate that India’s iron ore reserves would last 200 years. But that
is possibly based on the naïve assumption that India’s present per
capita consumption of just 30 kg would not increase. If the current
projections of GDP growth are achieved, the per capita consumption
would increase to 200 kg. So what’s the way forward? Export of
iron ore and other minerals must be tempered by long-term national
interest. We could possibly take a cue from the mineral policy the US
adopts. Despite having huge reserves they import minerals and conserve
their own resources for the future.
India’s present policy to allow export of 70 million tons of iron ore
extracted at low royalty rates and without value addition is at the
heart of the mindless mining conundrum. This myopic policy must be
recast to address the fundamental problem. To ensure tighter
regulation, the government must initially grant only an ‘in-principle’
approval for the area sought. A phased, compliance linked
block-by-block mine working permission must be granted to keep tabs on
hazardous mining practices.
Grant of further permissions must be provided only after independent
certification that mining in a permitted block has been carried out as
per the approved mining plan and restoration work is substantially
complete in the initially worked block. This will minimise the impact
of haphazard mining by unscrupulous companies. A complete stoppage of
further mining in the Western Ghats and other forests including
ecologically sensitive areas must be diligently enforced.
Justice Shylendra Kumar’s landmark judgment could not have come at a
more opportune moment. The high court judgment may well have provided
Chief Minister Yeddyurappa the leverage to keep powerful mining
interests within his Cabinet in check. His initial reaction that the
high court order will be implemented deserves a cautious welcome.
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Aug172008/panorama2008081685014.asp
