WGEEP Panel Report Highlights

In view of the environmental sensitivity and ecological significance of the Western Ghats region and the complex interstate nature of its geography, as well as possible impacts of climate change on this region, the Ministry of Environment & Forests Government of India constituted in 2010, a Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) headed by Madhav Gadgil from IISC Bangalore. The Panel was asked to perform the following functions:

• To assess the current status of ecology of the Western Ghats region.
  
• To demarcate areas within the Western Ghats Region which need to be notified as ecologically sensitive and to recommend for notification of such areas as ecologically sensitive zones under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
  
• In doing so, the Panel shall review the existing reports such as the Mohan Ram Committee Report, Hon’ble Supreme Court’s decisions, recommendations of the National Board for Wildlife and consult all concerned State Governments.
  
• To make recommendations for the conservation, protection and rejuvenation of the Western Ghats Region.
  
• To suggest measures for effective implementation for declaring specific areas in the Western Ghats Region as eco-sensitive zones under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
  

Major Recommendations:

• Develop and conserve thoughtfully: development plans should not be cast in a rigid framework, but ought to be tailored to prevalent locality and time specific conditions with full participation of local communities; a process that has been termed adaptive co-management.
  
• Ecologically Sensitive Zones: Following the Pranob Sen committee’s criteria, WGEEP proposes that the entire Western Ghats region be declared as an Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA). Within this Western Ghats ESA, WGEEP proposes to assign different regions, other than those covered by Wildlife Sanctuaries or National Parks to one of the following three zones; Ecologically Sensitive Zone 1 (ESZ1), Ecologically Sensitive Zone 2 (ESZ2), and Ecologically Sensitive Zone 3 (ESZ3).
  
• Community Participation: ecological sensitivity is not merely a scientific, but very much a human concern. In particular, a great deal of locality specific understanding of what has been happening and what is desirable, is simply not part of any scientific databases and resides with local communities. Hence, set of regulations tailored to the needs of the locality should be put in place if the area were to be formally declared as being ecologically sensitive
  
• ESZ assignment: The 2200 odd grids spanning the entire Western Ghats be assigned to (1) Protected Areas, namely, Wild Life Sanctuaries and National Parks, and (2) ESZ1 (3) ESZ2 and (4) ESZ3 on the basis of composite scores of ecological significance derived from the database generated by WGEEP. treat Western Ghats regions of each state separately, Assigning ESZ1, ESZ2 and ESZ3 status only to grids outside existing Protected Area
  
• Grass-roots involvement: it is inappropriate to depend exclusively on Government machinery for constitution and management of ESZs. Instead, WGEEP suggests that the final demarcation of the Zones (including those surrounding PAs, as also in context of the UNESCO Heritage Site proposal), and fine tuning of regulatory, as well as promotional regime, must be based on extensive inputs from local communities and local bodies, namely, Gram Panchayats, Taluk Panchayats, Zill Parishats, and Nagar Palikas, under the overall supervision of the Western Ghats Ecology Authority (WGEA), State level Ecology Authorities and the District Ecology Committees.
  
• Western Ghats Ecology Authority: WGEA should be a statutory authority appointed by the Ministry of Environment and Forest, GOI under Environment (Protection) Act 1986 to focus on promoting transparency, openness and participation in every way for development and sustainability of these areas.
  
• On Mining and other issues: An indefinite moratorium on new environmental clearances for mining in Ecologically Sensitive Zones 1 and 2, phasing out of mining from ESZ1 by 2015, Continuation of existing mining in Ecologically Sensitive Zone 2 under strict regulation with an effective system of social audit, No new red and orange category industries, which would include coal based power plants, should be permitted to be established in Ecologically Sensitive Zones 1 and 2.
  

39 Serial sites of Western Ghats in recently updated World Heritage Sites list

The Western Ghats (Sahayadri in Hindi) is recognised as one of the world’s eight “hottest hotspots” of biological diversity. The list declared in 2012 by the United Nations contains total 39 sites where Kerala leads with 20 sites being inscribed in the heritage list followed by Karnataka with ten, Tamil Nadu five and Maharashtra four. The list includes the individual sites listed in the following table.