Lalit Shastri
In 1997, at the Kyoto Conference of the Parties (COP), the need was recognized to prepare for the early entry of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The Parties decided to request the Secretary-General of the United Nations to be the Depositary of the Kyoto Protocol and to open it for signature in New York from 16 March 1998 until 15 March 1999.
All Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change were invited to sign the Protocol.
States not parties to the Convention were also invited to ratify or accede to it, as appropriate, without delay, so that they could become Parties to the Protocol.
In 1998 at Buenos Aires, parties adopted a two-year “Buenos Aires Plan of Action” (BAPA) to advance efforts and to devise mechanisms for implementing the Kyoto Protocol, to be completed by 2000. During COP 4, Argentina and Kazakhstan expressed their commitment to take on the greenhouse gas emissions reduction obligation, the first two non-Annex countries to do so.
In 2022 November, at Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt, COP27 focused on the theme – “Adaptation and Agriculture”. The series of sessions deliberated upon the question “How the world will feed eight billion people”?
The speakers at COP27 threw light on ways forward on adaptation and climate-resilient agriculture. Attention was also drawn towards consecutive droughts and the fact that millions of people in Greater Horn of Africa are facing starvation.
Pakistan was cited as a hotspot where agricultural regions have suffered due to unprecedented floods and people across Europe and the US are experiencing soaring temperatures. Also in focus was Russia’s war in Ukraine and the resultant global food shortages and price hikes in wheat, oilseeds and fertilisers. The net result of all this is that the fossil fuel-based food industry is facing the heat.
• What is even worse is that no one seems to have any qualms about compromising in terms of sustainability for mass production and profits.
• In this backdrop, with the advantage of hindsight, after what we have gone through in Bhopal, a word of caution is necessary.
• The question of Food security cannot be divested of Environment, biodiversity and climate responses while ensuring sustainability and guaranteeing the protection of every human life from man-made disasters.
As a journalist in India and Founder-President of CREW (Crusade for Revival of Environment and Wildlife) I have watched it too closely. Whether it is the reckless exploitation of forests and their encroachment or illegal mining or poaching of wild species; the problems confronting us on this count are mammoth. The warning bells are ringing loud– we cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that our forests are depleting at a rapid pace.
As the forest cover in the catchment of our rivers is depleting fast, the watersheds that have kept our rivers perennial for millions of years are losing their potential to keep the rivers charged throughout the year.
In the absence of living forests, during the monsoon season too much water flows into the rivers in too short a time carrying with it the top soil and due to the silting process, the rivers are losing their carrying capacity and what we have are floods during the rainy season and otherwise the rivers run dry for large part of the year. Also matters have been compounded as we have replaced the river system with the system of dams – and discussing its pros and cons would call for another long session.
Food Security
Today the world is sitting straight and talking of food security. Now let us go back in time.
When India attained Independence in 1947, Indian economy was mainly agrarian and about 75 per cent of the country’s population was dependent on agriculture. Agricultural production was very low because agriculture was mostly rainfed and majority of the farmers went for a single crop in the absence of irrigation facilities.
If the monsoon failed, the farmers without agriculture facility found themselves against the wall without any respite.
Green Revolution
But the stagnation in agriculture was broken by the green revolution in the mid 60s of the last century.
Green revolution resulted in a large increase in the production of food grains resulting from the use of high-yielding variety (HYV) seeds, especially for wheat and rice.
The use of these seeds required:
- the use of fertiliser and pesticide; and
- regular supply of water
The farmers who could benefit from HYV seeds required reliable irrigation facilities as well as the financial resources to purchase fertiliser and pesticide.
In the first phase of the Green Revolution (mid-1960s up to mid-1970s), the use of HYV seeds was restricted to a handful of affluent states such as:
- Punjab
- Andhra Pradesh, and
- Tamil Nadu
Further, the use of HYV seeds primarily benefited the wheat-growing regions only.
In the second phase of the green revolution (mid-1970s to mid-1980s), the HYV technology spread to a larger number of states and benefited more variety of crops.
The spread of green revolution technology enabled India to achieve self-sufficiency in food grains; India no longer had to be at the mercy of the US, or any other nation, to meet the country’s food requirement.
This is the positive and most encouraging side of the story.
Sponsored: World Environment Day: Kyoto to Sharm El-Sheikh and issues closer home
Bhopal Disaster 38 Years
The book “Bhopal Disaster 38 Years” by Lalit Shastri, Founder-President of CREW, marks 38 years of a continuing tragedy caused by the massive leak of the most lethal Methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas from the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal on the midnight of 2nd and 3rd December 1984. The gas disaster has left in its wake over 20,000 dead and more than 500,000 injured and wounded with irreversible lung damage. People were blinded and the immune system of countless citizens has been adversely affected and there is no count of those who have been crippled for successive generations.
Union Carbide Corporation
Now coming to the flip side – Eying India’s Green Revolution as a gold mine, a multinational giant like Union Carbide came on the scene recognizing the potential for manufacture of pesticides in India.
In 1969, UCC applied to the Union Government for a license to manufacture pesticide. Three years later both parties signed a letter of intent and finally, after “due care and investigations”, the Union Industries and Civil Supplies Ministry issued the license to the company in 1975 to annually produce 5000 tons of Sevin Carbaryl – a pesticide based on MIC [license no. C/11/401(75) dated 31st November 1975 – signed by N.K. Berwa, Under Secretary to the ministry].
What should be marked is that Union Carbide got the license to produce and market its pesticide brand Sevin Carbaryil in India in the mid-1970’s. From this point of time, till the mid-1980s – coinciding with the Bhopal gas disaster, the country went through the second phase of Green Revolution when the HYV technology spread to a larger number of states and more high-yielding varieties of crops were introduced on a very large scale.
In the early ‘70s, UCC had developed a fully computerized four-stage alarm system which was operational in its West Virginia plant in December 1984.
For Bhopal, it transferred a second-hand and obsolete MIC plant from Danbury USA that had a substandard safety system consisting of manual controls with only one backup alarm system.
There was an effort to cut operating costs. For the same reason, Union Carbide adopted a manufacturing process for Bhopal that involved storing very large quantities of a lethal chemical
Plant in West Virginia, employed a process that did not require storing MIC in huge quantities. MIC produced in this plant was immediately converted into end products that could be stored safely.
A major offense committed by Union Carbide was that it did not communicate to the health authorities in Bhopal the harmful effects of MIC nor did it inform them about possible antidotes in case they had to treat someone exposed to the toxic gas. Indeed, when the victims of MIC poisoning arrived at the hospital, the doctors were unaware of the best form of treatment – the uncertainty and confusion prevailed for more than two months and this compounded the tragedy and human suffering.
The Union Carbide Corporation, although it was aware of the hazards of MIC and was taking every possible safety precaution at its plant in West Virginia, it did not take adequate steps for the safety of the people of Bhopal and had kept them unaware of the potential threat to their lives.
Bhopal has been through a disaster that has left thousands of its citizens dead and hundreds of thousands critically affected.
Entire families were wiped out, countless children became orphans overnight, and many survived only to lament the loss of their loved ones. All as a consequence of the leakage of deadly Methyl Isocyanate gas from the Union Carbide plant on the night of 2nd and the early hours of 3rd December, 1984.
Never before has such a toxic substance been released in such huge quantities – certainly not with such devastating effects.
Toxic Waste
So many years later, the gas victims continue to visit city hospitals for treatment of their chronic health problems and hundreds are treated every day. Those residing near the abandoned plant were also being poisoned daily as the soil inside the plant area, especially its northern and north-eastern side, remains contaminated by toxic chemicals.
Not far from the abandoned Carbide plant, live thousands of people, most of them victims of the gas disaster. At a stone’s throw from this site is a habitat where people are either getting piped water in trickles or being forced to fetch water from hand pumps as the city municipal corporation maintains only a skeletal water supply through mobile tankers in some gas-affected areas. Since the quantity of water being supplied to these communities is inadequate, the residents, including children, have been left with no other option but to drink water from hand pumps even after water samples from these sources have tested positive for toxic contaminants and the hand pumps have been marked unsafe for drinking water.
Studies were conducted on samples picked up from the site of the solar evaporation pond, north-east of the Union Carbide plant, the reaction vessel at the Sevin structure, and from sacks in the formulation shed, the BHC store, and barrels and sacks that were lying abandoned in the cycle shed have proved that the stockpile at Sevin formulation shed contained carbaryl and HCH isomers, including the highest recorded concentration of HCH. Carbaryl Sevin was the main product manufactured in Bhopal. The hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) isomers are used as an insecticide under the common name of BHC and hexachlorobenzene is one of the known contaminants of BHC.
The authorities had partially responded to Court orders and shifted the stockpile of chemicals from many dilapidated sheds to a warehouse that was sealed from all sides. The operation clean-up was conducted in the most hazardous manner as no precautions were taken and the workforce engaged in completing the task was exposed to toxic chemicals. The State Pollution Control Board’s decision to allow a private waste management company to dispose of 346 tonnes of toxic waste from the abandoned Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) pesticide plant through its incinerator at its disposal facility in Pithampur near Indore also come under sharp criticism.
Rio Tinto
I wrote a series of investigative stories to warn the powers that be about the destruction that would be caused by the Bunder diamond Mines, in the neighborhood of Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh if Rio Tinto were allowed to go ahead with the diamond mining activity in that area. My NGO CREW also raised this issue in a big way and campaigned to prevent the devastation of a precious forest area near the Panna Tiger Reserve in 2016. The message to Stop Rio Tinto from devastating an eco-fragile zone was taken to the doorsteps of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Eventually, Rio Tinto was forced to abandon the project on the issue of compliance.
Investigations revealed that the TOR (terms of reference) issued to Rio Tinto Exploration India Private Limited, the Indian subsidiary of diamond giant Rio Tinto, by the Government of India Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF) and the proposal for Bunder Diamond Mine in Chattarpur district of Madhya Pradesh submitted in April 2012 by the company, had thrown up questions that went unanswered. These were related to gaping gaps in relation to impact on the environment, wildlife, flora and fauna, and lives of the stakeholders.
If Rio Tinto had the mining license for its Bunder project, the company would have gone for a mechanized open-cast mine going up to 360 meters. The mineable reserves at were estimated to be 54.05 Mt and the life of the mine would have been about 11 years, excluding development. The estimated cost of the project was Rs. 2300 Cr and it was projected that Diamonds worth Rs. 600- Rs.1200 Cr. would have been available every year.
De Bears
Similarly, in 1996, I had investigated the environmental threat and damage that was imminent if Diamond giant De Bears was allowed to go ahead with diamond mining in an area near Raipur, now in Chhattisgarh.
A series of investigative reports and a major Sunday piece by me on this issue in The Hindu on November 10, 1996, played a huge role in stopping the diamond giant De Bears from plundering undivided Madhya Pradesh.
Illegal sand mining in Chambal a threat to Gharial Sanctuary
I made a documentary titled “Last of the Gharial” for CREW in October 2006. It was focused on a 15-km stretch of sandy bank under the Chambal bridge on National Highway 3 connecting Madhya Pradesh with Rajasthan, which has remained an ideal breeding ground for the endangered Gharial for millions of years. The documentary audio visually projected how this endangered species that lay eggs in the sand was facing the threat of extinction due to biotic pressure and reckless illegal mining of sand. This issue was also flagged by me in an exclusive report in The Hindu.
After my report appeared in The Hindu the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) appointed by the Supreme Court asked the Madhya Pradesh Government to ensure that no sand mining is carried out in the National Chambal Sanctuary in violation of the apex court’s orders.
CEC Member-Secretary M.K. Jiwrajka has written to Madhya Pradesh Chief Secretary Rakesh Sahni raising the issue of illegal sand mining in the National Chambal Sanctuary and asked the State Government to comply with the Supreme Court’s earlier order in this regard. Enclosing a copy of the report that appeared in The Hindu on October 15 regarding illegal sand mining, Mr. Jiwrajka wrote to the Chief Secretary that the CEC had taken suo motu note of that report during a hearing on October 16.
The Conservator of Forests responsible for the Chambal area and the State Counsel were present during this hearing. The CEC observed: “Apparently the sand mining is being carried out in the Sanctuary area in violation of the Supreme Court’ s order dated 14.2.2000 in IA No. 548 W.P. (C) No. 202/95.”
The Chief Secretary was also asked to get the matter enquired into immediately and send a detailed report.
In the later part of 2020, the Principal Chief Conservator of Forest and Head of the Forest Department of Madhya Pradesh grossly undermined the letter and spirit of the Forest Conservation Act, Forest Rights Act, and Wildlife Protection Act and wrote to all Chief Conservators of Forest and the DFOs ordering them to identify degraded forest land falling within their jurisdiction for private investment.
Out of the total notified area of 94689 sq km in Madhya Pradesh, leaving aside the area managed by the Forest Development Corporation, about 37420 sq km (close to 30 percent) is classified as degraded area.
River system
We are the trustees of nature, biodiversity, flora, fauna, rivers and forest ecosystems. We have to watch out and protect our forests and wildlife from reckless exploitation for human greed.
The Central Indian Highlands and the river basins of Madhya Pradesh form a huge watershed with the Narmada River, along with Chambal, Betwa, Son, Mahi and their tributaries charging rivers like Ganga, Yamuna, Tapti, Mahanadi and Godavari.
This landscape ideally should be treated as the water capital of India since it broadly takes care of almost 40 percent of the water requirement of at least 10 Indian States.
People are now aware of the various factors threatening and wiping off vast tracts of forests in the catchment of the Narmada River. We should not shut our eyes but seek objective an transparent investigation to find out the extent to which forest land has been encroached upon and also the status of forest in terms of total growing stock and forest density in the Narmada basin with special reference to the misuse of the Forest Rights Act, forest fires, illegal mining and logging of timber, firewood or headload collection, reckless grazing, poaching, and minor forest produce collection.
The alarm bells are ringing and if we don’t act now…it will be too late and we shall not be able to look the world in the eye when all are equally facing the challenge of climate change.
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