Thursday, June 18, 2009
CHE Partner Spotlight: A Small Dose of Empowerment
The hardest part of being a neurotoxicologist – someone who studies the effects of toxins on the brain – is not the studying-the-brain part. At least, not for longtime CHE Partner Steven G. Gilbert, PhD, DABT, Director and Founder of the Seattle, WA-based Institute of Neurotoxicology and Neurological Disorders (INND) and Managing Editor of Toxipedia.org. For Dr. Gilbert, the hard part is figuring out how to manage his time.No longer active in research, he works on different ways to explain to the public what is already known about how environmental toxins affect our health. For example, in 2006, he created Toxipedia, a Web-based encyclopedia of toxicology that uses modified open-source wiki technology to make information more freely available. He writes and publishes papers (most recently, a book review in Environmental Health Perspectives). He is working on the second edition of his book, A Small Dose of Toxicology: The Health Effects of Common Chemicals (Informa HealthCare, 2004). “There are a million things to do,” he said in a telephone interview, explaining his ongoing struggle with time management. “What’s the most effective way to use your time? If you really want to change what’s going on, what’s the best way to do that?”
I N D I A : A D D R E S S I N G ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN THE POWER SECTOR
In India, coal is abundant and still
considered to be the cheapest fuel to
generate power. However, the wide
use of coal raises concerns over the
environmental impact. In particular,
the burning of coal pollutes the air
and contributes to greenhouse gas
emissions; while the accumulation of
ash at power stations makes land inappropriate
for other uses and endangers
both ground and surface water. Also,
when more coal is burned, more must
be produced, which in turn degrades
more land, displaces population,
destroys forest cover, depletes more
water resources, and causes more
water pollution.
The Government of India recognized
the need for an independent assessment
of the environmental consequences
of coal burning in power
plants and asked the World Bank and
ESMAP to look into the issue, in
consultation with all affected groups
and people.
ESMAP's Work
In 1996, with funding from the
Department for International
Development (DFID) of the United
Kingdom, ESMAP, launched a far
reaching examination of environmental
issues in the power sector. The
objective was to develop a decisionmaking
tool, which would enable
government officials and institutions
in India to evaluate alternative
options for power development. The
activity ended in June 1998, and the
results are now being disseminated to
several states.
The work started with an initial questionnaire
and a series of seminars and
workshops in Delhi, to encourage the
participation and interest of a wide
audience. One workshop, for Indian
and international technicians, discussed
the modeling tools available to
help in the analysis. Another involved
non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) who were invited to voice
their views and to nominate their representatives
to attend subsequent
workshops for the duration of the
study. These preliminary workshops
were followed by a major Inception
Seminar in July, 1996, attended by
key decisionmakers from the Indian
ministries and from the industry.
The decision-making tool was developed
through two state-level case studies,
supplemented by a set of special
studies. The case studies were done in
the states of Andhra Pradesh (AP) and
Bihar. The special studies provided
generic data and covered: demand-side
management; interfuel substitution
considered to be the cheapest fuel to
generate power. However, the wide
use of coal raises concerns over the
environmental impact. In particular,
the burning of coal pollutes the air
and contributes to greenhouse gas
emissions; while the accumulation of
ash at power stations makes land inappropriate
for other uses and endangers
both ground and surface water. Also,
when more coal is burned, more must
be produced, which in turn degrades
more land, displaces population,
destroys forest cover, depletes more
water resources, and causes more
water pollution.
The Government of India recognized
the need for an independent assessment
of the environmental consequences
of coal burning in power
plants and asked the World Bank and
ESMAP to look into the issue, in
consultation with all affected groups
and people.
ESMAP's Work
In 1996, with funding from the
Department for International
Development (DFID) of the United
Kingdom, ESMAP, launched a far
reaching examination of environmental
issues in the power sector. The
objective was to develop a decisionmaking
tool, which would enable
government officials and institutions
in India to evaluate alternative
options for power development. The
activity ended in June 1998, and the
results are now being disseminated to
several states.
The work started with an initial questionnaire
and a series of seminars and
workshops in Delhi, to encourage the
participation and interest of a wide
audience. One workshop, for Indian
and international technicians, discussed
the modeling tools available to
help in the analysis. Another involved
non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) who were invited to voice
their views and to nominate their representatives
to attend subsequent
workshops for the duration of the
study. These preliminary workshops
were followed by a major Inception
Seminar in July, 1996, attended by
key decisionmakers from the Indian
ministries and from the industry.
The decision-making tool was developed
through two state-level case studies,
supplemented by a set of special
studies. The case studies were done in
the states of Andhra Pradesh (AP) and
Bihar. The special studies provided
generic data and covered: demand-side
management; interfuel substitution
Environmental Issues in India
Mismanagement and overuse of India’s once abundant forests has resulted in desertification, contamination, and soil depletion throughout the sub-continent. This has serious repercussions for the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of Indians that live off the land. In Rajasthan alone, it is approximated that nearly five million tribal people (as of 2004) rely on the collection of forest produce as their only source of income or nourishment. Without continual access to forest products such as fruit, honey, or firewood these communities experience debilitating hunger and are reduced to extreme poverty.
Drought is having severe consequences for the people Rajasthan who’ve endured chronic shortages of water. In 2003, one fifth of the villages in Rajasthan reported they had no access to a reliable water source and approximately half relied on a single source for the entire area. This impacts availability of safe drinking water, the success of the livestock population, and basic food security. Without water, health and agricultural productivity, Rajasthani people are forced to struggle for their survival.
Numerous NGOs in Rajasthan focus on environmental issues as they are extremely pressing concerns for this region. FSD works with NGOs that have been enormously effective in protecting natural resources and minimizing the effects of drought. For example in 2006, an FSD intern, Elizabeth Thys, worked with the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) to build a Rain Water Harvesting System. This water tank improved the quality and accessibility of drinking water for approximately 150 people in a rural area of Rajasthan.
Other FSD partner organizations frequently conduct research projects on topics such as soil stabilization, organic farming, erosion prevention, and protection and management of forested lands. These organizations search for feasible solutions to environmental problems and then provide the local community with the necessary funding and infrastructure. Aid from environmental organizations has become an invaluable way for the poor to improve the condition of their local environment, directly affecting the quality of their livelihood.
Drought is having severe consequences for the people Rajasthan who’ve endured chronic shortages of water. In 2003, one fifth of the villages in Rajasthan reported they had no access to a reliable water source and approximately half relied on a single source for the entire area. This impacts availability of safe drinking water, the success of the livestock population, and basic food security. Without water, health and agricultural productivity, Rajasthani people are forced to struggle for their survival.
Numerous NGOs in Rajasthan focus on environmental issues as they are extremely pressing concerns for this region. FSD works with NGOs that have been enormously effective in protecting natural resources and minimizing the effects of drought. For example in 2006, an FSD intern, Elizabeth Thys, worked with the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) to build a Rain Water Harvesting System. This water tank improved the quality and accessibility of drinking water for approximately 150 people in a rural area of Rajasthan.
Other FSD partner organizations frequently conduct research projects on topics such as soil stabilization, organic farming, erosion prevention, and protection and management of forested lands. These organizations search for feasible solutions to environmental problems and then provide the local community with the necessary funding and infrastructure. Aid from environmental organizations has become an invaluable way for the poor to improve the condition of their local environment, directly affecting the quality of their livelihood.
By the skin of their teeth
Stephen Nash is a tall, burly Canadian, with a flowing white beard and a wry sense of humour. He introduces himself as someone who is often mistaken for Santa Claus. But he is a veteran wildlife specialist who has caught deadly snakes in his native country and has handled many other vicious creatures. As he notes, "I have been bitten, scratched and impaled over the past 32 years!" He once hosted our very own Romulus Whitaker, who started the Snake Park in Chennai and now runs a Crocodile Park outside it.
Nash heads the Capacity Building Unit at the secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Geneva. The convention has been in operation for 33 years and fuses wildlife and trade issues with a legally binding instrument to achieve conservation and sustainable use. In other words, it tries to ensure that under no circumstances should smuggling endanger wild fauna and flora.
Tackling illegal trade at customs
At a workshop organised by the World Customs Organisation at the sprawling campus of the National Academy of Customs, Excise and Narcotics (NACEN) in Faridabad (May 18-22), he briefed customs officials from several Asian countries on the objective of CITES, and how to handle threatened animals and plants. One can well imagine the consternation of customs officials who unsuspectingly open a consignment and have to deal with poisonous snakes, spiders and countless other pesky creatures
Endangered species are divided into three categories. Appendix I - this is a favourite category in UN parlance, since it also refers to industrialised countries in the Kyoto Protocol on climate change - are the most threatened, and international commercial trade in this category (as distinct presumably from exchange or research), is generally banned. This covers some 530 animals and 300 plants. Appendix II lists species that are not necessarily threatened with extinction, but for which trade must be controlled to avoid any such denouement. This is obviously a bigger category, covering 4400 animals and more than 28,000 plants. The third and last category comprises some 255 animals and 7 plants which countries ask CITES to help them protect.
India is most interested in the enforcement of CITES to curb the smuggling of tiger parts to China and other countries in South-East Asia, where people believe that these have curative properties. Indeed, while there is a great deal of controversy over who is responsible for the disappearance of tigers in this country - whether poachers (foreign or national or both) and/or tribals living within national parks and sanctuaries - there is no doubt that, were there to be effective surveillance by the customs at land, sea and airports, the trade would be considerably curbed. Just the sharing of information and better monitoring and coordination by the customs authorities of countries in this region would work wonders.
UNEP has launched the Green Customs Initiative to control what it terms "environmental crimes", among which the turnover in the trade in flora and fauna is estimated to range from $5 to $20 million a year. However, two of the biggest traded items - timber and fish - aren't covered by the treaty because these are not on the endangered list. The Faridabad workshop was to inform and instruct top customs officials from the region about different environmental treaties, most of which deal with harmful chemicals, and how the customs has a major role to play in compliance and enforcement.
Protecting plants
Readers may look somewhat askance at the need to protect plants. However, one has only to consider the enormous value to humans of many plants - as food, fuel and fibre, among other uses. We derive all our foodgrains from five or six staple plants, but there is no telling how many more there are, undiscovered in the wild, which can feed millions across the world. The threat of such plants dying out before they are even identified is similar to precious libraries of original manuscripts being burnt before anyone has read them.
Even today, some 30 per cent of all pharmaceuticals are derived from plants, although genetic engineering may gradually lower the proportion. In India, ayurveda is under serious threat because species are disappearing. Conservationists refer to rare plants in West Africa from which a substance several times sweeter than sugar can be extracted, but scientists have not yet been able to commercially exploit it.
During the protracted controversy over the Silent Valley hydel plant in Kerala in the early 'seventies, wild varieties of rice were discovered in Palghat district which possessed genes to withstand attacks of the brown plant hopper, a deadly pest which was devastating tracts of the dwarf Taichung varieties of rice grown throughout South and South-East Asia. Rice geneticists "married" genes from these Palghat (and Sri Lankan) varieties to the new dwarfs and the new variety was able to withstand the pest. This provides a glimpse of the tremendous value of wild plants.
Cultural beliefs
The tiger is particularly problematic for India because it is an iconic animal - so much so that the celebrated BBC Indian wildlife TV series, hosted by Valmik Thapar a few years ago, was titled Land of the Tiger. The CITES website (www.cites.org) in fact has a photograph of a majestic tiger on the prowl. The problem is compounded by the fact that Thailand has started breeding tigers on farms in order to "harvest" them for medicinal purposes.
In 2002, the Sri Racha (a corruption of 'Raja') Tiger Zoo sold 100 tigers - originally bred from a Royal Bengal pair - to Sanya Love World in China. They were widely alleged to have been bred there in captivity and slaughtered from time to time to be sold for their meat in Love World's restaurant. The Chinese denied this, since it would have violated CITES which only permits exchange of animals between zoos or for scientific purposes. Customs officers in many parts of the world may in future have to decide whether a particular consignment is genuinely from a farmed animal or has been poached.
Many conservationists like Nash take a pragmatic view of such trade and believe it can help assuage the seemingly insatiable demand for such animal parts. However, this should in no way come in the way of proper education of people who hanker over such products for purely traditional and usually irrational reasons. There is an almost exact parallel when it comes to Indian wildlife with the whale shark, one of the largest fish in the world, whose fins were cut off by fishermen off the Gujarat coast and shipped to South-East Asia for the renowned delicacy, shark's fin soup, a favourite on auspicious occasions. The helpless beasts were left to die in the ocean after their fins were cut off.
Fortunately, after a furore by Indian conservationists, this senseless slaughter and trade has been banned. The irony is that the fins actually don't impart any flavour to soup, which has to be augmented by species like abalone, but consumers blindly follow tradition.
Regulating the trophy trade
Nash told India Together that certain countries in east and southern Africa have issued a restricted number of hunting permits to cull old black rhino males. This serves two purposes: first, it earns the country a considerable amount of foreign exchange because the heads of these magnificent beasts are highly valued as trophies all over the wealthy world. Second, according to Nash, it eliminates old males and thereby helps to improve the genes of the species - a modern-day variant of "survival of the fittest"! However, Kenya has objected to this on the ground that smugglers who poach such rhinos in that country can attempt to export them through neighbouring countries by producing fake hunting licences.
Closer home, Pakistan has issued a restricted number of hunting licences - around six a year - to hunt the markhor goat, its national animal, which exists in the high Himalaya. US customs, have however, once confiscated such a trophy, assuming that it was poached, which is understandable when it comes to any rare species. Such concessions will always enrage die-hard conservationists, even as others argue that it raises revenues to protect the goats, restricts the number of licences to a manageable limit and thereby cuts down, if not eliminates, poaching. The jury is still out, but the common sense approach would be devote sufficient manpower and resources on protecting such species, which will reinforced by much stricter customs vigilance.
It should be noted that the original treaty regarding wild trophies was the London Convention of 1903, which was to govern hunting game in Africa and India. Times have changed and no civilized person today should be flaunting the heads, tusks or skins of animals from exotic corners of the world as some form of conquest, or even a form of neo-colonialism.
CITES, however, doesn't govern only living animals and plants but tusks and skins of dead animals as well. India has two such items - one as an import and the other which was both and import and export.
Jewellery made from red coral has been in existence for 5000 years, but the trade has dropped as smuggling is under surveillance. In 1984, some 450 tonnes were seized, which went down to 40 tonnes in 1990. Between 1990 and 2005, only an estimated 28 to 54 tonnes in all have been seized. From the Middle Ages, coral found its way from Rome (presumably harvested in the Mediterranean) to India. From the 17th century, there was a flourishing trade between Naples and Marseilles to India and West Africa. However, it is extremely difficult for customs officers to distinguish between three types of red coral, of which only Corallium is very rare and expensive.
The other item, which goes back some aeons, is ivory. Contrary to popular belief, ivory doesn't only consist of elephant tusks but also those of the narwhal (a long-toothed Arctic whale), killer and sperm whale, warthog, hippos and walrus. Cave paintings from the Cro-Magnon era depict people hunting mammoths for their tusks. The first ivory masterpiece in historical records is an arch which dates back to 2000 BC in Egypt. Even more surprisingly, such tusks are being recovered from the icy wastes in the extremities of the globe. In Alaska, carvings out of fossilized walrus ivory are in fact permitted today. Tusks of mammoths, which became extinct 16,000 years ago, are sought after.
However, faced with the dire threat to herds of African elephants, which declined by a half between 1970 and 1985, 119 countries at a CITES meet in 1989 decided to ban hunting elephants. African elephants are more sought after than their Indian counterparts because their tusks are bigger (as, indeed, are the elephants themselves). Indian craftsmen were far more adept at carving such tusks and till the ban, used to import African ivory. Most of this trade is now prohibited. There is some unhappiness in East and southern Africa, where herds are in fact increasing and the ban is sometimes thought of as a western imposition, without any concession to the revenue it could earn for poor countries in that part of the continent.
Sometimes, even with endangered species, truth can be stranger than fiction. In the current crisis over climate change, the sight of a lone polar bear struggling to keep afloat on a tiny ice floe has become the iconic image that goads countries and individuals to take action before it is too late. According to Nash, however, of 27 polar bear populations in the Arctic, 26 are actually increasing. ⊕
Darryl D'Monte
Nash heads the Capacity Building Unit at the secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Geneva. The convention has been in operation for 33 years and fuses wildlife and trade issues with a legally binding instrument to achieve conservation and sustainable use. In other words, it tries to ensure that under no circumstances should smuggling endanger wild fauna and flora.
Tackling illegal trade at customs
At a workshop organised by the World Customs Organisation at the sprawling campus of the National Academy of Customs, Excise and Narcotics (NACEN) in Faridabad (May 18-22), he briefed customs officials from several Asian countries on the objective of CITES, and how to handle threatened animals and plants. One can well imagine the consternation of customs officials who unsuspectingly open a consignment and have to deal with poisonous snakes, spiders and countless other pesky creatures
Endangered species are divided into three categories. Appendix I - this is a favourite category in UN parlance, since it also refers to industrialised countries in the Kyoto Protocol on climate change - are the most threatened, and international commercial trade in this category (as distinct presumably from exchange or research), is generally banned. This covers some 530 animals and 300 plants. Appendix II lists species that are not necessarily threatened with extinction, but for which trade must be controlled to avoid any such denouement. This is obviously a bigger category, covering 4400 animals and more than 28,000 plants. The third and last category comprises some 255 animals and 7 plants which countries ask CITES to help them protect.
India is most interested in the enforcement of CITES to curb the smuggling of tiger parts to China and other countries in South-East Asia, where people believe that these have curative properties. Indeed, while there is a great deal of controversy over who is responsible for the disappearance of tigers in this country - whether poachers (foreign or national or both) and/or tribals living within national parks and sanctuaries - there is no doubt that, were there to be effective surveillance by the customs at land, sea and airports, the trade would be considerably curbed. Just the sharing of information and better monitoring and coordination by the customs authorities of countries in this region would work wonders.
UNEP has launched the Green Customs Initiative to control what it terms "environmental crimes", among which the turnover in the trade in flora and fauna is estimated to range from $5 to $20 million a year. However, two of the biggest traded items - timber and fish - aren't covered by the treaty because these are not on the endangered list. The Faridabad workshop was to inform and instruct top customs officials from the region about different environmental treaties, most of which deal with harmful chemicals, and how the customs has a major role to play in compliance and enforcement.
Protecting plants
Readers may look somewhat askance at the need to protect plants. However, one has only to consider the enormous value to humans of many plants - as food, fuel and fibre, among other uses. We derive all our foodgrains from five or six staple plants, but there is no telling how many more there are, undiscovered in the wild, which can feed millions across the world. The threat of such plants dying out before they are even identified is similar to precious libraries of original manuscripts being burnt before anyone has read them.
Even today, some 30 per cent of all pharmaceuticals are derived from plants, although genetic engineering may gradually lower the proportion. In India, ayurveda is under serious threat because species are disappearing. Conservationists refer to rare plants in West Africa from which a substance several times sweeter than sugar can be extracted, but scientists have not yet been able to commercially exploit it.
During the protracted controversy over the Silent Valley hydel plant in Kerala in the early 'seventies, wild varieties of rice were discovered in Palghat district which possessed genes to withstand attacks of the brown plant hopper, a deadly pest which was devastating tracts of the dwarf Taichung varieties of rice grown throughout South and South-East Asia. Rice geneticists "married" genes from these Palghat (and Sri Lankan) varieties to the new dwarfs and the new variety was able to withstand the pest. This provides a glimpse of the tremendous value of wild plants.
Cultural beliefs
The tiger is particularly problematic for India because it is an iconic animal - so much so that the celebrated BBC Indian wildlife TV series, hosted by Valmik Thapar a few years ago, was titled Land of the Tiger. The CITES website (www.cites.org) in fact has a photograph of a majestic tiger on the prowl. The problem is compounded by the fact that Thailand has started breeding tigers on farms in order to "harvest" them for medicinal purposes.
In 2002, the Sri Racha (a corruption of 'Raja') Tiger Zoo sold 100 tigers - originally bred from a Royal Bengal pair - to Sanya Love World in China. They were widely alleged to have been bred there in captivity and slaughtered from time to time to be sold for their meat in Love World's restaurant. The Chinese denied this, since it would have violated CITES which only permits exchange of animals between zoos or for scientific purposes. Customs officers in many parts of the world may in future have to decide whether a particular consignment is genuinely from a farmed animal or has been poached.
Many conservationists like Nash take a pragmatic view of such trade and believe it can help assuage the seemingly insatiable demand for such animal parts. However, this should in no way come in the way of proper education of people who hanker over such products for purely traditional and usually irrational reasons. There is an almost exact parallel when it comes to Indian wildlife with the whale shark, one of the largest fish in the world, whose fins were cut off by fishermen off the Gujarat coast and shipped to South-East Asia for the renowned delicacy, shark's fin soup, a favourite on auspicious occasions. The helpless beasts were left to die in the ocean after their fins were cut off.
Fortunately, after a furore by Indian conservationists, this senseless slaughter and trade has been banned. The irony is that the fins actually don't impart any flavour to soup, which has to be augmented by species like abalone, but consumers blindly follow tradition.
Regulating the trophy trade
Nash told India Together that certain countries in east and southern Africa have issued a restricted number of hunting permits to cull old black rhino males. This serves two purposes: first, it earns the country a considerable amount of foreign exchange because the heads of these magnificent beasts are highly valued as trophies all over the wealthy world. Second, according to Nash, it eliminates old males and thereby helps to improve the genes of the species - a modern-day variant of "survival of the fittest"! However, Kenya has objected to this on the ground that smugglers who poach such rhinos in that country can attempt to export them through neighbouring countries by producing fake hunting licences.
Closer home, Pakistan has issued a restricted number of hunting licences - around six a year - to hunt the markhor goat, its national animal, which exists in the high Himalaya. US customs, have however, once confiscated such a trophy, assuming that it was poached, which is understandable when it comes to any rare species. Such concessions will always enrage die-hard conservationists, even as others argue that it raises revenues to protect the goats, restricts the number of licences to a manageable limit and thereby cuts down, if not eliminates, poaching. The jury is still out, but the common sense approach would be devote sufficient manpower and resources on protecting such species, which will reinforced by much stricter customs vigilance.
It should be noted that the original treaty regarding wild trophies was the London Convention of 1903, which was to govern hunting game in Africa and India. Times have changed and no civilized person today should be flaunting the heads, tusks or skins of animals from exotic corners of the world as some form of conquest, or even a form of neo-colonialism.
CITES, however, doesn't govern only living animals and plants but tusks and skins of dead animals as well. India has two such items - one as an import and the other which was both and import and export.
Jewellery made from red coral has been in existence for 5000 years, but the trade has dropped as smuggling is under surveillance. In 1984, some 450 tonnes were seized, which went down to 40 tonnes in 1990. Between 1990 and 2005, only an estimated 28 to 54 tonnes in all have been seized. From the Middle Ages, coral found its way from Rome (presumably harvested in the Mediterranean) to India. From the 17th century, there was a flourishing trade between Naples and Marseilles to India and West Africa. However, it is extremely difficult for customs officers to distinguish between three types of red coral, of which only Corallium is very rare and expensive.
The other item, which goes back some aeons, is ivory. Contrary to popular belief, ivory doesn't only consist of elephant tusks but also those of the narwhal (a long-toothed Arctic whale), killer and sperm whale, warthog, hippos and walrus. Cave paintings from the Cro-Magnon era depict people hunting mammoths for their tusks. The first ivory masterpiece in historical records is an arch which dates back to 2000 BC in Egypt. Even more surprisingly, such tusks are being recovered from the icy wastes in the extremities of the globe. In Alaska, carvings out of fossilized walrus ivory are in fact permitted today. Tusks of mammoths, which became extinct 16,000 years ago, are sought after.
However, faced with the dire threat to herds of African elephants, which declined by a half between 1970 and 1985, 119 countries at a CITES meet in 1989 decided to ban hunting elephants. African elephants are more sought after than their Indian counterparts because their tusks are bigger (as, indeed, are the elephants themselves). Indian craftsmen were far more adept at carving such tusks and till the ban, used to import African ivory. Most of this trade is now prohibited. There is some unhappiness in East and southern Africa, where herds are in fact increasing and the ban is sometimes thought of as a western imposition, without any concession to the revenue it could earn for poor countries in that part of the continent.
Sometimes, even with endangered species, truth can be stranger than fiction. In the current crisis over climate change, the sight of a lone polar bear struggling to keep afloat on a tiny ice floe has become the iconic image that goads countries and individuals to take action before it is too late. According to Nash, however, of 27 polar bear populations in the Arctic, 26 are actually increasing. ⊕
Darryl D'Monte
River basin studies: A half-hearted attempt
The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) on River Valley and Hydroelectric Projects of the Ministry of Environment and Forests of the Government of India has recently approved the Terms of Reference for conducting basin level studies of the Bichom and Lohit river basins in Arunachal Pradesh. The EAC has been constituted under the EIA notification 2006 to examine projects that apply to the Ministry for environmental clearance.
According to the TOR, the basin studies envisage "providing optimum support for various natural processes and allowing sustainable activities undertaken by its inhabitants". The Bichom and Lohit basins are among the river basins in the Himalayas where massive plans for building large dams and developing hydropower are being rolled out. More than a hundred projects with installed capacities totalling to 54,000 MW are at various stages of planning and implementation just in the state of Arunachal itself.
Often, a large number of dams are planned on single rivers or in single basins. For example, in the Lohit basin, a cascade of six projects totalling to 7918 MW are being planned, all within a length of 86 kms.
The need for basin studies
Such cascade-type development or a number of dams in a single basin raise the critically important issue of cumulative impacts. Often, the impact of all projects taken together is much greater than the sum of impacts of individual projects. Unfortunately, cumulative impacts are hardly ever assessed, as individual projects are planned and evaluated separately. One of the strongest criticisms against the recent plans of dam building has been the complete lack of any assessment of the carrying capacity - what level of development, and in particular the number of dams a basin can sustain - and of the totality of impacts of the number of dams and projects in the basinIndeed, when the impact assessment of even individual projects is patchy at best and often farcical, it would be too much to expect a proper cumulative impact assessment.
Against this background, the decision to undertake basin level studies in the Lohit and Bichom are welcome steps in the right direction. The TORs of the basin studies indicate that wide-ranging and extensive examination has been called for, as is necessary for any such study. The TORs call for "inventorisation and analysis of the existing resource base and its production, consumption and conservation levels, determination of regional ecological fragility/sensitivity based on geo-physical, biological, socio-economic and cultural attributes, review of existing and planned developments as per various developmental plans, and evaluation of impacts on various facets of environment due to existing and planned development."
The studies are to then assess the stress/load due to various activities and suggest environmental action plans that can involve preclusion or modification any activity and measures. Unfortunately, the good part ends with this. The way the studies have been structured ends up defeating the very purpose of carrying them out. A self-defeating exercise
First and foremost, the basin studies have been effectively de-linked from the implementation of the projects as there is no requirement that the projects be conditional to the findings of the basin studies. Neither is there any explicit stay on the consideration and implementation of any of the projects pending the studies.
Logically, the basin studies should suggest what level of development, including hydropower projects, the basin can sustain. The projects should be planned based on this. However, the current planning and decision making turns this on its head. The numbers, locations, capacities, types and other details of the projects have already been decided. Many of these projects have already been allotted to (mostly) private developers who already have or would soon be approaching the Ministry for environmental clearance. In Bichom basin, the 600 MW Bichom (or Kameng) project is already under construction.
It is clear that the Expert Appraisal Committee understood this issue. The Minutes of its meeting dated 15 and 16 December 2008 record that "The committee noted that the study will be completed in two years and M/s WAPCOS has been entrusted with the job. In case, any project on this basin is submitted during this study period for environmental clearance, how the outcome of the study will help to take a decision could not be clarified." The obvious solution is to put on hold the projects till the studies are done. However, what the Committee decided is that "the report may be submitted within six months by reducing the TOR and the study should focus only on hydroelectric projects."
Thus, studies that would need about two years are to be done in six months (later this was extended to nine) with reduced TORs. How the outcome of such truncated studies would help rational environmental decision making is a question. It is clear that the environmental objectives have been sidelined with an eye to build as many dams as possible.
The TOR for the studies does state that they can recommend the "preclusion of any activity", which presumably means that they can call for any or some of the hydropower plants not to be built. In reality, such an outcome is highly unlikely, as is seen from the reluctance to explicitly put on hold the projects in the basin pending the results of the study. While the Committee has from time to time discussed with concern the possible impacts of large number of projects in a single basin, it has fallen shy of taking the right, but hard decision when actually dealing with the problem.
The TORs for the basin studies lay out in detail many parameters that need to be studied, field data that needs to be collected, but fail to require that the local communities be consulted and involved in the process.
• High Court pulls up NEAA • Whose expert is an expert? For example, the Lohit basin study
was originally envisaged and put forward as a condition while granting clearance for pre-construction activities to the Upper and Lower Demwe projects in March 2008. But the Minutes of the EAC meeting of July 2008, while discussing the basin study note that "Environmental Clearance to Demwe Upper and Demwe Lower HE Project should not be linked up with the completion of basin study." These two projects add up to 3430 MW, a full 43 per cent of the total 7918 MW planned in the basin.
Further, considering that the studies are to be paid for by the project developers - in proportion to the size of the projects they have been allotted - the conflict of interest is clear.
An earlier such basin study - to determined the carrying capacity of the Teesta basin in Sikkim, initiated in 2001 - at least had a condition that no project will be considered for environmental clearance till the carrying study is completed. That study took over five years. However, the MoEF violated its own condition and accorded clearance to several projects even before the study was completed. On the other hand, based on the recommendations of the study, the MoEF has asked the Sikkim Government to drop five hydropower projects above Chungthang, and restrict the height of those below it. This shows that findings of such studies are likely to require significant rethinking of dam building plans in the river basins.
Neeraj Vagholikar, who is with the environmental organisation Kalpavriksh and has studied dam projects in the North-East since 2001 says about the Bichom and Lohit studies: "The reluctance to put on hold individual project clearances till comprehensive river basin studies are completed puts a question mark on the utility of the entire exercise. Moreover, the river basin studies will now be much shorter exercises instead of the comprehensive ones envisaged earlier, which are necessary for proper environmental decision-making. It appears that the Bichom and Lohit studies are more likely to be used to create a justification for the large scale hydropower development already planned than protect the ecological integrity of these river basins. One of the two key outcomes proposed for the studies - to provide sustainable and optimal ways of hydropower development - is a clear indication that the environmental objectives are of secondary importance."
The silver lining to this is that the second key outcome specified by the TOR is to "assess requirement of environmental flow during lean season with actual flow, depth and velocity at different level". It is significant that the Committee has recognised the importance of environmental flows, the flows necessary to maintain the ecological existence of the river, an issue that is increasingly being acknowledged as critical to sound river basin planning. One has to wait and see if the studies would have the independence to recommend preclusion or modifications to some of the hydropower projects if this is found necessary to maintain environmental flows, and if so, whether such recommendations could be implemented.
While there are several other important issues with the basin studies not discussed here, there is one that is essential to point out. The TORs for the basin studies lay out in detail many parameters that need to be studied, field data that needs to be collected, but fail to require that the local communities be consulted and involved in the process. This is a major shortcoming, and an indicator that the studies are reinforcing the technocratic approach instead of a participatory one that is the essence of environmental decision-making.
Conclusion
The basin studies for Bichom and Lohit are examples of a good initiative gone awry. The Committee's recognition of the need for basin studies is a welcome step. It is clear that this is an acknowledgement of issues of cumulative impacts and carrying capacity that activists, researchers, academics, dam affected people and others have been consistently raising for the last many years. At the same time, it does not go to the logical conclusion and hence has become self-defeating.
What the Committee needs to do is to re-define the TORs for the studies allowing them the two years that the committee itself feels are necessary, and redesigning them to require meaningful participation of local communities and civil society. Meanwhile it should put the projects in the basin on hold, and make them conditional to the findings of the study. If this is done, it will be a significant step in the direction of environmentally sustainable and holistic approach to development. ⊕
ENVIRONMENT REGULATION River basin studies: A half-hearted attempt Impact assessment studies to understand the consequences of large dam projects have been de-linked from the actual implementation of the projects, thus diluting their value, writes Shripad Dharmadhikary.
• Write the author • Environment regulation • Send to a friend • Printer friendly version 16 June 2009 - The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) on River Valley and Hydroelectric Projects of the Ministry of Environment and Forests of the Government of India has recently approved the Terms of Reference for conducting basin level studies of the Bichom and Lohit river basins in Arunachal Pradesh. The EAC has been constituted under the EIA notification 2006 to examine projects that apply to the Ministry for environmental clearance.
According to the TOR, the basin studies envisage "providing optimum support for various natural processes and allowing sustainable activities undertaken by its inhabitants". The Bichom and Lohit basins are among the river basins in the Himalayas where massive plans for building large dams and developing hydropower are being rolled out. More than a hundred projects with installed capacities totalling to 54,000 MW are at various stages of planning and implementation just in the state of Arunachal itself.
Often, a large number of dams are planned on single rivers or in single basins. For example, in the Lohit basin, a cascade of six projects totalling to 7918 MW are being planned, all within a length of 86 kms.
The need for basin studies
Such cascade-type development or a number of dams in a single basin raise the critically important issue of cumulative impacts. Often, the impact of all projects taken together is much greater than the sum of impacts of individual projects. Unfortunately, cumulative impacts are hardly ever assessed, as individual projects are planned and evaluated separately. One of the strongest criticisms against the recent plans of dam building has been the complete lack of any assessment of the carrying capacity - what level of development, and in particular the number of dams a basin can sustain - and of the totality of impacts of the number of dams and projects in the basin.
Often, the impact of all projects taken together is much greater than the sum of impacts of individual projects. Unfortunately, cumulative impacts are hardly ever assessed, as individual projects are planned and evaluated separately.
• High Court pulls up NEAA • Whose expert is an expert? Indeed, when the impact assessment of even individual projects is patchy at best and often farcical, it would be too much to expect a proper cumulative impact assessment.
Against this background, the decision to undertake basin level studies in the Lohit and Bichom are welcome steps in the right direction. The TORs of the basin studies indicate that wide-ranging and extensive examination has been called for, as is necessary for any such study. The TORs call for "inventorisation and analysis of the existing resource base and its production, consumption and conservation levels, determination of regional ecological fragility/sensitivity based on geo-physical, biological, socio-economic and cultural attributes, review of existing and planned developments as per various developmental plans, and evaluation of impacts on various facets of environment due to existing and planned development."
The studies are to then assess the stress/load due to various activities and suggest environmental action plans that can involve preclusion or modification any activity and measures. Unfortunately, the good part ends with this. The way the studies have been structured ends up defeating the very purpose of carrying them out.
A self-defeating exercise
First and foremost, the basin studies have been effectively de-linked from the implementation of the projects as there is no requirement that the projects be conditional to the findings of the basin studies. Neither is there any explicit stay on the consideration and implementation of any of the projects pending the studies.
Logically, the basin studies should suggest what level of development, including hydropower projects, the basin can sustain. The projects should be planned based on this. However, the current planning and decision making turns this on its head. The numbers, locations, capacities, types and other details of the projects have already been decided. Many of these projects have already been allotted to (mostly) private developers who already have or would soon be approaching the Ministry for environmental clearance. In Bichom basin, the 600 MW Bichom (or Kameng) project is already under construction.
It is clear that the Expert Appraisal Committee understood this issue. The Minutes of its meeting dated 15 and 16 December 2008 record that "The committee noted that the study will be completed in two years and M/s WAPCOS has been entrusted with the job. In case, any project on this basin is submitted during this study period for environmental clearance, how the outcome of the study will help to take a decision could not be clarified." The obvious solution is to put on hold the projects till the studies are done. However, what the Committee decided is that "the report may be submitted within six months by reducing the TOR and the study should focus only on hydroelectric projects."
Thus, studies that would need about two years are to be done in six months (later this was extended to nine) with reduced TORs. How the outcome of such truncated studies would help rational environmental decision making is a question. It is clear that the environmental objectives have been sidelined with an eye to build as many dams as possible.
The TOR for the studies does state that they can recommend the "preclusion of any activity", which presumably means that they can call for any or some of the hydropower plants not to be built. In reality, such an outcome is highly unlikely, as is seen from the reluctance to explicitly put on hold the projects in the basin pending the results of the study. While the Committee has from time to time discussed with concern the possible impacts of large number of projects in a single basin, it has fallen shy of taking the right, but hard decision when actually dealing with the problem.
The TORs for the basin studies lay out in detail many parameters that need to be studied, field data that needs to be collected, but fail to require that the local communities be consulted and involved in the process.
• High Court pulls up NEAA • Whose expert is an expert? For example, the Lohit basin study was originally envisaged and put forward as a condition while granting clearance for pre-construction activities to the Upper and Lower Demwe projects in March 2008. But the Minutes of the EAC meeting of July 2008, while discussing the basin study note that "Environmental Clearance to Demwe Upper and Demwe Lower HE Project should not be linked up with the completion of basin study." These two projects add up to 3430 MW, a full 43 per cent of the total 7918 MW planned in the basin.
Further, considering that the studies are to be paid for by the project developers - in proportion to the size of the projects they have been allotted - the conflict of interest is clear.
An earlier such basin study - to determined the carrying capacity of the Teesta basin in Sikkim, initiated in 2001 - at least had a condition that no project will be considered for environmental clearance till the carrying study is completed. That study took over five years. However, the MoEF violated its own condition and accorded clearance to several projects even before the study was completed. On the other hand, based on the recommendations of the study, the MoEF has asked the Sikkim Government to drop five hydropower projects above Chungthang, and restrict the height of those below it. This shows that findings of such studies are likely to require significant rethinking of dam building plans in the river basins.
Neeraj Vagholikar, who is with the environmental organisation Kalpavriksh and has studied dam projects in the North-East since 2001 says about the Bichom and Lohit studies: "The reluctance to put on hold individual project clearances till comprehensive river basin studies are completed puts a question mark on the utility of the entire exercise. Moreover, the river basin studies will now be much shorter exercises instead of the comprehensive ones envisaged earlier, which are necessary for proper environmental decision-making. It appears that the Bichom and Lohit studies are more likely to be used to create a justification for the large scale hydropower development already planned than protect the ecological integrity of these river basins. One of the two key outcomes proposed for the studies - to provide sustainable and optimal ways of hydropower development - is a clear indication that the environmental objectives are of secondary importance."
The silver lining to this is that the second key outcome specified by the TOR is to "assess requirement of environmental flow during lean season with actual flow, depth and velocity at different level". It is significant that the Committee has recognised the importance of environmental flows, the flows necessary to maintain the ecological existence of the river, an issue that is increasingly being acknowledged as critical to sound river basin planning. One has to wait and see if the studies would have the independence to recommend preclusion or modifications to some of the hydropower projects if this is found necessary to maintain environmental flows, and if so, whether such recommendations could be implemented.
While there are several other important issues with the basin studies not discussed here, there is one that is essential to point out. The TORs for the basin studies lay out in detail many parameters that need to be studied, field data that needs to be collected, but fail to require that the local communities be consulted and involved in the process. This is a major shortcoming, and an indicator that the studies are reinforcing the technocratic approach instead of a participatory one that is the essence of environmental decision-making.
Conclusion
The basin studies for Bichom and Lohit are examples of a good initiative gone awry. The Committee's recognition of the need for basin studies is a welcome step. It is clear that this is an acknowledgement of issues of cumulative impacts and carrying capacity that activists, researchers, academics, dam affected people and others have been consistently raising for the last many years. At the same time, it does not go to the logical conclusion and hence has become self-defeating.
What the Committee needs to do is to re-define the TORs for the studies allowing them the two years that the committee itself feels are necessary, and redesigning them to require meaningful participation of local communities and civil society. Meanwhile it should put the projects in the basin on hold, and make them conditional to the findings of the study. If this is done, it will be a significant step in the direction of environmentally sustainable and holistic approach to development. ⊕
Shripad Dharmadhikary
According to the TOR, the basin studies envisage "providing optimum support for various natural processes and allowing sustainable activities undertaken by its inhabitants". The Bichom and Lohit basins are among the river basins in the Himalayas where massive plans for building large dams and developing hydropower are being rolled out. More than a hundred projects with installed capacities totalling to 54,000 MW are at various stages of planning and implementation just in the state of Arunachal itself.
Often, a large number of dams are planned on single rivers or in single basins. For example, in the Lohit basin, a cascade of six projects totalling to 7918 MW are being planned, all within a length of 86 kms.
The need for basin studies
Such cascade-type development or a number of dams in a single basin raise the critically important issue of cumulative impacts. Often, the impact of all projects taken together is much greater than the sum of impacts of individual projects. Unfortunately, cumulative impacts are hardly ever assessed, as individual projects are planned and evaluated separately. One of the strongest criticisms against the recent plans of dam building has been the complete lack of any assessment of the carrying capacity - what level of development, and in particular the number of dams a basin can sustain - and of the totality of impacts of the number of dams and projects in the basinIndeed, when the impact assessment of even individual projects is patchy at best and often farcical, it would be too much to expect a proper cumulative impact assessment.
Against this background, the decision to undertake basin level studies in the Lohit and Bichom are welcome steps in the right direction. The TORs of the basin studies indicate that wide-ranging and extensive examination has been called for, as is necessary for any such study. The TORs call for "inventorisation and analysis of the existing resource base and its production, consumption and conservation levels, determination of regional ecological fragility/sensitivity based on geo-physical, biological, socio-economic and cultural attributes, review of existing and planned developments as per various developmental plans, and evaluation of impacts on various facets of environment due to existing and planned development."
The studies are to then assess the stress/load due to various activities and suggest environmental action plans that can involve preclusion or modification any activity and measures. Unfortunately, the good part ends with this. The way the studies have been structured ends up defeating the very purpose of carrying them out. A self-defeating exercise
First and foremost, the basin studies have been effectively de-linked from the implementation of the projects as there is no requirement that the projects be conditional to the findings of the basin studies. Neither is there any explicit stay on the consideration and implementation of any of the projects pending the studies.
Logically, the basin studies should suggest what level of development, including hydropower projects, the basin can sustain. The projects should be planned based on this. However, the current planning and decision making turns this on its head. The numbers, locations, capacities, types and other details of the projects have already been decided. Many of these projects have already been allotted to (mostly) private developers who already have or would soon be approaching the Ministry for environmental clearance. In Bichom basin, the 600 MW Bichom (or Kameng) project is already under construction.
It is clear that the Expert Appraisal Committee understood this issue. The Minutes of its meeting dated 15 and 16 December 2008 record that "The committee noted that the study will be completed in two years and M/s WAPCOS has been entrusted with the job. In case, any project on this basin is submitted during this study period for environmental clearance, how the outcome of the study will help to take a decision could not be clarified." The obvious solution is to put on hold the projects till the studies are done. However, what the Committee decided is that "the report may be submitted within six months by reducing the TOR and the study should focus only on hydroelectric projects."
Thus, studies that would need about two years are to be done in six months (later this was extended to nine) with reduced TORs. How the outcome of such truncated studies would help rational environmental decision making is a question. It is clear that the environmental objectives have been sidelined with an eye to build as many dams as possible.
The TOR for the studies does state that they can recommend the "preclusion of any activity", which presumably means that they can call for any or some of the hydropower plants not to be built. In reality, such an outcome is highly unlikely, as is seen from the reluctance to explicitly put on hold the projects in the basin pending the results of the study. While the Committee has from time to time discussed with concern the possible impacts of large number of projects in a single basin, it has fallen shy of taking the right, but hard decision when actually dealing with the problem.
The TORs for the basin studies lay out in detail many parameters that need to be studied, field data that needs to be collected, but fail to require that the local communities be consulted and involved in the process.
• High Court pulls up NEAA • Whose expert is an expert? For example, the Lohit basin study
was originally envisaged and put forward as a condition while granting clearance for pre-construction activities to the Upper and Lower Demwe projects in March 2008. But the Minutes of the EAC meeting of July 2008, while discussing the basin study note that "Environmental Clearance to Demwe Upper and Demwe Lower HE Project should not be linked up with the completion of basin study." These two projects add up to 3430 MW, a full 43 per cent of the total 7918 MW planned in the basin.
Further, considering that the studies are to be paid for by the project developers - in proportion to the size of the projects they have been allotted - the conflict of interest is clear.
An earlier such basin study - to determined the carrying capacity of the Teesta basin in Sikkim, initiated in 2001 - at least had a condition that no project will be considered for environmental clearance till the carrying study is completed. That study took over five years. However, the MoEF violated its own condition and accorded clearance to several projects even before the study was completed. On the other hand, based on the recommendations of the study, the MoEF has asked the Sikkim Government to drop five hydropower projects above Chungthang, and restrict the height of those below it. This shows that findings of such studies are likely to require significant rethinking of dam building plans in the river basins.
Neeraj Vagholikar, who is with the environmental organisation Kalpavriksh and has studied dam projects in the North-East since 2001 says about the Bichom and Lohit studies: "The reluctance to put on hold individual project clearances till comprehensive river basin studies are completed puts a question mark on the utility of the entire exercise. Moreover, the river basin studies will now be much shorter exercises instead of the comprehensive ones envisaged earlier, which are necessary for proper environmental decision-making. It appears that the Bichom and Lohit studies are more likely to be used to create a justification for the large scale hydropower development already planned than protect the ecological integrity of these river basins. One of the two key outcomes proposed for the studies - to provide sustainable and optimal ways of hydropower development - is a clear indication that the environmental objectives are of secondary importance."
The silver lining to this is that the second key outcome specified by the TOR is to "assess requirement of environmental flow during lean season with actual flow, depth and velocity at different level". It is significant that the Committee has recognised the importance of environmental flows, the flows necessary to maintain the ecological existence of the river, an issue that is increasingly being acknowledged as critical to sound river basin planning. One has to wait and see if the studies would have the independence to recommend preclusion or modifications to some of the hydropower projects if this is found necessary to maintain environmental flows, and if so, whether such recommendations could be implemented.
While there are several other important issues with the basin studies not discussed here, there is one that is essential to point out. The TORs for the basin studies lay out in detail many parameters that need to be studied, field data that needs to be collected, but fail to require that the local communities be consulted and involved in the process. This is a major shortcoming, and an indicator that the studies are reinforcing the technocratic approach instead of a participatory one that is the essence of environmental decision-making.
Conclusion
The basin studies for Bichom and Lohit are examples of a good initiative gone awry. The Committee's recognition of the need for basin studies is a welcome step. It is clear that this is an acknowledgement of issues of cumulative impacts and carrying capacity that activists, researchers, academics, dam affected people and others have been consistently raising for the last many years. At the same time, it does not go to the logical conclusion and hence has become self-defeating.
What the Committee needs to do is to re-define the TORs for the studies allowing them the two years that the committee itself feels are necessary, and redesigning them to require meaningful participation of local communities and civil society. Meanwhile it should put the projects in the basin on hold, and make them conditional to the findings of the study. If this is done, it will be a significant step in the direction of environmentally sustainable and holistic approach to development. ⊕
ENVIRONMENT REGULATION River basin studies: A half-hearted attempt Impact assessment studies to understand the consequences of large dam projects have been de-linked from the actual implementation of the projects, thus diluting their value, writes Shripad Dharmadhikary.
• Write the author • Environment regulation • Send to a friend • Printer friendly version 16 June 2009 - The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) on River Valley and Hydroelectric Projects of the Ministry of Environment and Forests of the Government of India has recently approved the Terms of Reference for conducting basin level studies of the Bichom and Lohit river basins in Arunachal Pradesh. The EAC has been constituted under the EIA notification 2006 to examine projects that apply to the Ministry for environmental clearance.
According to the TOR, the basin studies envisage "providing optimum support for various natural processes and allowing sustainable activities undertaken by its inhabitants". The Bichom and Lohit basins are among the river basins in the Himalayas where massive plans for building large dams and developing hydropower are being rolled out. More than a hundred projects with installed capacities totalling to 54,000 MW are at various stages of planning and implementation just in the state of Arunachal itself.
Often, a large number of dams are planned on single rivers or in single basins. For example, in the Lohit basin, a cascade of six projects totalling to 7918 MW are being planned, all within a length of 86 kms.
The need for basin studies
Such cascade-type development or a number of dams in a single basin raise the critically important issue of cumulative impacts. Often, the impact of all projects taken together is much greater than the sum of impacts of individual projects. Unfortunately, cumulative impacts are hardly ever assessed, as individual projects are planned and evaluated separately. One of the strongest criticisms against the recent plans of dam building has been the complete lack of any assessment of the carrying capacity - what level of development, and in particular the number of dams a basin can sustain - and of the totality of impacts of the number of dams and projects in the basin.
Often, the impact of all projects taken together is much greater than the sum of impacts of individual projects. Unfortunately, cumulative impacts are hardly ever assessed, as individual projects are planned and evaluated separately.
• High Court pulls up NEAA • Whose expert is an expert? Indeed, when the impact assessment of even individual projects is patchy at best and often farcical, it would be too much to expect a proper cumulative impact assessment.
Against this background, the decision to undertake basin level studies in the Lohit and Bichom are welcome steps in the right direction. The TORs of the basin studies indicate that wide-ranging and extensive examination has been called for, as is necessary for any such study. The TORs call for "inventorisation and analysis of the existing resource base and its production, consumption and conservation levels, determination of regional ecological fragility/sensitivity based on geo-physical, biological, socio-economic and cultural attributes, review of existing and planned developments as per various developmental plans, and evaluation of impacts on various facets of environment due to existing and planned development."
The studies are to then assess the stress/load due to various activities and suggest environmental action plans that can involve preclusion or modification any activity and measures. Unfortunately, the good part ends with this. The way the studies have been structured ends up defeating the very purpose of carrying them out.
A self-defeating exercise
First and foremost, the basin studies have been effectively de-linked from the implementation of the projects as there is no requirement that the projects be conditional to the findings of the basin studies. Neither is there any explicit stay on the consideration and implementation of any of the projects pending the studies.
Logically, the basin studies should suggest what level of development, including hydropower projects, the basin can sustain. The projects should be planned based on this. However, the current planning and decision making turns this on its head. The numbers, locations, capacities, types and other details of the projects have already been decided. Many of these projects have already been allotted to (mostly) private developers who already have or would soon be approaching the Ministry for environmental clearance. In Bichom basin, the 600 MW Bichom (or Kameng) project is already under construction.
It is clear that the Expert Appraisal Committee understood this issue. The Minutes of its meeting dated 15 and 16 December 2008 record that "The committee noted that the study will be completed in two years and M/s WAPCOS has been entrusted with the job. In case, any project on this basin is submitted during this study period for environmental clearance, how the outcome of the study will help to take a decision could not be clarified." The obvious solution is to put on hold the projects till the studies are done. However, what the Committee decided is that "the report may be submitted within six months by reducing the TOR and the study should focus only on hydroelectric projects."
Thus, studies that would need about two years are to be done in six months (later this was extended to nine) with reduced TORs. How the outcome of such truncated studies would help rational environmental decision making is a question. It is clear that the environmental objectives have been sidelined with an eye to build as many dams as possible.
The TOR for the studies does state that they can recommend the "preclusion of any activity", which presumably means that they can call for any or some of the hydropower plants not to be built. In reality, such an outcome is highly unlikely, as is seen from the reluctance to explicitly put on hold the projects in the basin pending the results of the study. While the Committee has from time to time discussed with concern the possible impacts of large number of projects in a single basin, it has fallen shy of taking the right, but hard decision when actually dealing with the problem.
The TORs for the basin studies lay out in detail many parameters that need to be studied, field data that needs to be collected, but fail to require that the local communities be consulted and involved in the process.
• High Court pulls up NEAA • Whose expert is an expert? For example, the Lohit basin study was originally envisaged and put forward as a condition while granting clearance for pre-construction activities to the Upper and Lower Demwe projects in March 2008. But the Minutes of the EAC meeting of July 2008, while discussing the basin study note that "Environmental Clearance to Demwe Upper and Demwe Lower HE Project should not be linked up with the completion of basin study." These two projects add up to 3430 MW, a full 43 per cent of the total 7918 MW planned in the basin.
Further, considering that the studies are to be paid for by the project developers - in proportion to the size of the projects they have been allotted - the conflict of interest is clear.
An earlier such basin study - to determined the carrying capacity of the Teesta basin in Sikkim, initiated in 2001 - at least had a condition that no project will be considered for environmental clearance till the carrying study is completed. That study took over five years. However, the MoEF violated its own condition and accorded clearance to several projects even before the study was completed. On the other hand, based on the recommendations of the study, the MoEF has asked the Sikkim Government to drop five hydropower projects above Chungthang, and restrict the height of those below it. This shows that findings of such studies are likely to require significant rethinking of dam building plans in the river basins.
Neeraj Vagholikar, who is with the environmental organisation Kalpavriksh and has studied dam projects in the North-East since 2001 says about the Bichom and Lohit studies: "The reluctance to put on hold individual project clearances till comprehensive river basin studies are completed puts a question mark on the utility of the entire exercise. Moreover, the river basin studies will now be much shorter exercises instead of the comprehensive ones envisaged earlier, which are necessary for proper environmental decision-making. It appears that the Bichom and Lohit studies are more likely to be used to create a justification for the large scale hydropower development already planned than protect the ecological integrity of these river basins. One of the two key outcomes proposed for the studies - to provide sustainable and optimal ways of hydropower development - is a clear indication that the environmental objectives are of secondary importance."
The silver lining to this is that the second key outcome specified by the TOR is to "assess requirement of environmental flow during lean season with actual flow, depth and velocity at different level". It is significant that the Committee has recognised the importance of environmental flows, the flows necessary to maintain the ecological existence of the river, an issue that is increasingly being acknowledged as critical to sound river basin planning. One has to wait and see if the studies would have the independence to recommend preclusion or modifications to some of the hydropower projects if this is found necessary to maintain environmental flows, and if so, whether such recommendations could be implemented.
While there are several other important issues with the basin studies not discussed here, there is one that is essential to point out. The TORs for the basin studies lay out in detail many parameters that need to be studied, field data that needs to be collected, but fail to require that the local communities be consulted and involved in the process. This is a major shortcoming, and an indicator that the studies are reinforcing the technocratic approach instead of a participatory one that is the essence of environmental decision-making.
Conclusion
The basin studies for Bichom and Lohit are examples of a good initiative gone awry. The Committee's recognition of the need for basin studies is a welcome step. It is clear that this is an acknowledgement of issues of cumulative impacts and carrying capacity that activists, researchers, academics, dam affected people and others have been consistently raising for the last many years. At the same time, it does not go to the logical conclusion and hence has become self-defeating.
What the Committee needs to do is to re-define the TORs for the studies allowing them the two years that the committee itself feels are necessary, and redesigning them to require meaningful participation of local communities and civil society. Meanwhile it should put the projects in the basin on hold, and make them conditional to the findings of the study. If this is done, it will be a significant step in the direction of environmentally sustainable and holistic approach to development. ⊕
Shripad Dharmadhikary
Sir Arthur Cotton, deified by generations of engineers and technocrats - with his statues found almost everywhere in Andhra Pradesh's coastal districts - supervised construction of what is called the Cotton Barrage (the Godavari anicut) which was completed in 1852. Back then, he viewed it as something greater than a mere engineering effort.
As Cotton saw it, the barrage was something a "Christian government' should do for its subjects ... The emphasis of all this is to give them (the 'natives') entirely new ideas of what a Christian Government is and thus to prepare them to receive Christianity." [Col. Arthur Cotton, Profits upon British Capital Expended on Public Works in India as Shown by the Results of the Godavery Delta Works, of Irrigation and Navigation, London, 1856]
The British are long gone from India, but the language, and the metaphors used in British colonial times continue to be used today. "The river must be restrained from wandering" wrote Cotton; "and all its branches must be provided with artificial embankments to protect the country from being flooded ... It is necessary, by artificial means, to keep the water constantly at a level which shall command the country, and also by a multitude of channels to lead it to every acre of land." And, "The system of works now in progress in the Delta of the Godavery are intended to embrace these four object, viz - to restrain the river; to preserve the land from floods; to supply it constantly with water; and to pervade the tract thoroughly with means of very cheap transit." [Col. Arthur Cotton, London, 1856]
Theirs was a philosophy of obstructing ('taming') what we today call ecological (natural) flows, and also of economic exploitation to maximize profits. And constant irrigation was seen as the means to generate revenue, even if it changed the traditional cropping patterns and methods of irrigation. When the cultivable land was left to 'breathe' at timed intervals, it bothered the British no end. "The number of ploughs lying idle every khureef season (2,000) would cultivate about 8000 acres of rice land, assuming that people work no harder than they now do ..." if irrigation access was provided. [Glasfurd, 1868] "It is necessary to keep the water constantly at a level which shall command the country and also by a multitude of channels to lend it to every acre of land." [Col Arthur Cotton, 1856] Cotton's statistics post-anicut, in the Godavari Districts, proved the benefits of these works in economic terms to the Empire. "The revenue of the Delta including that part that is in Masulipatnam, has increased about 60,000 Pounds ... (and) the amount of money re-circulated in the district had increased to 100,000 Pounds, above the average in years preceding the works; the internal traffic is now estimated at 180,000 tons carried thirty miles ..." [Col Arthur Cotton, 1856]. For his part, Cotton foresaw a larger role for private enterprise on the Godavari in the immediate future, and was disappointed that the Government in Britain was not taking as much initiative in this as was needed.
The empire flows again
More than a hundred years later, not only in his legacy of exploiting the river alive in the form of numerous projects that are ongoing, even his unfulfilled dreams of adding private exploitation to publicly-funded ones are close at hand. Commercial tourist traffic, based on the navigation idea that Cotton so religiously defended, to begin with, has already established itself.
Within a month of the Congress government being re-elected in Andhra Pradesh, its Major Irrigation Minister has announced that the Government seeks "national" (project) status for five irrigation projects related to Godavari waters. These include the Polavaram dam (top on the list of priorities), the Dummugudem tail pond, and three other projects at Pranahita-Chevella, Sujala Sravanthi and Sripada Sagar.
Signalling the urgency, he informed that Rs.18,000 crores have been allocated for these, of which Rs.4000 crores would be spent to clear pending bills for these projects. Surprisingly, the enthusiasm for these projects was not evident before the elections. Indeed, neither the Polavaram dam nor Godavari waters in general were part of the electoral discourse, except for the seemingly sudden shift in the Congress' campaign strategy in the last lap of campaigning in coastal Andhra districts - where the party warned voters about possible lack of access to the Godavari waters if Telangana state was allowed to become a reality. 'Utilisation of the Godavari waters' as a slogan was not invoked very much this time, to the extent it was in the 2004 elections. Water resources had a far greater share in electoral debates in 2004 than in 2009. In a conversation at the time of the elections, the former engineer K Vidayasagara Rao said, "Nobody is bothered about water issues. TRS was never against water being given to farmers, nor against Polavaram per se, but only against it in its present design and form. We have been highlighting the need for several small structures - not a big dam - to minimise the extent of displacement."
Even the opportunity for such nuance (TRS has also called for a fortification study of Polavaram, and independent reviews of the projects) may now have passed. Now that TRS has been defeated and the Left has been routed, and even the few remaining voices of opposition within the Assembly have been silenced, the implications on the spate of irrigation projects lined up in the State are worrisome. Several legal violations and socio-economic dimensions of these pending projects (not to mention the long-term environmental impact of restraining natural flows to the sea) have been discussed outside the Assembly. But with the Congress achieving a comfortable majority in the house of the people, these will no longer be part of the Assembly debates. Nor are other parties showing much interest in water issues.
The second coming of the Congress government in the State thus has opened the doors for aggressive consolidation of a form of privatisation and total control of Godavari waters we have not seen before. Sir Arthur Cotton's legacy is likely to continue without critical examination despite concerns about environmental flows, displacement, and exploitation of nature and climate change across the globe at several platforms. Until the idea of exploiting for profit continues, these concerns will remain unaddressed. ⊕
courtsey.R.uma maheshari
As Cotton saw it, the barrage was something a "Christian government' should do for its subjects ... The emphasis of all this is to give them (the 'natives') entirely new ideas of what a Christian Government is and thus to prepare them to receive Christianity." [Col. Arthur Cotton, Profits upon British Capital Expended on Public Works in India as Shown by the Results of the Godavery Delta Works, of Irrigation and Navigation, London, 1856]
The British are long gone from India, but the language, and the metaphors used in British colonial times continue to be used today. "The river must be restrained from wandering" wrote Cotton; "and all its branches must be provided with artificial embankments to protect the country from being flooded ... It is necessary, by artificial means, to keep the water constantly at a level which shall command the country, and also by a multitude of channels to lead it to every acre of land." And, "The system of works now in progress in the Delta of the Godavery are intended to embrace these four object, viz - to restrain the river; to preserve the land from floods; to supply it constantly with water; and to pervade the tract thoroughly with means of very cheap transit." [Col. Arthur Cotton, London, 1856]
Theirs was a philosophy of obstructing ('taming') what we today call ecological (natural) flows, and also of economic exploitation to maximize profits. And constant irrigation was seen as the means to generate revenue, even if it changed the traditional cropping patterns and methods of irrigation. When the cultivable land was left to 'breathe' at timed intervals, it bothered the British no end. "The number of ploughs lying idle every khureef season (2,000) would cultivate about 8000 acres of rice land, assuming that people work no harder than they now do ..." if irrigation access was provided. [Glasfurd, 1868] "It is necessary to keep the water constantly at a level which shall command the country and also by a multitude of channels to lend it to every acre of land." [Col Arthur Cotton, 1856] Cotton's statistics post-anicut, in the Godavari Districts, proved the benefits of these works in economic terms to the Empire. "The revenue of the Delta including that part that is in Masulipatnam, has increased about 60,000 Pounds ... (and) the amount of money re-circulated in the district had increased to 100,000 Pounds, above the average in years preceding the works; the internal traffic is now estimated at 180,000 tons carried thirty miles ..." [Col Arthur Cotton, 1856]. For his part, Cotton foresaw a larger role for private enterprise on the Godavari in the immediate future, and was disappointed that the Government in Britain was not taking as much initiative in this as was needed.
The empire flows again
More than a hundred years later, not only in his legacy of exploiting the river alive in the form of numerous projects that are ongoing, even his unfulfilled dreams of adding private exploitation to publicly-funded ones are close at hand. Commercial tourist traffic, based on the navigation idea that Cotton so religiously defended, to begin with, has already established itself.
Within a month of the Congress government being re-elected in Andhra Pradesh, its Major Irrigation Minister has announced that the Government seeks "national" (project) status for five irrigation projects related to Godavari waters. These include the Polavaram dam (top on the list of priorities), the Dummugudem tail pond, and three other projects at Pranahita-Chevella, Sujala Sravanthi and Sripada Sagar.
Signalling the urgency, he informed that Rs.18,000 crores have been allocated for these, of which Rs.4000 crores would be spent to clear pending bills for these projects. Surprisingly, the enthusiasm for these projects was not evident before the elections. Indeed, neither the Polavaram dam nor Godavari waters in general were part of the electoral discourse, except for the seemingly sudden shift in the Congress' campaign strategy in the last lap of campaigning in coastal Andhra districts - where the party warned voters about possible lack of access to the Godavari waters if Telangana state was allowed to become a reality. 'Utilisation of the Godavari waters' as a slogan was not invoked very much this time, to the extent it was in the 2004 elections. Water resources had a far greater share in electoral debates in 2004 than in 2009. In a conversation at the time of the elections, the former engineer K Vidayasagara Rao said, "Nobody is bothered about water issues. TRS was never against water being given to farmers, nor against Polavaram per se, but only against it in its present design and form. We have been highlighting the need for several small structures - not a big dam - to minimise the extent of displacement."
Even the opportunity for such nuance (TRS has also called for a fortification study of Polavaram, and independent reviews of the projects) may now have passed. Now that TRS has been defeated and the Left has been routed, and even the few remaining voices of opposition within the Assembly have been silenced, the implications on the spate of irrigation projects lined up in the State are worrisome. Several legal violations and socio-economic dimensions of these pending projects (not to mention the long-term environmental impact of restraining natural flows to the sea) have been discussed outside the Assembly. But with the Congress achieving a comfortable majority in the house of the people, these will no longer be part of the Assembly debates. Nor are other parties showing much interest in water issues.
The second coming of the Congress government in the State thus has opened the doors for aggressive consolidation of a form of privatisation and total control of Godavari waters we have not seen before. Sir Arthur Cotton's legacy is likely to continue without critical examination despite concerns about environmental flows, displacement, and exploitation of nature and climate change across the globe at several platforms. Until the idea of exploiting for profit continues, these concerns will remain unaddressed. ⊕
courtsey.R.uma maheshari
The impact of global warming in Asia
The Asian region spans polar, temperate, and tropical climates and is home to over 3 billion people. As the climate warms, many mountain glaciers may disappear, permafrost will thaw, and the northern forests are likely to shift further north. Rapid population growth and development in countries like China and India will put additional pressures on natural ecosystems and will lead to a rapid rise in the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere unless steps are taken to curtail emissions.
Fingerprints
1. Llasa, Tibet -- Warmest June on record, 1998. Temperatures hovered above 77?F for 23 days.
59. Garhwal Himalayas, India -- Glacial retreat at record pace. The Dokriani Barnak Glacier retreated 66 ft (20.1 m) in 1998 despite a severe winter. The Gangorti Glacier is retreating 98 ft (30 m) per year. At this rate scientists predict the loss of all central and eastern Himalayan glaciers by 2035.
62. Tien Shan Mountains, China -- Glacial ice reduced by one quarter in the past 40 years.
90. Southern India - Heat wave, May 2002. In the state of Andhra Pradesh temperatures rose to 120?F, resulting in the highest one-week death toll on record. This heat wave came in the context of a long-term warming trend in Asia in general. India, including southern India, has experienced a warming trend at a rate of 1?F (0.6?C) per century.
91. Nepal - High rate of temperature rise. Since the mid-1970s the average air temperature measured at 49 stations has risen by 1.8?F (1?C), with high elevation sites warming the most. This is twice as fast as the 1?F (0.6?C) average warming for the mid-latitudinal Northern Hemisphere (24 to 40?N) over the same time period, and illustrates the high sensitivity of mountain regions to climate change.
93. Taiwan - Average temperature increase. The average temperature for the island has risen 1.8-2.5?F (1-1.4?C) in the last 100 years. The average temperature for 2000 was the warmest on record.
94. Afghanistan - 2001 - Warmest winter on record. Arid Central Asia, which includes Afghanistan, experienced a warming of 0.8-3.6?F (1-2?C) during the 20th century.
95. Tibet - Warmest decade in 1,000 years. Ice core records from the Dasuopu Glacier indicate that the last decade and last 50 years have been the warmest in 1,000 years. Meteorological records for the Tibetan Plateau show that annual temperatures increased 0.4?F (0.16?C) per decade and winter temperatures increased 0.6?F (0.32?C) per decade from 1955 to 1996.
96. Mongolia - Warmest century of the past millennium. A 1,738-year tree-ring record from remote alpine forests in the Tarvagatay Mountains indicates that 20th century temperatures in this region are the warmest of the last millennium. Tree growth during 1980-1999 was the highest of any 20-year period on record, and 8 of the 10 highest growth years occurred since 1950. The 20th century warming has been observed in tree-ring reconstructions of temperature from widespread regions of Eurasia, including sites in the Polar Urals, Yakutia, and the Taymir Peninsula, Russia. The average annual temperature in Mongolia has increased by about 1.3?F (0.7?C) over the past 50 years.
119. Chokoria Sundarbans, Bangladesh - Flooded mangroves. Rising ocean levels have flooded about 18,500 acres (7,500 hectares) of mangrove forest during the past three decades. Global sea-level rise is aggravated by substantial deltaic subsidence in the area with rates as high as 5.5 mm/year.
120. China - Rising waters and temperature. The average rate of sea-level rise was 0.09 +/- 0.04 inches (2.3 +/- 0.9 mm) per year over the last 30 years. Global sea-level rise was aggravated locally by subsidence of up to 2 inches (5 cm) per year for some regions due to earthquakes and groundwater withdrawal. Also, ocean temperatures off the China coast have risen in the last 100 years, especially since the 1960s.
126. Bhutan - Melting glaciers swelling lakes. As Himalayan glaciers melt glacial lakes are swelling and in danger of catastrophic flooding. Average glacial retreat in Bhutan is 100-130 feet (30-40 m) per year. Temperatures in the high Himalayas have risen 1.8?F (1?C) since the mid 1970s.
127. India - Himalayan glaciers retreating. Glaciers in the Himalayas are retreating at an average rate of 50 feet (15 m) per year, consistent with the rapid warming recorded at Himalayan climate stations since the 1970s. Winter stream flow for the Baspa glacier basin has increased 75% since 1966 and local winter temperatures have warmed, suggesting increased glacier melting in winter.
130. Mt. Everest - Retreating glacier.The Khumbu Glacier, popular climbing route to the summit of Mt. Everest, has retreated over 3 miles (5 km) since 1953. The Himalayan region overall has warmed by about 1.8?F (1?C) since the 1970s.
131. Kyrgyzstan - Disappearing glaciers. During 1959-1988, 1,081 glaciers in the Pamir-Altai disappeared. Temperatures in the mountains of Kyrgyztan have increased by 0.9-2.7? F (0.5-1.5?C) since the 1950s.
142. Siberia - Melting permafrost. Large expanses of tundra permafrost are melting. In some regions the rate of thawing of the upper ground is nearly 8 inches (20 cm) per year. Thawing permafrost has already damaged 300 buildings in the cities of Norilsk and Yakutsk. In Yakutsk, the average temperature of the permanently frozen ground has warmed by 2.7 ?F (1.5?C) during the past 30 years.
Harbingers
18. Indonesia -- Malaria spreads to high elevations. Malaria was detected for the first time as high as 6,900 feet (2103 m) in the highlands of Irian Jaya in 1997.
50. Philippines -- Coral reef bleaching.
51. Indian Ocean -- Coral reef bleaching (inclues Seychelles; Kenya; Reunion; Mauritius; Somalia; Madagascar; Maldives; Indonesia; Sri Lanka; Gulf of Thailand [Siam]; Andaman Islands; Malaysia; Oman; India; and Cambodia).
52. Persian Gulf -- Coral reef bleaching.
77. Korea -- Heavy rains and flooding. Severe flooding struck during July and August, 1998, with daily rainfall totals exceeding 10 inches (25.4 cm).
87. Indonesia -- Burning rainforest, 1998. Fires burned up to 2 million acres (809,371 hectares) of land, including almost 250,000 acres (101,172 hectares) of primary forest and parts of the already severely reduced habitat of the Kalimantan orangutan.
88. Khabarovsk, Russia -- Wildfires threaten tiger habitat, 1998. Drought and high winds fueled fires that destroyed 3.7 million acres (1,497,337 hectares) of taiga and threatened two important nature reserves that are habitat for the only remaining Amur tigers.
103. Bangladesh - Link between stronger El Nivents and cholera prevalence. Researchers found a robust relationship between progressively stronger El Nivents and cholera prevalence, spanning a 70-year period from 1893-1940 and 1980-2001. There has been a marked intensification of the El Niouthern Oscillation phenomenon since the 1980s, which is not fully explained by the known shifts in the Pacific basin temperature regime that began in the mid-1970s. Findings by Rodo et al. are consistent with model projections of El Nintensification under global warming conditions. The authors make a strong case for the climate-health link by providing evidence for biological sensitivity to climate, meteorological evidence of climate change, and evidence of epidemiological change with global warming. The study likely represents the first piece of evidence that warming trends over the last century are affecting human disease.
105. Lake Baikal, Russia - Shorter freezing period. Winter freezing is about 11 days later and spring ice breakup is about 5 days earlier compared to a century ago. Some regions of Siberia have warmed by as much as 2.5?F (1.4?C) in just 25 years.
147. Iran - Desiccated wetlands, 2001 Ninety percent of wetlands have dried up after 2 years of extreme drought. Much of South West Asia has experienced a prolonged three-year drought that is unusual in its magnitude. Out of 102 years of record, 1999, 2000, and 2001 rank as the fifth, third, and seventh driest on record. 1999-2000 was the driest winter on record.
148. Pakistan - Longest drought on record, 1999-2001. The prolonged three-year drought, which covers much of South West Asia, has affected 2.2 million people and 16 million livestock in Pakistan.
149. Tajikistan - Lowest rainfall in 75 years, 2001. 2001 marked the third consecutive year of drought, which has destroyed half the wheat crop.
150. Korea - Worst drought in 100 years of record, 2001. It coincided with an average annual temperature increase in Asia?s temperate region, which includes Korea, by more than 1.8?F (1?C) over the past century. The warming has been most pronounced since 1970.
155. China - Disappearing Lakes, 2001. More than half of the 4,000 lakes in the Qinghai province are disappearing due to drought. The severity of the impact is exacerbated by overpumping of aquifers. Annual average temperature in China has increased during the past century, with pronounced warming since 1980. Most of the warming has been in northern areas, including Qinghai Province, and in the winter
Fingerprints
1. Llasa, Tibet -- Warmest June on record, 1998. Temperatures hovered above 77?F for 23 days.
59. Garhwal Himalayas, India -- Glacial retreat at record pace. The Dokriani Barnak Glacier retreated 66 ft (20.1 m) in 1998 despite a severe winter. The Gangorti Glacier is retreating 98 ft (30 m) per year. At this rate scientists predict the loss of all central and eastern Himalayan glaciers by 2035.
62. Tien Shan Mountains, China -- Glacial ice reduced by one quarter in the past 40 years.
90. Southern India - Heat wave, May 2002. In the state of Andhra Pradesh temperatures rose to 120?F, resulting in the highest one-week death toll on record. This heat wave came in the context of a long-term warming trend in Asia in general. India, including southern India, has experienced a warming trend at a rate of 1?F (0.6?C) per century.
91. Nepal - High rate of temperature rise. Since the mid-1970s the average air temperature measured at 49 stations has risen by 1.8?F (1?C), with high elevation sites warming the most. This is twice as fast as the 1?F (0.6?C) average warming for the mid-latitudinal Northern Hemisphere (24 to 40?N) over the same time period, and illustrates the high sensitivity of mountain regions to climate change.
93. Taiwan - Average temperature increase. The average temperature for the island has risen 1.8-2.5?F (1-1.4?C) in the last 100 years. The average temperature for 2000 was the warmest on record.
94. Afghanistan - 2001 - Warmest winter on record. Arid Central Asia, which includes Afghanistan, experienced a warming of 0.8-3.6?F (1-2?C) during the 20th century.
95. Tibet - Warmest decade in 1,000 years. Ice core records from the Dasuopu Glacier indicate that the last decade and last 50 years have been the warmest in 1,000 years. Meteorological records for the Tibetan Plateau show that annual temperatures increased 0.4?F (0.16?C) per decade and winter temperatures increased 0.6?F (0.32?C) per decade from 1955 to 1996.
96. Mongolia - Warmest century of the past millennium. A 1,738-year tree-ring record from remote alpine forests in the Tarvagatay Mountains indicates that 20th century temperatures in this region are the warmest of the last millennium. Tree growth during 1980-1999 was the highest of any 20-year period on record, and 8 of the 10 highest growth years occurred since 1950. The 20th century warming has been observed in tree-ring reconstructions of temperature from widespread regions of Eurasia, including sites in the Polar Urals, Yakutia, and the Taymir Peninsula, Russia. The average annual temperature in Mongolia has increased by about 1.3?F (0.7?C) over the past 50 years.
119. Chokoria Sundarbans, Bangladesh - Flooded mangroves. Rising ocean levels have flooded about 18,500 acres (7,500 hectares) of mangrove forest during the past three decades. Global sea-level rise is aggravated by substantial deltaic subsidence in the area with rates as high as 5.5 mm/year.
120. China - Rising waters and temperature. The average rate of sea-level rise was 0.09 +/- 0.04 inches (2.3 +/- 0.9 mm) per year over the last 30 years. Global sea-level rise was aggravated locally by subsidence of up to 2 inches (5 cm) per year for some regions due to earthquakes and groundwater withdrawal. Also, ocean temperatures off the China coast have risen in the last 100 years, especially since the 1960s.
126. Bhutan - Melting glaciers swelling lakes. As Himalayan glaciers melt glacial lakes are swelling and in danger of catastrophic flooding. Average glacial retreat in Bhutan is 100-130 feet (30-40 m) per year. Temperatures in the high Himalayas have risen 1.8?F (1?C) since the mid 1970s.
127. India - Himalayan glaciers retreating. Glaciers in the Himalayas are retreating at an average rate of 50 feet (15 m) per year, consistent with the rapid warming recorded at Himalayan climate stations since the 1970s. Winter stream flow for the Baspa glacier basin has increased 75% since 1966 and local winter temperatures have warmed, suggesting increased glacier melting in winter.
130. Mt. Everest - Retreating glacier.The Khumbu Glacier, popular climbing route to the summit of Mt. Everest, has retreated over 3 miles (5 km) since 1953. The Himalayan region overall has warmed by about 1.8?F (1?C) since the 1970s.
131. Kyrgyzstan - Disappearing glaciers. During 1959-1988, 1,081 glaciers in the Pamir-Altai disappeared. Temperatures in the mountains of Kyrgyztan have increased by 0.9-2.7? F (0.5-1.5?C) since the 1950s.
142. Siberia - Melting permafrost. Large expanses of tundra permafrost are melting. In some regions the rate of thawing of the upper ground is nearly 8 inches (20 cm) per year. Thawing permafrost has already damaged 300 buildings in the cities of Norilsk and Yakutsk. In Yakutsk, the average temperature of the permanently frozen ground has warmed by 2.7 ?F (1.5?C) during the past 30 years.
Harbingers
18. Indonesia -- Malaria spreads to high elevations. Malaria was detected for the first time as high as 6,900 feet (2103 m) in the highlands of Irian Jaya in 1997.
50. Philippines -- Coral reef bleaching.
51. Indian Ocean -- Coral reef bleaching (inclues Seychelles; Kenya; Reunion; Mauritius; Somalia; Madagascar; Maldives; Indonesia; Sri Lanka; Gulf of Thailand [Siam]; Andaman Islands; Malaysia; Oman; India; and Cambodia).
52. Persian Gulf -- Coral reef bleaching.
77. Korea -- Heavy rains and flooding. Severe flooding struck during July and August, 1998, with daily rainfall totals exceeding 10 inches (25.4 cm).
87. Indonesia -- Burning rainforest, 1998. Fires burned up to 2 million acres (809,371 hectares) of land, including almost 250,000 acres (101,172 hectares) of primary forest and parts of the already severely reduced habitat of the Kalimantan orangutan.
88. Khabarovsk, Russia -- Wildfires threaten tiger habitat, 1998. Drought and high winds fueled fires that destroyed 3.7 million acres (1,497,337 hectares) of taiga and threatened two important nature reserves that are habitat for the only remaining Amur tigers.
103. Bangladesh - Link between stronger El Nivents and cholera prevalence. Researchers found a robust relationship between progressively stronger El Nivents and cholera prevalence, spanning a 70-year period from 1893-1940 and 1980-2001. There has been a marked intensification of the El Niouthern Oscillation phenomenon since the 1980s, which is not fully explained by the known shifts in the Pacific basin temperature regime that began in the mid-1970s. Findings by Rodo et al. are consistent with model projections of El Nintensification under global warming conditions. The authors make a strong case for the climate-health link by providing evidence for biological sensitivity to climate, meteorological evidence of climate change, and evidence of epidemiological change with global warming. The study likely represents the first piece of evidence that warming trends over the last century are affecting human disease.
105. Lake Baikal, Russia - Shorter freezing period. Winter freezing is about 11 days later and spring ice breakup is about 5 days earlier compared to a century ago. Some regions of Siberia have warmed by as much as 2.5?F (1.4?C) in just 25 years.
147. Iran - Desiccated wetlands, 2001 Ninety percent of wetlands have dried up after 2 years of extreme drought. Much of South West Asia has experienced a prolonged three-year drought that is unusual in its magnitude. Out of 102 years of record, 1999, 2000, and 2001 rank as the fifth, third, and seventh driest on record. 1999-2000 was the driest winter on record.
148. Pakistan - Longest drought on record, 1999-2001. The prolonged three-year drought, which covers much of South West Asia, has affected 2.2 million people and 16 million livestock in Pakistan.
149. Tajikistan - Lowest rainfall in 75 years, 2001. 2001 marked the third consecutive year of drought, which has destroyed half the wheat crop.
150. Korea - Worst drought in 100 years of record, 2001. It coincided with an average annual temperature increase in Asia?s temperate region, which includes Korea, by more than 1.8?F (1?C) over the past century. The warming has been most pronounced since 1970.
155. China - Disappearing Lakes, 2001. More than half of the 4,000 lakes in the Qinghai province are disappearing due to drought. The severity of the impact is exacerbated by overpumping of aquifers. Annual average temperature in China has increased during the past century, with pronounced warming since 1980. Most of the warming has been in northern areas, including Qinghai Province, and in the winter
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