The expansion was until recently funded by the World Bank, even though Bank officials were aware of the inevitable harm that would come to tigers, elephants and other endangered species. The Bank withdrew from the project in August 2000, after disbursing more than half the amount of the loan, citing dissatisfaction with the pace of reform in India's coal sector. However, criticism from environmental and human rights groups is sure to have played a part.
However, despite the Bank's withdrawal, there is a very real fear that the expansion will continue. The expansion envisages over 400 opencast mines in habitats collectively estimated to be home to around 1,500 tigers, one quarter of the entire global population, according to statistics gleaned from Wildlife Institute of India records. This involves impacting a forest area of around 170,000 sq. km. Conservationists are struggling to raise awareness of the need to protect the tiger in industrial, financial and government circles, but the billions of dollars being poured into ecologically fragile areas by funding agencies like the World Bank, IMF, Japan's Overseas Development Agency and others is short-circuiting this slow but steady progress.
The North Karanpura valley near Hazaribagh in Bihar, a confirmed connecting corridor for tigers and elephants is typical of the threat posed by the Coal India expansion. This ecologically fragile valley is also of major archaeological and cultural significance. The World Bank had repeatedly promised to study the impacts of the coal mines it had funded, but failed to do so. A study by the University of Delhi's Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of Mountain and Hill Environments (CISMHE), which has confirmed the importance of the North Karanpura Valley as a wildlife corridor was totally ignored. Meanwhile, new mines are being approved over the objections of local officials. The Environmental Impact Assessments for such mines ignore the direct and secondary effects of mining on wildlife corridors, leading us to believe that none of the 400 plus mines will consider forest corridors, amounting to an unconscionable sacrifice of the tiger on the altar of short-term expediency. Once the coal is exhausted, all that will remain is a barren wasteland, fit for neither man nor beast.
A terrible price is also being paid by adivasi communities, whose human rights are being violated by the miners. In some cases, entire villages have been summarily expelled from their homes by the police and left with nowhere to go. This forced displacement will force communities to settle in forests, thus further affecting wildlife.
Though the World Bank may have now withdrawn from the project, it must own up moral responsibility for the destruction wreaked on the forests and people of the region. Without initial support from the Bank, it is doubtful that the prohibitively expensive project would have gotten of the ground.
For more information, visit: www.web.net/~pcarter/hazaribagh/
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Those interested in offering support are encouraged to write a polite protest letter to the concerned authorities.
