Mining and burning coal comes with a host of environmental problems, not least their role in spurring climate change. Coal consumption is projected to increase to about 1500 million tonnes per year by 2031/32. In 2010, India produced 532 million tonnes. If it wishes to meet such high coal demand (ignoring the alternatives available), India is going to have to increase domestic coal production at a rapid rate, as imported coal can only meet a small part of the demand. Such a huge increase will come at a cost - the destruction and fragmentation of large areas of forests within high priority landscapes that have been scientifically identified as crucial for sustaining tigers. During the last Five Year Plan (which laid down guidelines and targets to achieve agreed government priorities until August 2011), 113 coal mining projects were granted forest clearance. Twenty-six thousand hectares of forest have been diverted for coal mining alone since 2007.
Coal strikes a dual blow to biodiversity: aside from its role in climate change, most of the coal in central India lies under forests that are home to a diversity of species, including the charismatic mega fauna (tigers, leopards, sloth bears and, in some areas, elephants). These forests also provide sustenance livelihoods for several million tribal people and other forest dwellers.
In the ongoing public debate over permitting increased coal mining in forest areas, the true impacts that existing coal mines are having on forests and the wildlife within them has largely been ignored, both by the government and by mainstream media.
The Chandrapur region, home to the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) presents a perfect example of what is at stake if coal mining is allowed to expand across the central Indian landscape.
This report shows that TATR is fast becoming an isolated enclave, with landscape connectivity to neighbouring forest areas being interrupted by industrial projects, primarily coal mines.
Over the last 20 years or more, coal mining has eaten away at important forest corridors connecting TATR to other forest blocks in the larger landscape. As a result, the reserve is becoming increasingly isolated. A positive step was made when some proposed mines on the edge of the reserve were denied forest clearance in 2010, but there are other mining proposals in the pipeline that will be equally if not more damaging. If mining is allowed to spread into fresh forest areas in Chandrapur, the process of isolation will be completed in a few short years, and one of central India's finest tiger habitats will stagnate and inevitably decline.
Introduiction and Rationale
The public debate over coal mining in forest areas has been dominated by the voices of industry lobbyists, Coal India Ltd. and the Ministries of Coal, Steel and Power, whose refrain is that forest clearances are hindering coal and hence power production in the country, and thus holding back development. Prompted by the Ministry of Coal's desire for easy access to forest land for coal mining, the Ministry of Environment and Forests in 2010 undertook a classification exercise to identify “go" and “no-go" areas on the basis of tree cover density. This exercise indicated that nearly 50 per cent of coalbearing forest land in nine major coal fields across the country should not be opened up as they boast dense tree cover - that is, more than 10 per cent Weighted Forest Cover and more than 25 per cent Gross Forest Cover. There was an immediate backlash from the Ministry of Coal, private players and industrial lobbies, which accused the Ministry of Environment and Forests of ‘hindering development' and thereby exacerbating India's power shortage. At the intervention of the Prime Minister's Office, the forest cover threshold for declaring an area “no-go" was reduced so as to open up more forest areas. The coal ministry has reportedly asked for further dilution of the criteria. Since then, negotiations have been going on behind closed doors by a Group of Ministers set up by the Cabinet to resolve the issue.
Repeated requests by civil society (spanning groups working on wildlife conservation as well as those working on forest dwellers' rights and displacement) for a consultation process that would allow a broad range of views to be elicited on the matter have been ignored.
Issues pertaining to the significant environmental and wildlife impacts from mining in forest areas, as well as human displacement and social impacts, are not being factored into the current ‘negotiation' process. There is a strong need before the diversion of fresh forest areas for coal mining is considered.
A crucial aspect that has received no attention in the forest-coal mining debate is the impact of coal mining on wildlife, and most particularly its impact on the tiger, a flagship species whose conservation has been “championed" by the current government.
Chandrapur district in Maharashtra is one of the locations where the dispute between protecting tiger habitat and increasing coal extraction is most pronounced. It is likely that a similar situation exists in other areas which have not benefited from the media spotlight. In order to understand the ramifications of this conflict, Greenpeace organised a Fact Finding Mission to the Chandrapur area from 7th to 9th September 2011. Download the complete report in PDF format here.
Source: Greenpeace.
Website: www.greenpeaceindia.org
