The world over, with environmental concerns defining the geo-political discourse, the slogan of ‘green economy’ has been almost sanctified as the cardinal solution for sustainable development. The emerging paradigm is to attach ‘green’ with anything, and just see how it is going to boom the market. As a result of this, ‘green’ labeling has become fashionable marketing mantra in the politics, policy-making, corporate strategy, and other arenas of daily life. In the present ‘hot, flat and crowded’ world (as called by Thomas Friedman), predicted to be much ‘hotter’ in future, ‘green’ is selling just like the 24-carat gold. The promoters of ‘GO GREEN’ champion it to be a golden opportunity to cure the fast-deteriorating ecological health of the planet Earth, and to combat the climate changes ahead. It is projected to be an ultimate remedy to achieve the seemingly utopian goal of ecologically sustainable, socially acceptable and economically equitable development.
In this rush of ‘go green’, new catch-phrases of green buildings, green campuses, gross natural product, natural capital, and the list goes on - are pick of the market and media, at least at the theoretical plank. In the very recent past, these green-labelled ideas were the exclusive turf of a fringe group of environmental activists whose presence was just at the margin of public discourse. However, with fast-emergence of climate change, notwithstanding whether it is a reality or myth, the ‘green’ campaigns have engulfed the entire public space. It has become a dominant buzzword in the public domain. Today, everyone - from politicians to policymakers and from academics to activists – makes a beeline in sermonising about the virtues of ‘green’. Seeing this tsunami of ‘green’ waves sweeping all across the individuals and institutions, how could the corporate world afford to lag far behind! For corporate world, it is purposefully a business opportunity and strategy to talk about green industry and other green avatars. The spending under the corporate social responsibility (CSR) by companies is now publicly more focussed towards ‘green’ concerns.
In this part of the world, how can we remain insulated from such ‘high-voltage’ green currents that are transmitted across the world! People from different fields who have political and economic interests at stake are at the forefront of green campaigns. Of course, I must honestly admit here, some are doing a yeoman’s service in raising environmental awareness among the masses, but the majority is paying just a lip service. For this larger majority, giving lectures in seminars, releasing paid statements in newspapers, and investing in ‘green’ projects makes political and economic sense - only for their personal material benefit and little for the ecological benefit to society.
For me, two areas of immediate concern that are crucial in maintaining and restoring the Valley’s environment are the tourism and forests. Had we better managed these two sectors in the past, many of our current environmental problems would have not reached such an alarming proportion. Of late, the managers of these departments  are making high-decibel noises to remain in the media-glare for their eco-consciousness.
In the name of infrastructure development, managers of tourism sector have wreaked havoc at the tourist spots. Quite often, while speaking to media they show concern for safeguarding the environment of these tourist spots, but fail to translate these concerns into concrete actions. In the guise of eco-tourism, they camouflage the concrete buildings with ‘green’ paints (Green paint is often used by the armed forces for camouflage purposes. That is why we see here, majority of the defence installations painted green). By painting rooftops of government buildings green at tourist spots, what sort of deceptive eco-tourism are we promoting? Paints are the synthetic chemicals, and have a substantial carbon footprint. By promoting synthetic green paints, we are harming the environment, rather than contributing anything.
  In the tourist spots, the development agencies have left no pocket of wilderness unpolluted. Their understanding of ‘development’, which they are implementing at present, means transforming tourist spots into concrete jungles. In connivance with land mafia, and umbilical connections with the political elite, they have disfigured the natural landscape at Sonamarg, Gulmarg and Pahalgam. The tourism managers often talk about ‘development’ of other areas of tourist attraction. Today, Gurez, Bungus, and others are potential tourist spots only because they have been left out of the loop of so-called tourism Infrastructure. Once these ‘virgin’ pockets fell to the axe of modern infrastructure development characterised by concrete buildings, mountain-defacing JCBs and deforestation, they will lose their pristine glory. If one goes by the past indicators, then civil construction works is their model of tourism ‘development’. No doubt, Gurez and other such areas have huge tourism potential. But the way we are ‘developing’ these areas devour their natural landscape beauty. In these potential tourist destinations, we should better focus on the management of pristine beauty and say a good-bye to the construction of artificial ‘green’ buildings. We have seen enough of civil engineering, let they preserve what has been engineered by the Nature.
Of various ‘green’ strategies proposed, plantation of trees is almost promoted as the panacea to adapt and mitigate the ‘climate change’. Increasing the green cover is seen as the best bet to brand a company, city, or a campus as the green. Since decades, even before climate change was an issue of concern, the main strategy for our forest department has remained the afforestation and reforestation programmes. In the 80’s, funded by foreign agencies, separate Social Forestry wing was established for the same purpose. ‘Fast-growing’ exotic trees were introduced, and promoted on mass scale for plantation purposes. In the short term, one cannot deny that we have benefited economically from these exotic tree plantations, in particular from willows and poplars. However, after the last 3 decades of full government patronage, now we are reaping their disastrous hydrological and ecological consequences. As these trees were mostly planted along the riparian sites such as lake peripheries, marshes, stream banks, wetlands, they have led to an alarming drop in the groundwater level. The ‘fast growth’ comes at a cost, that too heavy ecological cost. For instance, the ‘fast growth’ of Russian poplar is due to its increased leaf area (i.e. photosynthetic), for which relatively more water is required. So the fast growth doesn’t come as a free gift. We are paying its cost through the ecological raw material of precious water. The unfortunate part of the ecological cost is that it being non-marketable in the present scheme of ‘modern’ economics is seldom counted monetarily.
These plantations have paved the way for the land encroachments along the peripheries of our water bodies. Once the willow stand gets matured inside the water body, it is filled with soil for agriculture or construction purpose. Come spring, most of us have ‘tasted’ the throat infections caused by the allergenic cottony mass showered by these exotic poplars. Without any sound ecological basis, we introduced the ‘kikar’ (Robinia pseudoacacia), ‘alamthrus’ (Ailanthus altissima) ‘cuprus’ (Cupressus sp.), ‘junifer’ (Juniperus sp.), etc. Our forest department makes huge claims of afforestation of large expanses of degraded land in the State through these plantations which is fatally fallacious. Fraudulently, in order to show the increase in forest area, the area under plantation is classified under the forest area. They fail to understand that the artificial monospecific (single species) plantation stands can never compensate the multispecific and multistoried natural forest stands. The plantation stands don’t allow the growth of associated herbaceous and shrub elements, and thus are poor from the biodiversity point of view. Research has shown that protecting the old-growth forests makes a profitable proposition for the carbon sequestration, maintenance of biodiversity, and provision of precious ecosystem goods and services.
Few days before, while speaking at the Environment Day function at University, a government official claimed that the state forest department has won a national award for its role in increasing the forest (tree) cover. Unbelievable! After all, they have to unjustifiably justify the huge sums which the department is spending on afforestation programs. Leave aside the technical manipulation of relaxing the definition of ‘dense forests’, the percentage increase is mainly due to the incorporation of orchard and plantation trees. By this definition, it means apple orchards and willow, poplar and kikar stands are also forests. And behold, it is remotely true for the natural forest cover. Who will make them understand that plantations cannot substitute natural forests? The statistics of increased forest cover in J & K is a fraud which is propagated by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) throughout the country. Last summer, while listening to a lecture by the Assistant Director of FSI at Dehradun, I voiced my strong reservation on the fudged figures showing increase of forest area for J & K. As I started to substantiate my interjection by real-world field observations (and not remote sensing imagery) while surveying the forests throughout the State, the official plainly confessed that the figures for J & K are unreliable and need a comprehensive ground-truthing, which the State forest department has utterly failed to provide. It is no surprise for me because those who received award on behalf of State Government are more in the secretariat than in the forests. Howsoever efficient and competent bureaucrats they may be, they undoubtedly have a poor understanding of the departments they are heading. For instance, a bureaucrat who might have served previously in the departments like Revenue, R & B, etc is least qualified to be assigned the task of Environment, Ecology and Forests. Their past work experience is at best limited to the plan targets and financial spending, that too more fine-tuned to the political tunes. World has changed a lot. We need those at the helm of affairs who know how to frame a forest policy that practices the value of ecology for our economy in the long-term. Mere slogans of ‘green economy’ won’t work!!!
Few weeks back, a retired forest official in a GK write-up stated that “hell will not break lose, if few species of flora and fauna will go extinct”. It speaks volumes about the poor understanding of our forest managers and policymakers. It is only in this part of the world, that such statements will be made by those who unfortunately are the official guardians of our environment.
There is one more green thrust area of medicinal plants being promoted by the forest department. Recently an expert, whose expertise spans from Geology to Glaciology, Hydrology to Ecology and Climatology to urban planning, suggested for a shift from the agriculture and horticulture to the plantation of medicinal plants around the Dal catchment. In pure economic terms, even if we leave aside the structural and functional dynamics of ecosystems, the returns from medicinal plants are a trifle when compared against the agriculture and horticulture. We shouldn’t forget that it is the horticulture sector only that sailed us through the last two decades of turmoil. Mass cultivation of medicinal plants as a potential ‘new economy’ sector is a myth. First of all, it can be a high-end profitable sector only if we have sophisticated infrastructure available as with the pharmaceutical companies like CIPLA, PFIZER, etc, which seems a distant reality. It is designing of the drugs that is patentable, and not the mass cultivation and crude drug usage. Also, the medicinal property of a plant is because of the stressful conditions in the higher alpines. How far the active principal is retained at lower altitudes is still baffling the researchers! For the present, it is better for the government to stop the destruction of natural habitats of medicinal plants in the higher alpines. A number of valley-based institutes and experts, in league with outside private labs are plundering the natural reserves of our medicinal plant wealth to the brink of regional extinction.
I am conscious of the fact that always criticising the government policies can attach one a pessimistic tag. But, it will be a disservice to the society if one remains silent when a large cache of conservation currency allocated from the centre is being spent in an unplanned manner without any targets and goals in mind. In such a situation, one is more than justified in raising voice against such ‘green’ mismanagement. The ‘green’ may turn out to be gold for a few, that too for only the economic reasons, but it is not always gold for safeguarding the environment. How far we can afford to continue the strategy of Kal kisne dekha hey? Of course, we are ensuring our present but sacrificing the environmental health on which is based our future economic prosperity.
Tailpiece
I am concluding this write-up with an honest confession: the issue of ‘climate change’ has brought environment to such a centre-stage of global polity in the shortest possible time, what the last four decades of environmental movements failed to achieve. Paraphrasing the famous statement of an evolutionary biologist, one has to acknowledge that: nothing in the present world makes sense, except in the light of ‘climate change’.

(Anzar, A. Khuroo teaches at the Centre for Biodiversity and Taxonomy, University of Kashmir. Feedback at: anzarak@gmail.com)

Lastupdate on : Mon, 21 Jun 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:30:00 GMT
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