A landmark judgment

The Supreme Court judgment directing that each protected areas should have an Eco Sensitive Zone (ESZ) of one kilometer from its demarcated boundary will go a long way preserving the ESZ which is described as "shock absorber" of a protected area. The Ministry of Environment and Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) and State Forest Departments ensuring strict compliance of the SC judgment while clearing projects near protect areas will be critical to achieve the objectives set by the judgment. The apex court has also clamped a ban on permanent structures within the ESZ and on mining within national wildlife sanctuaries and national parks. This will check fragmentation of wildlife habitat and corridors in national parks and prevent ecological disasters. The SC made it clear that if existing ESZ extends beyond the 1 km buffer zone or if any statutory instrument prescribes a higher limit, then such extended boundary shall prevail which will prohibit reduction of existing ESZ area to 1 km from protected area boundary. The minimum width of the ESZ may be diluted in overwhelming public interest, but for that purpose the State or Union Territory concerned shall approach the Central Empowered Committee and MoEF&CC and both these bodies shall give their respective opinions/recommendations to SC and on that basis, the apex court will pass appropriate order, states the judgment. According to National Wildlife Action Plan (2017-2030) the number of protected areas in the country increased to 733 in the beginning of the current plan period covering an area of 1.60 lakh square km from 400 protected areas in 2002 covering 1.56 lakh square km. The figure has now gone up to 769 following notifications of more protected areas. The Wildlife Conservation Strategy 2002 adopted in a meeting of the Indian Board of Wildlife held in 2002 envisaged notifying land falling within 10-km of the boundaries of national parks and sanctuaries as eco-fragile zones under the Section 3(v) of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. Subsequently, the Additional Director General of Forest (Wildlife) requested all Chief Wildlife Wardens to list out such areas for notification as ESZ. However, some of the State Government raised concern over applicability of 10 km range from protected area boundary on the ground that most of the human habitations and other areas including important cities would come under the purview of the ESZ and will adversely affect development activities. The National Board for Wildlife then decided in 2005 that the delineation of ESZ would have to be site specific and relate to regulation rather than prohibition of specific activities. The Guidelines for Eco Sensitive Zone around National Parks and Sanctuaries issued by the Central Government in 2011 states that the purpose of declaring ESZ around national parks and sanctuaries is to create some kind of "shock absorber" for protected areas. The Guidelines allowing regulation instead of prohibition on development activities in ESZ created the space for undertaking permanent construction of different types in ESZ areas even just near the boundaries of protected areas. Such construction led to fragmentation of wildlife habitat and animal corridors in buffer zones and loss of forest cover, posing conservation threat to ecology of protected areas by obstructing free ranging of animals and resulting in increase in human-animal conflict. The SC judgement has now made it clear that such construction activities or mining activities will not be allowed within ESZ of 1 km or more depending on ranges specified in site-specific notifications. The SC directive on ESZ puts a question mark over the proposed exploratory drilling projects of Oil India Limited inside the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park. The OIL obtained environmental clearance for carrying out exploratory drilling at seven locations inside the national park using Extended Reach Drilling technology. The oil major explains that technology does not involve drilling inside the national park but enables it to explore hydrocarbon presence deep down at 3.5 km beneath the surface by drilling vertically from safe distance outside the park and then going down horizontally. The ecological disaster that resulted in Baghjan following a blowout in a natural gas well of OIL within five km radius, as revealed by one-man probe panel, from the national park and Bherjan-Borjan-Podumoni wildlife sanctuary sounded a caution against dilution of ESZ norms and importance of protecting the buffer zone around protected areas. The probe revealed that 55% of the biodiversity in the Dibru-Saikhowa landscape was lost in the disaster that could have been averted by clearly delineating adequate range of ESZ and prohibiting mining. Conservation of protected areas and buffer zone has become urgent necessity not just for the protection of wildlife in these protected areas, but also for mitigation of climate change impact and preventing increase in global warming level. The landmark judgment reminds all about the responsibility to save the "only one earth" by learning to live in harmony with nature.