India seeks $30m World Bank loan for wildlife

Bank wants changes in Indian laws to comply with its present norms. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jun 22, 2012, 01:18:21 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The environment ministry’s bid to seek US $ 30 million from the World Bank to checking poaching in around 600 national parks and sanctuaries could mean making India’s wildlife laws compliant with the bank’s norms.

The Environmental and Social Management Framework (ESMF) for the proposed project circulated by the ministry speaks about the need to review relevant environmental and land acquisition legislation comply with World Bank’s environmental and social safeguard policies.

"Adhering to the principles and procedures and using the checklist of potential environmental and social issues laid out in this ESMF will help the implementing agencies to ensure compliance with the World Bank’s environmental and social safeguard policies," the ministry has said in the document.

India is seeking a loan of US $ 30 million from the World Bank to adopt an integrated national and international approach to checking wildlife poaching, which is now rated as third biggest illegal trade in the world after drugs and weapons. Nepal and Bangladesh have taken funding from the bank for adopting similar approach.

The bank is emphasizing on integrated wildlife protection for entire South Asia, which accounts for 13- 15% of the world's biodiversity and is considered a lucrative target of the trade.

Illegal wildlife trade from South Asia is perceived to be on rise. “Victims of the trade include the iconic tiger and elephant, the snow leopard, the common leopard, the one-horn rhino, pangolin, brown bear, several species of deer and reptiles, seahorses, star tortoises, butterflies, peacocks, hornbills, parrots, parakeets and birds of prey, and corals,” the ESMF document prepared joint by the ministry and the bank said.

Within south Asia, Nepal has emerged as a hub for illegal wildlife trade destined for China. Myanmar is another important route for transporting wildlife body parts to Laos and Vietnam, two major global transit hubs for illegal wildlife trade.

The ministry is seeking a loan of US $ 30 million from the bank to strengthen wildlife protection measures across 600 national parks and sanctuaries in India, many of which share boundary with neighbouring countries.

The funds are likely to be used for cross border landscape management approach between the countries, relocation of people living in parks and sanctuaries to create inviolate wildlife areas and satellite based monitoring approach. India would also use the funds to strengthen Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, setting up of Virtual Regional Center of Excellence (VRCE) for wildlife conservation and research projects in wildlife conservation.

“The project will focus on a selected set of country-specific initiatives as well as key mutually agreed regional activities that are crucial to attaining the regional strategic goals,” a ministry official said.

The ministry, however, admits that the World Bank funding can impact implementation of environmental laws such as Environment Protection Act of 1986, National Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy, 2007, Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 with applicability of bank’s five policies on environmental protection, natural habitats, forestry, involuntary resettlement and indigenous people.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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