Nature conserving its best far away from crowded cities

India presents a unique environmental contrast: while the landscape in fast-growing cities is crumbling under human pressure, the Himalayas and the coastal areas are conserving the nature's best assets, amid a significant increase in the mangrove cover along coasts. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jun 7, 2013, 11:07:34 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India presents a unique environmental contrast: while the landscape in fast-growing cities is crumbling under human pressure, the Himalayas and the coastal areas are conserving the nature's best assets, amid a significant increase in the mangrove cover along coasts.

More than 4,699 high altitude Himalayan lakes in various states play an important role in conserving the local ecology while providing economic avenues for the local residents.

According to the National Wetland Inventory and Assessment released on Wednesday, Jammu and Kashmir has the maximum number of 2,104 lakes, followed by 1,672 in Arunachal Pradesh and 534 in Sikkim, with areas between 3 and 1.26 lakh hectares.

The areas of these lakes vary---swelling in summers and shrinking in winters. However, the assessment fails to provide information about changes in the sizes of these lakes over the years, key to analysing the impact of climate change on these water bodies.

Towards the south, the country's mangrove cover, which is key to protecting coastal areas from high tides, has grown by 10% between 1989-92 and 2004-07.

"The government has worked on improving the mangrove cover after 2004 Tsunami and it has yielded some good results," said planning commission member in-charge of environment K Kasturirangan.

The data released on Wednesday also shows the coral reef area in coastal areas increased by 5% during the period. The coral reef is under threat because of acidification of sea water caused by the climate change.

The discovery of 175 new plant species and a few animal species in 2012 also spread cheer among environmentalists.

But the environment ministry has failed to mention species like Great Indian Bustard, Snow Leopard or Hornbills, which are on the verge of extinction in India because of habitat loss.

The ministry also did not offer any explanation for rising air pollution in Indian cities, high water contamination and indiscriminate mining resulting in destruction of one of the finest forests of India.

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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