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By Ashish Kothari
In the 1990s India was an important player in the Convention on Biological Diversity. However, India’s questionable record on biodiversity issues in recent years has undermined its legitimacy in leading the world, reports Ashish Kothari from Brazil where the conference is being held
Delegates from 180 governments and several hundred organisations are currently gathered in Brazil to assess whether they are doing enough to save life on earth. From March 20-31, they will discuss whether there has been adequate progress in implementing the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The CBD is an historic treaty arrived at in 1992 and ratified by almost every country (the United States being a prominent exception). It commits governments to taking effective action to conserve biodiversity, sustainably use biological resources, and ensure equity in the distribution of benefits arising from such use. Its implementation is supposed to be key to meeting the goal that countries have set themselves -- to halt the loss of biodiversity on land by 2010, and at sea by 2012.
It is clear that the world is very far from getting close to this goal. Global assessments by hundreds of experts, as part of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the Global Outlook, suggest that the situation is dismal. Hundreds of thousands of species are threatened with extinction, a tragedy on a scale never before seen in human history. Coupled with this is the accelerating loss of unique cultures and traditions, as nature-dependent tribal and local communities face displacement, dispossession and the erosion of their rights and knowledge. These processes are only increasing poverty and exploitation.
Why have we come to a situation where governments agree to comprehensive and effective action on environmental matters, only to ignore what they themselves have committed to?
The answer to this is clear from India’s own example.
For almost a decade in the 1990s, India provided critical leadership to the poorer countries of the world in pushing for an effective convention on conservation that also takes into account the livelihoods and welfare of millions of local people. It was an important player in some of the more progressive aspects of the CBD. Indeed, this befitted its status as one of the world’s richest nations in biodiversity, as also in traditional and modern biodiversity-related knowledge.
Over the past few years, however, its legitimacy in leading the world on biodiversity issues has markedly reduced. Primarily, this is because its own internal policies and programmes have begun to systematically ignore or undermine the objectives of the CBD. And the bold role it once played at international forums, in opposing the piracy of traditional knowledge and the spread of dangerous biotechnologies, is no longer visible.
Civil society exposes India’s record
India’s rapidly declining status vis-à-vis the CBD was highlighted in an open letter sent by over 70 organisations and individuals to the prime minister on March 20. The timing was crucial: March 20 was also the first day of the Eighth Conference of Parties to the CBD, being held in Brazil from March 20-31. These conferences are where all the governments of the world, along with hundreds of NGOs, corporations and others gather to review implementation of the CBD and take decisions for future work.
As evidence of their dismay over the country’s performance, signatories to the letter pointed to the following (I am paraphrasing the actual text):
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The CBD requires countries to assess the impact of development projects on biodiversity. Its ‘AKWE: KON Voluntary Guidelines’ serve as guidance to countries to develop and implement impact assessment regimes, especially in relation to sacred sites and other lands/waters traditionally occupied or used by indigenous and local communities. Contrary to the Indian government’s claim, in its Third National Report on the status of implementation of the CBD, India has failed to bring its impact assessment procedures into compliance with these guidelines. Worse, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has, in 2005, moved to amend these procedures in a way that takes them even further away from the spirit and content of the AKWE: KON guidelines.
The guidelines stress the need not only to adequately assess impacts on biodiversity but also on the cultures and livelihoods of local people. Secondly, they emphasise the need to involve local people in carrying out the impact assessments. These aspects are sorely lacking in India’s current and proposed EIA regimes. The NGOs have cited a number of examples of how projects impacting local community lands have been cleared without such assessments and participation, or ignoring widespread local protest: the Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project (Tamil Nadu), the Polavaram dam (Andhra Pradesh), the Loharinag Pala hydroelectric project (Uttaranchal), the Middle Siang hydroelectric project (Arunachal Pradesh), and many others. In the case of the Teesta V hydroproject (Sikkim), the MoEF expert committee required the project authorities to conduct an ethnographic study before considering clearance of the project, since it is situated close to settlements of the indigenous Lepchas and Bhutias. However, the MoEF granted clearance to the project before the study was even completed!
Symbolic of India’s neglect of these guidelines is its response in the Third National Report. Under the section on AKWE: KON guidelines, it mainly talks about how it is encouraging the conservation of sacred groves… there is not a single mention of EIA regimes and procedures!
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Articles 8j and 10c of the CBD require strong legal and policy measures to protect the rights, interests, and knowledge of indigenous (tribal) and other local communities. Again, contrary to India’s claims in its Third National Report, the country is far from meeting these obligations. For instance, while the Biological Diversity Act 2002 has a general clause on protection of traditional knowledge, no operative mechanisms for this have been put in place. The Biological Diversity Rules 2004, meant to operationalise the Act, have not empowered local communities to protect such knowledge. On the contrary, communities have been given the primary task of preparing biodiversity knowledge registers, which, in the absence of legal protection, could become an easy source of biopiracy by corporations eager to cash in on traditional knowledge.
In the Third National Report, the MoEF claims to have involved tribal and other local communities in implementing its obligations under the CBD. However, with one exception (NBSAP, see below), the MoEF has not involved these communities in consultations relating to important environmental decisions, nor made such communities members of any key environmental committee. There is no member of a local community in the National Biodiversity Authority or the National Wildlife Board. A National Environment Policy has been drafted without any consultation with local communities.
As part of the CBD Programme of Work on Protected Areas, India is obliged to move towards respecting the rights of and involving communities living in and around wildlife-protected areas. It has actually moved in the opposite direction, using directions from the courts to deny the rights of 3-4 million people, encouraging state governments to dispossess communities of their customary access to biological and other natural resources inside protected areas.
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The only prominent example of the MoEF actively involving a wide spectrum of citizens is in the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) process. In an innovative step, the MoEF outsourced the coordination of this process to an NGO and gave its support to a process of planning that involved thousands of people across the country in a series of grassroots exercises. The process was acknowledged by many, including the UNDP that routed the GEF money that went into it, as being international best practice.
Unfortunately, since 2003 when the final national draft of the NBSAP was submitted to it, the MoEF has betrayed the spirit of the process. It has become non-transparent, sitting on and then “rejecting” the draft on flimsy grounds, and delaying the formulation of the final action plan by over two years. It is a shame that India, which in 2004 lobbied at the Seventh Conference of Parties of the CBD for a deadline of 2006 for all countries to submit their NBSAPs, does not yet have one of its own.
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There have been no “regular consultations” with all relevant stakeholders on the issue of biosafety, as claimed by the Indian government. From the first field trials of transgenic cotton to the Draft National Biotechnology Strategy and Policy 2005 issued by the department of biotechnology, legitimate concerns over the matter not taken into consideration have compelled civil society groups to legally challenge the issue in the public interest. There has never been a national dialogue or attempt to “create awareness” about the pros and cons of genetically engineered (GE) crops, nor any steps towards an independent scientific assessment on the safety of such crops. The rapid spread of GE cotton, and proposed clearances to other GE crops, including some food crops, has put India’s rich agricultural biodiversity and traditional farming systems at risk from genetic pollution.
To its credit, the Indian government has continued a ban on the use of Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURTS), including the “terminator” technology.
What must India do?
India was one of the most proactive countries in the formulation of the CBD, and in pushing for its implementation in the initial years after it came into force. Unfortunately it has lost its leadership role in the last few years; worse, it has started violating the CBD’s provisions. In doing so, it is further endangering its already fast-eroding biodiversity, threatening the future of its uniquely and culturally diverse traditional communities and opening up traditional knowledge to various forms of biopiracy and misuse.
If it is to regain its international leadership role in the field of biodiversity, India must reverse the trend of the last few years. It must:
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Review and modify national laws and policies to bring them more in line with the triple CBD concerns of conservation, sustainable use, and equity; in particular, strengthen EIA notifications to stop destructive projects and enable full citizens’ participation, the Biological Diversity Act and Rules to strongly protect traditional knowledge and empower communities, and the Wild Life Act to make conservation more effective, participatory and respectful of the rights of communities.
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Maintain the integrity of protective principles in current legislation that seek to protect farmers and community rights, biodiversity and indigenous knowledge.
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Finalise and implement a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan that is true to the spirit and content of the NBSAP draft report submitted to the MoEF in end-2003.
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Halt the alarming spread of genetically engineered crops; in particular, safeguard India’s position as country of origin of several crops including rice.
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Develop and implement a legal regime for liability and redress, sensitive especially to the likely socio-economic impact on small farmers and traditional agricultural practices, especially in relation to new technologies.
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Oppose, at all international forums, the promotion or acceptance of Genetic Use Restriction Technologies including “terminator”, consistent with its domestic position banning such technologies.
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Halt the opening up of biological resources and people’s knowledge to private corporations, which shifts control away from communities and threatens biodiversity with further erosion.
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Show, as Chair of the Like Minded Megadiverse Countries (LMMC), greater commitment to community-centred conservation policies, and more openness to the involvement of indigenous/local communities in the operations of this forum.
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Display leadership in the South Asian region in the development of such ethics, including through forums like the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
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Respect India’s own constitutional principles mandating a bottom-up, decentralised approach that provides legitimacy to the government to represent the people at international forums such as the CBD.
InfoChange News & Features, March 2006
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