'White Elephant' in
a Green Forest
by
Leo F.
Saldanha, Manu Mathai, Bhargavi S. Rao and Robert John[1]
Environment
Support Group ®[2]
Today
we are at a very crucial juncture, a time when the future of the Kudremukh
National Park (KNP) hangs in balance.
The immediate threat to KNP is in the form of a mining lease that
Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Ltd. (KIOCL) seeks from the government, to continue
and extend its mining operations for 20 years more, commencing July 2000.
KIOCL
has been mining in the Aroli and Malleshwara regions of Kudremukh National
Park, based on a 30 mining lease, originally granted to National Minerals
Development Corporation (NMDC), and which expired in July 1999. During which
time the company mounted a vigorous campaign to get a 20-year extension of the
lease.
When
the lease came up for renewal last year, Environment Support Group, Kalpavriksh
- Environment Action Group and various groups and individuals from India and
abroad pressurised the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) not to extend
the lease, instead urging the Ministry to ban mining in Kudremukh.
This
pressure met with some success, for MoEF provided a year's temporary extension,
as opposed to a two year extension recommended by the Karnataka Government. A
significant condition of the temporary extension was that KIOCL would have to
commission detailed environmental and wildlife impact studies within the year,
and any future lease extension would be subject to the findings of these
studies. The State Government, for its
part, was also required to finalise the notification of the Kudremukh National
Park, again within the year.
The
present impasse is the direct result of last year’s pressure campaign. As time
approaches close to reviewing the KIOCL application for further extension, i.e.
on 16 July 2000, we have no credible reason to believe that the mandated impact
assessments have been initiated. Even
if they are submitted covertly, it is probably a theoretical exercise without any
detailed ground study, for no such assessment has taken place in Kudremukh
during the past year. In any case it is difficult to imagine a possibility of
the consultants making a case for mining in the Kudremukh forests, without
appearing to be removed from reality, especially given the devastating impact
mining operations have had on the Kudremukh and neighbouring forests over the
past three decades.
High Level Pressure supporting KIOCL:
KIOCL
has reportedly been exerting enormous pressure to get the mining lease
extended. Mr. N. K. Singh, Secretary to the Prime Minister has in his letter
dated 31 March 2000 to Mr. B. K. Bhattacharya, Chief Secretary, Government of
Karnataka, has stated that "the future growth of KIOCL is inextricably
linked to the decision to extend the existing mining lease at Kudremukh and
grant of new lease in the adjoining areas" and thus requests that the
State Government should:
i.
"Expeditiously conclude the process of final
notification of the Kudremukh National Park, and exclude all the survey numbers
held by KIOCL, under mining lease from the Kudremukh National Park area;
ii.
Renew the existing mining lease at Kudremukh of forest
land already broken up in favour of M/s KIOCL, for a period of 20 years w.e.f.
25.7.99, and
iii.
Grant the prospecting licence for Gangrikal Deposits and
mining lease for Nellibeedu Deposits"
This
even as Mr. Singh confirms per last year's temporary extension that the Company
is required to "get an EIA/EMP assessment made and the impact of mining
operations on the flora and fauna studied by a reputed institute. Pending submission of reports by these
agencies, the company be given a Work Permit to continue its mining operations
for a period of one year". Mr.
Singh's letter, thus, would amount to wholesome interference and exertion of
unnecessary pressure aimed at affecting the due process of decision making in
order to promote the interest of KIOCL alone. Not only is such pressure
unwarranted but is patently illegal.
It is
in this context that we wish to recall that Mr. S. K. Chakravarthy, Chief Wildlife
Warden (CWW) of the Karnataka Forest Department opposed the extension last
year. However, he was overruled by Mr. Adappa, Principal Chief Conservator of
Forests and as well Mr. Nagaraja Shetty, Principal Secretary of the Karnataka
Environment Department, who collectively recommended a two year extension of
the lease while presenting the files to
the Centre for approval.
The
Chief Wildlife Warden's opinion is binding on the matter, as s/he is the
singular authority to decide any activity within a National Park as per the
Indian Wildlife Act. Here again the
rider here is such that only that activity could be allowed by the CWW, which
will further advance the protection of the protected forest. In case of de-notification it can only be by
way of legislative action.
Imperatives for the Extension:
When
the extension application of KIOCL comes up for renewal in a week's time, a
whole range of factors will have to be weighed. The studies required per last year's extension conditions would
form the fundamental basis for the review. Further, the implications of such
renewal being violative of the letter and spirit of the Wildlife Protection
Act, the oft repeated commitments to protecting the Western Ghats region from
commercial exploitation, and the directions of the Supreme Court to protect
forests from non-forestry activities, particularly mining, will have to guide
this crucial decision. Yet, most of the
conditions of last year's extension remain in a state of non-compliance today.
It is
rumoured that the EIA required per last year's temporary extension conditions
is said to have been submitted by National Environmental Engineering Institute
(NEERI) to the State Government, and is apparently the basis upon which the
extension is being proposed. Incidentally,
no extensive ground verification, data collection or public consultation seems
to have marked the preparation of this EIA.
This even as the studies about the impact of mining on flora and fauna,
pertaining to another requirement of last year's temporary extension, is yet to
be initiated by the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of
Science.
Despite
such serious violations of last year's temporary extension conditions, that
high levels of political and bureaucratic pressure are being mobilised
favouring KIOCL's case, is a matter of grave concern. In circumstances of high
levels of complicity to destroy such rare forests, it is imperative for
informed public opinion to prevail against sustaining this most retrograde and
illegal act. As it stands, such public
action is probably the only hope for Kudremukh National Park to have a chance
of survival against mining.
Environmental Compliance Record of the Company:
It is
difficult to make an accurate statement about the environmental impacts of over
25 years of mining by KIOCL on the Kudremukh forests, the Bhadra river, the
Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary (a Project Tiger Reserve that is downstream) and the
agricultural productivity and health of the people downstream. This is because both KIOCL and the
regulatory agencies have been extremely secretive with their environmental
information. Per the Water and Air
Acts, and the Environmental Protection Act, the company is required to monitor
the impacts and share this information publicly. Such a practice has never marked KIOCL's corporate behaviour, an
attitude strengthened by the lackadaisical review of pollution impacts by the
Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) and MoEF. In a rare event of monitoring, the KSPCB has
been content with just measuring the iron content in Bhadra water!
The
Karnataka State Forest Department (KFD) has been equally lax in monitoring the
impacts of mining on the forests. For
very long the blasting operations continued throughout the day, disturbing and
scaring away wildlife. It was only
after locals protested that blasting was relegated to day hours. KFD's complete failure to regulate KIOCL's
operations is best evidenced in the Nellibeedu episode, where the company
violated every condition of the highly questionable prospecting license that
the State had accorded it in 1994. Over
40 kms of roads were constructed in preparing to expand mining operations and
several wells drilled all over the
Nellibeedu area of Kudremukh National Park in abject violation of the Wildlife
Act. The consequence of this over the
years has been quite devastating causing several landslides, and the drilling
has interfered with flow of mountain springs. The Department could have
initiated penal action in this case, as it should have also with regard to the
illegal increase of the height of the Lakya Dam that resulted in the
submergence of a large area of "shola" forests. However, no effective action has followed
till date. Whenever corrective action
has been initiated by some diligent officers, it has been thwarted at higher
levels of administration or defeated by political interference.
Encouraged
by such weak regulation, KIOCL has continued its mining operations marked by an
extremely closed approach to sharing information on impacts of mining.
Anticipating clearance of expansion of its mining operations, the company
proposed last year to build another dam across Kachigehole (Hole=stream). This proposal was resisted by active public participation
and expose' of the hotch-potch "Rapid Environment Impact Assessment"
submitted by the company, in a process of three Public Hearings during
1999. The report of these Hearings has
not been provided to the public in contrast to the assurances made during the
hearing. This is not surprising given
that the company has kept confidential all the half yearly compliance reports
that the public have a right of access to!
Is mining feasible here?
Quite
clearly there is no need to justify our case to save a very rare type of
forest, wildlife habitat (and we are not talking of saving species alone) and a
very critical watershed of South India from the ravages of mining, be it
profitable or not. Yet it must be
highlighted that it is not as though we are making a case against an extremely
productive and profitable mining enterprise, suppose we were to be guided by
the skewed perception of "balancing forest conservation with 'development'
priorities". KIOCL is a company that has been set up based on weak
techno-economic considerations, is a case we wish to make. And thus, there is no further need to
justify its existence in the present location.
A
primary consideration is that the deposits the company has been mining in
Kudremukh consist of very poor quality iron ore (about 38% iron) compared with,
say, the Sandur deposits in Bellary district of North Karnataka (over 60%
iron). Consequently, larger areas are
mined in Kudremukh, in comparative terms to Sandur, say. Further, additional processing is involved,
such as beneficiation, to upgrade the quality of the ore and make the produce
marketable; an operation that is highly energy intensive, requiring enormous
amounts of water and resulting in massive amounts of mining overburden and
tailings deposits. The Lakya Tailings
Dam reveals the impact of this for it filled up prematurely almost a decade
ago. During a particularly heavy
monsoon downpour, the dam ruptured killing several employees of KIOCL and
submerged large areas of agricultural and forest land. The dam had to be
strengthened, but in so doing KIOCL increased the height by 100 feet resulting
in the submergence of about 300 ha. of shola forests, a wholly illegal act.
With
over 7000 mm of annual rainfall that Kudremukh receives, mining is an extremely
dangerous operation here, and results in adverse impacts on a thickly forested
and riverine area. The washing down of
large amounts of silt during monsoons from the mines has resulted in high rates
of siltation of feeder streams and the Bhadra river.
Such
factors had influenced a case against mining in the region ever since the
deposits were discovered by Sampath Iyengar in 1913. Perhaps in an attempt to prevent these forests from the imminent
threats of timber exploitation and mining, His Excellency the Maharaja of
Mysore had declared large parts of Kudremukh and surrounding forests as
"State Forests", in 1914. His efforts seem to have been in vain!
NMDC
received permission to mine here in days when conservation priorities were not
so clearly defined, or rather weakly addressed. Considering the steep
expenditure involved in setting up mining operations here, and the consequent
burden on ensuring profitability, the plan was almost totally abandoned during
the early seventies.
It was
almost entirely because of a loan package of US$ 650 million extended by the
Shah of Iran in exchange for iron ore, that the project became
"viable". The location
provided large amounts of water from the feeder streams of Bhadra River, and
additionally, the possibility of transporting the ore in slurry form by a
gravity pipeline to Mangalore Port, marginally improved the viability of the
operation. The Emergency days also
helped KIOCL move quickly through the various stages of clearances without any
democratic discussion of the implications or impacts.
The
Shah was deposed soon after KIOCL was set up in 1976, and this delivered a body
blow to the company's plans. Iran did not lift the ore, and in addition, the
loan package collapsed. The company was
unable to source other markets for several years. Thus floundering to survive, it was largely the sops provided by
the Governments of Karnataka and India that sustained the company. The setting
up of the pelletisation plant in Mangalore improved its marketing options
somewhat and Japan, which was initially reluctant to import the deficient ore,
agreed to do so in the pellets form. Japan eventually committed to importing
ore from the company consistently, thus providing it durability and capacity to
recover the enormous losses incurred during the seventies and the eighties.
Yet, it was only during the early nineties that KIOCL was able to clear the
loans accumulated from a decade of inefficient operations. Japan remains a
major reason for the company's survival today as it accounts for almost a third
of the company's exports.
A major
justification for the company continuing its mining operations in the Kudremukh
forests has been that it is the country's largest export oriented public sector
mining enterprise. Annual foreign exchange earnings for the years 1996-99
average about US $ 120 million. For an
operation involving mining in the heart of the Western Ghats, employing about
2,500 people, and benefiting from large subsidies extended by the State in
terms of large extents of land (largely forest land), and energy payment
write-offs (upto half the accumulated amount due to Karnataka Electricity Board
for a decade's supply of energy was written off recently), it fares very poorly
when compared with some of our software industries.
Infosys,
for instance, has raked in US $ 190 million in foreign exchange earnings in the
recent year, even whilst providing over 5,000 high-paying jobs. And according to National
Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), Indian software
exports contribute US $ 4 billion worth of earnings annually, a figure that is
expected to increase over 10 fold by 2008 to US $ 50 billion.
If
earning dollars is the national priority, then we might as well prioritise
software development over mining in forested areas! At the very least we keep our forests intact.
A fact
confirmed in Mr. Singh's letter to the Karnataka Government is that "the
existing ore reserves at Kudremukh would last for 7-8 years" only and thus
"it has become imperative for KIOCL to develop new mines in the adjoining
areas so that it can continue its operations on a long term basis." What needs to be observed from this
statement is that the mining operations are inherently unviable, and that
KIOCL's viability is completely hinged on further expansion over larger areas
of the Kudremukh National Park. That the consequences of further expansion,
leave alone the existing impacts, have not at all been rigorously addressed,
has completely ignored in making this request, calling to question the
commitment of the PMO to protecting our valuable forests. Sustaining a 'White
Elephant' in an Evergreen Forest is the last thing we should support in present
economic circumstances.
Consequently,
it would indeed be an extraordinary service to the nation the Government would
render, if they were to relocate the company in Sandur. The prospects of growth are strong there as
this region is fast becoming a major iron ore mining and steel production
centre of India. Not only will this action save the forests and rivers of
Kudremukh, but would also help develop a very backward region of Karnataka. This especially when not creating as
devastating an environmental impact as in Kudremukh.