Bannerghatta National Park ‘buffer’ Zone Shrinks

While the good news is that the Eco-Sensitive Zone around Bannerghatta National Park (BNP) is one step closer to becoming reality — with the State government’s proposal receiving the nod from an expert committee set up by the Ministry of Environment and Forest, the bad news is that the ESZ area has been significantly reduced.
The MoEF committee has, however, recommended the final notification of this area, subject to the views of the National Tiger Conservation Authority.
The Supreme Court order states a minimum of 1-km zone around protected areas, with certain exceptions.
In October 2016, the State government recommended an ESZ area of 559 sq. km., while recommending numerous dilutions to the ESZ norms, to allow for production of hazardous substances, tourism, construction activities, and extraction of surface water. These suggestions were rejected by the committee which observed that it led to the dilution of the purpose of the ESZs.
It is in Karnataka State.

The Eco-Sensitive Zone has a minimum extent of 100 metres and maximum extent of up to 4 km from the Park boundary. The objective of notifying Eco-Sensitive Zones is to create a buffer as further protection around Protected Areas (PAs) such as National Parks and Wildlife sanctuaries.

More Current Affairs on ESZ:

The Government today issued the Final Notification for an Eco-Sensitive Zone area of 59.46 sq kms of which 19.25 sq km is forest land and 40.21 sq km is non-forest land in Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Mumbai suburb.

What are ESAs?

An ecologically sensitive area is one that is protected by the government given the sheer number of species, plants and animals endemic to the region. According to the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, the government can prohibit industrial operations such as mining, sand quarrying and building thermal power plants in sensitive areas.
The definition offered by the MoEF: “An ecological sensitive area is a bio-climatic unit (as demarcated by entire landscapes) in the Western Ghats wherein human impacts have locally caused irreversible changes in the structure of biological communities (as evident in number/ composition of species and their relative abundances) and their natural habitats.”
The Western Ghats were declared an ecological hotspot in 1988.
To categorise an area as ecologically sensitive, the government looks at topography, climate and rainfall, land use and land cover, roads and settlements, human population, biodiversity corridors and data of plants and animal species.

The Kasturirangan committee report

The MoEF notification is based on findings of a High-Level Working Group, also known as the Kasturirangan committee. The government-appointed committee had said that the natural landscape of the Ghats constitutes only 41 per cent, or which 90 percent or 60,000 square kilometres were identified as ecologically sensitive.
The committee suggested phasing out current mining projects within five years, or when mining leases were about to expire. It recommended that infrastructure and development projects be subject to environmental clearance, and that villages in ESA be involved in decision making regarding future projects.
The notification was deemed too environmentally friendly by stakeholder states.
The Western Ghats was included as a ‘World Natural Heritage Site’ by UNESCO in 2012. According to the organisation, the Ghats, which are older than the Himalayas, are home to at least 325 globally threatened flora, fauna, bird, amphibian, reptile and fish species. It has been recognised as one of the world’s eight ‘hottest hotspots’ of biological diversity.

Bannerghatta National Park ‘buffer’ zone shrinks