Fighting for greener future

Coimbatore: It was a year of surprise and hope; and a year of sho­ck and despair too.

Surprise streaked in like the crimson morning light when a little-known group of warriors against chemical weapons in Syria were crowned with the prestigi­ous Nobel Peace pr­i­ze.

Hope hovered over the climate clouds when Obama regime decisively clamped down on automobile and gasoline em­issions to clean up the air.

Back home, the environment ministry threw a protective blanket over the In­dia’s natural treasure, the Western Ghats. The GM crops were kept off the fertile fields.

Corporate projects endangering fragile environment were shelved. Tiger statisticians assured us the big cat is making great leaps in South India.

The green nation was elated while corporate India scowled and sulked. Then, just as 2013 was gliding do­wn on a green lane, a boulder of shock came crashing down.

Quietly, the pro-ac­tive environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan was ea­sed out. Just the way an­o­ther pro-green minister Ja­iram Ramesh was shown the door.

New environment minister Veerappa Moily is was­ti­ng no time in jostling out Jayanthi’s pro-green proposals.

Now, the ban on big projects in the 60,000 sq km Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) covering 37 per cent of the fragile Western Ghats across six states of Maharashtra, Kerala, Guj­arat, Goa, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu is all set to be reviewed.

Predictably, environmentalists are crying foul. “It is a blatant attempt to please the industry at the expense of environment,” say green activists. Sensitive environmental agenda have always been held hostage by electoral and corporate politics in India, they lament.

However, the green pages left behind by Jayanthi and Jairam in India’s environmental annals do offer a clutch of comfort.

The green voices are getting louder and strident. And the aam aadmis of India do not want just jal, but clean jal. They want cleaner air. They want more factories for more jobs, but want only unpolluting facto­ri­es.

In the rural backyards of Tamil Nadu, farmers and villagers are trooping to Pol­lution Control Board offices demanding the shutdown of polluting dyeing and bleaching units, tanneries, foundries and factories.

As elephants ravage cr­ops and maul villagers in western Tamil Nadu (17 deaths in elephant attacks is the 2013 tally in Coi­m­batore district), the dem­and for razing buildings plonked on the elephant corridor is getting vociferous.

The mafia plundering the precious river sand is being booted out.

The Jaya­lali­thaa regime is clamping down on piling plastics in urban areas, sand and granite mafia, polluting factories and the encroachers of forestland and elephant corridors.

The government is intensively ca­mpaigning for eco-friendly alternative sources of energy.

Surely, 2014 opens on a promising note. The World Economic Forum at Davos will discuss the ramifications of climate change.

In September, the world leaders will gather for the clim­ate summit to make valiant pledges to preserve the hea­lth of Mother Earth.

As the New Year dawns, the world hopes to wake up to a better tomorrow.

And a cleaner tomorrow where the industries realise that sustainable business hin­g­es on an ecologically sustainable world; where the political leaderships come to grips with the carbon bubble and not just the electoral ballot; and where the aam aadmi cares not just about his bucketfuls of brown water but the gurgling brooks, streams and rivers close to his backyard.