1. Western Ghats are facing serious threats due to irresponsible human growth. Discuss the best wayforward for it 250 wrods
The relationship between development and the environment has long been proven. Environmental resources are required for development.
As a result, resource disruption has negative consequences for the development process as a whole, as well as a violation of the holistic development goal.
Developmental Pressures on the Western Ghats:
- The region is facing major risks from urbanisation, agricultural expansion, and livestock grazing.
- The Western Ghats region is home to an estimated 50 million people, putting development pressures on the region that are orders of magnitude greater than many protected areas throughout the world.
Issues Concerning Biodiversity:
- The Ghats are still being affected by forest loss, habitat fragmentation, habitat degradation by exotic plant species, encroachment, and conversion.
- Outside of Protected Areas, fragmentation induced by development pressure in the Western Ghats is reducing the availability of wildlife corridors and suitable habitats.
Climate Change:
- The climate catastrophe has gained traction in recent years:
- Landslides and flash floods wreaked havoc on Konkan’s ghat districts in 2021, and cyclones are intensifying as the Arabian Sea warms, making the west coast particularly vulnerable.
Threats from Industrialization:
- Due to the lack of a Western Ghats ESA policy, more polluting industries, quarries and mines, roads, and townships are likely to be proposed.
- This means that the region’s vulnerable landscape will be harmed much more in the future.
Measures To Be Taken-Preventive Approach:
- Given the effects of climate change on people’s livelihoods and the economy of the country, it is prudent to safeguard fragile ecosystems.
- This will be less expensive than investing money/resources on restoration/rejuvenation in a disaster-prone scenario.
- As a result, any further delay in implementation will further exacerbate the degradation of the country’s most valuable natural resource.
Including All Stakeholders in the Conversation:
- A thorough analysis based on scientific research, followed by agreement among diverse stakeholders by resolving their concerns, is urgently necessary.
Addressing Local Residents’ Concerns:
- According to some, the concept of establishing an environmentally sensitive area (ESA) is fundamentally hostile to people and their developmental goals.
- The problem can be discussed in depth during public discussions, ensuring that the policy does not appear to be top-down.
State Governments’ Role:
- The hazards of harming the ecology must be recognized by the governments, especially because India has borne the brunt of the climate problem.
- They must accept that the climate problem is a fact and, rather than postponing decisions, implement more decisive climate-proofing measures to conserve the Western Ghats.
Local Communities Empowerment:
- The various committees emphasized that it is the people at the grassroots level who have the expertise and are connected to the environment who should be motivated to protect the region.
- True democratic decentralisation and the empowerment of local communities in villages and cities are the way forward.
Conclusion
There are no two ways of maintaining the Western Ghats, but there is a need to create a balance between forest preservation and indigenous people’s right to livelihood.
2.The technological advancement made Indian agri field the most emiter of GHG. What are the steps to prevent this? 250 words
Climate Change and Agriculture in India
Greenhouse Gas Emissions:
- After China and the United States, India is the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, emitting roughly 2.6 billion tonnes CO2 equivalent yearly.
- India’s per capita emissions, on the other hand, are only 1.8 tonnes, far less than the global average of 4.4 tonnes. India has pledged to “lower emission intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels” in its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
- Emissions by Sector in India: Electricity and heat generation, agriculture, forestry, and other land use account for half of world emissions.
- However, India’s energy industry (44 percent), manufacturing and construction sector (18 percent), and agricultural, forestry, and land use sectors account for the majority of the country’s emissions (14 percent ).
- The rest is split between the transportation, industrial, and garbage sectors.
Climate Change and Agriculture:
Emissions of Total Greenhouse Gases:
- Agriculture’s contribution to overall emissions has gradually decreased from 28% in 1994 to 14% in 2016.
- In actual terms, however, agricultural CO2 emissions grew to almost 650 Mt in 2018.
- The livestock sector (54.6 percent) and the use of nitrogenous fertilisers account for the majority of agricultural emissions in India (19 percent ).
- Anaerobic rice growing accounts for a significant share of agricultural emissions (17.5 percent ).
- The largest single source of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions is agricultural soils.
- Between 1980-81 and 2014-15, N2O emissions from nitrogen fertiliser consumption increased by 358 percent.
Developing Carbon-Neutral Agriculture
Providing Legal Support for the Concept:
- A carbon strategy for agriculture must be framed with the goal of reducing emissions and rewarding farmers through globally marketable carbon credits.
- Also, India must specify in its policy how it will adjust carbon credits sold to polluting companies in other countries, so that emission reductions are not counted twice in India and the country purchasing carbon credits.
Feeding Practices Are Changing:
- With the world’s largest livestock population (537 million), India requires better feeding practises and increased production from fewer cattle.
- Rice production, along with cattle, is another source of methane emissions, particularly in irrigated areas of north-west India.
- While direct seeded rice and other wet and dry methods can help reduce carbon emissions in rice fields, the actual solution is to transition areas from rice to maize or other less water-intensive crops.
- It can also be a win-win situation if a system is devised to compensate farmers for moving to maize, which will make it more profitable than paddy.
- Encourage the use of water-saving crops like maize to make ethanol, as well as the generation of ethanol from non-food feedstock.
- It will not only help India reduce its massive reliance on crude oil imports, but it will also help India lower its carbon imprint.
Encourage Fertigation:
- Encourage fertigation (fertiliser injection) and subsidies soluble fertilizers as an alternative to better and more efficient fertiliser use.
- The government should encourage and provide subsidies for drip irrigation, as well as transitioning from rice to corn or other less water-intensive crops and pushing soluble fertilisers at the same rate as granular urea.
Dairy Practices That Are Sustainable:
- There is a need to proactively ramp up sustainable dairy practises, which could involve realising existing GHG emission reduction potentials through technical and farm best practises interventions and solutions.
- By better integrating cattle into the circular bio-economy, it can reduce its resource use.
- This can be accomplished by recycling animal excrement and recovering nutrients and energy.
- At various scales, closer integration of livestock with crops and agro-industries to make use of low-value, low-emission biomass.
