George Thomas, a nonagenarian settler-farmer from Muthukad, a verdant agricultural village located 55 km away from Kozhikode, is living in fear of the future these days. The events unfolding in the State over the Supreme Court’s direction that every protected forest, national park and wildlife sanctuary in the country should have a mandatory eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) of 1 km starting from their demarcated boundaries have caused him great angst. The 10-acre land he holds was practically barren when his parents purchased it from a local landlord in the early 1940s. He and his children toiled on the land, located at an aerial distance of about a kilometre from the Malabar Wildlife Sanctuary, a protected area in Kozhikode district, and converted it into farmland. Thomas, who recently retired from active farming following heart ailments, fears that the government will take away the holding and render him landless once the ESZ regime comes into effect.
Two protests
Farmers living on the fringes of other protected areas harbour similar fears. When they voiced their concerns in mid-December, the Church lent them support. Bishop Remigiose Maria Paul Inchananiyil, a high priest of the powerful Syro-Malabar Church, declared at Koorachundu, 13 km away from Thomas’s property, that the Church would not mind taking extreme measures to protect the interests of the settlers. The fairly large crowd that had gathered to listen to him raised slogans against the government. The protests were a throwback to the restiveness triggered by the recommendations of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) led by Madhav Gadgil to conserve the fragile ecology of the mountain chain between 2012 and 2014.
Bishop Inchananiyil heads the Thamarassery Diocese. Thamarassery has a significant population of Christians and farmers. The area was the hub of protests in north Kerala against the WGEEP report. Violent protesters, who were inflamed by rumours that their farmlands would be taken back, had then set fire to a forest office and a police vehicle. The ESZ demarcation move, too, suddenly became an emotive issue for hundreds of farmers in the region who have successfully built their lives and settlements on forest fringes, battling inclement weather and wild beasts.
The lead players during both these protests have remained the same — the Catholic Church and the settler-farmers. The Kerala Independent Farmers Association, a pressure group of farmers formed in 2020, is also at the forefront of mobilising public opinion this time.
During the 2012-14 protests, the Left Front, comprising the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party of India, and a few minor constituents, which were then in the Opposition in the Kerala Assembly, supported the settlers and the High Range Samrakshana Samithi — an organisation spearheaded by the Church — and reaped political dividends. This time, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), which is in the Opposition, has lent support to the agitation, pushing the government to work overtime to calm the protesters.
Also read | Kerala may seek permission to retain its original ESZ proposals
Idukki in central Kerala, which was on the boil in the wake of the Gadgil report, has also witnessed vociferous protests against ESZ demarcation. Various sections of society in the hill district have participated in public meetings, rallies, and door-to-door campaigns against the buffer zone regime. Several farmers fear that the regulations that may accompany the ESZ delineation would make farming impossible. They worry that they could be gradually evicted from their holdings.
K.R. Santhosh Kumar, who owns 1.5 acres of land with a title deed, and another 1.5 acres in Kulamavu in Arakkulam panchayat, feels that the creation of a buffer zone would lead to the setting-up of a parallel administrative system run by the State Forest Department. “Once the buffer zone is notified, forest officers will call the shots and cause unnecessary hurdles for farmers and settlers,” he says.
P.J. Joseph, a farmer at Narakakkanam under Mariyapuram panchayat in Idukki, owns 2.5 acres of land. He says the restrictions and laws that have been introduced from time to time have been hindering the everyday life of farming communities. Joseph fears that farming will become impossible once the buffer zone regime kicks in.
‘Faulty report’
The Supreme Court order of June 3 prescribing the buffer zone regime came at a most inopportune moment for the State government. Only recently the government managed to wriggle out of the sociopolitical imbroglio created by another church — the Kerala Latin Catholic Church — which had rallied the fisherfolk at Vizhinjam in Thiruvananthapuram to hold a protest against an upcoming international seaport project. That agitation lasted for more than a hundred days.
Even before the apex court order, the Kerala government had prepared a buffer zone regime for its 24 protected areas, including 18 wildlife sanctuaries and six national parks. Yielding to public resistance, it submitted proposals to the Union Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change marking the buffer as zero in the case of the protected areas with human settlements in the vicinity beginning 2020. The Union Ministry released the proposals to the public domain seeking comments from the stakeholders. But these had to be redrawn following the June 3 order of the Supreme Court.
In its order, the apex court had directed the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests of each State and Union Territory (UTs) to draw up a list of subsisting structures and other relevant details within the respective ESZs and furnish a report within three months. The court had indicated that the States/UTs could take the assistance of any governmental agency for satellite imaging or photography using drones for the purpose of preparing the list. The Kerala government engaged the Kerala State Remote Sensing and Environment Centre (KSRSEC) for this task. The court also warned that in the event of any State/UT failing to submit a proposal, an area of 10 kilometre would be considered as buffer zone in respect of such sanctuaries or national parks and restrictions would be imposed in those areas. This, too, prompted the Kerala government to act swiftly in the case of its protected areas.
Also read | Kerala government publishes map for people to seek exemption from ESZ
However, the KSRSEC report, which had initially identified forest boundaries and marked settlements using satellite imagery, didn’t find traction with the general public. Complaints that the report was faulty started pouring in even as the January 11 deadline for the submission of the report to the Supreme Court loomed large. There were also allegations that the motive behind the survey was to relocate people from the forest fringes and thus expand forest cover in the State.
The Idukki Land Freedom Movement stages a road blockade at Kumily in Idukki demanding a zero buffer zone. Photo: Special Arrangement
The KSRSEC report identified 49,330 existing structures using satellite images, including 14,771 residential buildings and 2,803 commercial buildings. The KSRSEC had also reported that 115 villages in Kerala would come under the buffer zone of the protected areas of the State. According to its report, a total area of 1,588.709 sq. km would come under ESZs. The sanctuaries and national parks in the State are spread over an area of 3,441.207 sq. km. The assessment found that 83 tribal settlements were located within the ESZs of the State.
With several organisations of farmers, factions of the Church, and political parties protesting against the ‘inaccuracy’ of the study, the Kerala government was forced to appoint an expert committee headed by Thottathil Radhakrishnan, a former Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, for field verification of the report.
Also read | Satellite data can be used to determine nature of land: Kerala HC
The aerial survey report on the buffer zone has stoked fears among hundreds of farmers of Chempanoda village located nearly 57 km away from Kozhikode.
“The report has come at a time when we are fighting wild animal attacks and decreasing prices of agricultural produce,” says 73-year-old V.M. Thomas, who migrated to Chakkittapara from Kottayam district nearly 50 years ago. He was forced to relocate from the Peruvannamuzhi dam area to Chakkittappara panchayat two decades ago when the dam’s reservoir area was expanded. He fears that the buffer zone regulations may once again displace him and leave him at the mercy of bureaucracy.
The price of land has plummeted following the release of the aerial survey report. Landowners worry that this will affect their plans based on the asset value of their holdings. Among them are those who had plans of migrating to urban areas. “The option of encouraging our children to migrate overseas so that we can survive on their earnings has also been affected by the recent developments,” says P. Joseph, a farmer from Koorachundu. He worries that the educational aspirations of students from rural areas will be affected.
The study
Surveyors say the study has been carried out in line with the Supreme Court orders. “The KSRSEC carried out a scientific study along the lines prescribed by the Supreme Court to identify the subsisting structures. The spatial land use pattern of the 115 villages that fall within a kilometre from the protected area was demarcated from the satellite data. The work was carried out using the cadastral maps and the present land use/land cover pattern of the boundary sharing villages from satellite data on the GIS platform,” explains S. Jane Mithra, the lead scientist of the project.
Also read | Local bodies to play a key role in buffer zone demarcation
The surveyors classified individual structures as residential, commercial, educational, religious, industrial, etc. The canopy cover, especially in forest areas, masked several land use/cover patterns including subsisting structures and roads. “The thick and dense canopy restricts the identification of all the subsisting structures and roads in the visual interpretation process. Yet, we could mark around 85% of the structures,” he points out. “The apex court has not sought the exact number of structures but wanted the subsisting structures to be recorded. We carried out the scientific assessment and prepared the list as instructed by the court.”
With public protest raging across districts, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, with support from the Opposition parties, is trying to cool public sentiment. While assuring the people that the government will safeguard the interests of the farmers, Vijayan also announced a host of measures including setting up help desks in the 115 panchayats of the State that come under the ESZ regime for physical verification of the holdings and settlements that come under the zone.
The Chief Minister has distanced himself from the report. At a recent press conference convened to explain the steps taken by the State government to protect the interests of the farmers and settlers, he said that there were some issues in the report prepared by the KSRSEC. He also said that the State government would explore all the legal options and seek more time from the Supreme Court to file the report.
V. Venu, Additional Chief Secretary, Kerala government, feels that there is no need for worry for the State as the apex court has pointed out that the minimum width of the ESZ may be diluted in the public interest. Kerala has moved the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) and the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, which will give its recommendations on the State’s plea to the Supreme Court. The top court had kept this door open for the States, Venu points out.
Incidentally, the apex court had suggested that the State governments should be able to convince the CEC and the Ministry of overwhelming public interest for any dilution of ESZ stipulation. The court had offered to look into the recommendations of the Committee and the Ministry on the issue and pass appropriate orders.
When the case comes up before the apex court on January 11, Kerala is expected to reiterate its original proposal to exclude human habitations and settlements from the ambit of the buffer zone. The State will make use of the aerial survey report to highlight the density of the population and the presence of human habitations in the zone to take advantage of the apex court’s suggestion that an ESZ may be diluted in overwhelming public interest. “The Ministry has already filed a revision petition before the court, pointing out that efforts to demarcate the ESZ were nearing completion in a few States including Kerala. It has requested the court to allow these States to complete the process, which may benefit the State,” hopes Venu.
But the protests have not fully subsided. For a State sandwiched between the mountains and the sea, any attempt to alter or fine-tune the ecological regulatory mechanism is sure to trigger a volley of protests.