30 Apr 2024 : The Hindu Editorial

Editorial 1 : The poultry industry needs urgent reforms

Context:

India’s environmental laws and regulations must reflect what the public health crisis is showing us: that animal welfare is closely interlinked with public health, ecosystem health and biodiversity conservation — the One Health principle.

Historical background and some facts

• The first H5N1 infection spilt over to humans directly from chickens in Hong Kong in 1997.
• In India, the first H5N1 patient was reported in Maharashtra in 2006.
• An outbreak in December 2020 and early 2021 spread across 15 States.
• This pathogen has crossed many species barriers, causing mortality among the polar bears in the Arctic and seals and seagulls in Antarctica.
• With humans, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates the fatality rate for H5N1 at 52%, based on the 463 deaths recorded since 2003 among the 888 people diagnosed with the virus.

Scale of the biosecurity issue

• Almost all cases of human infection with avian influenza A (H5N1) have been linked to close contact with infected birds, or contaminated environments.
• These contaminated environments are created by cramming chickens in wired cages, or ‘battery cages’, in high densities.
• The resultant air quality and waste problem has a significant footprint in India due to the odour, particulate matter, and other greenhouse gas emissions.
• For instance, antibiotics are regularly given to birds as a prophylactic and as growth promoters so that more animals can be grown for greater profit.
• Experts predict the rising demand for protein will cause a surge in antibiotic use in livestock.
• Several antibiotics classified as critically important and highly important by the WHO are widely sold to farmers for preventative use.
• Animals are heavily stocked in unsanitary conditions.
• Not only does this have a detrimental effect on the welfare of animals and the health of those who consume the food derived, but also on the people working at these facilities and residing in the vicinity.
• The impact of the emissions in the atmosphere, effluents in the water systems, and solid wastes in the soil generated by these industries is felt by humans, other animals, and the environment.
• The faecal matter generated at these facilities is collected periodically by local farmers for use as fertilizer but the amount of piled-up manure exceeds the carrying capacity of the land and becomes a pollutant.
• Farmers complain of their crops getting damaged and piles of waste becoming a breeding ground for disease vectors such as flies.
• Residents are compelled to adopt measures such as spraying insecticides inside homes, leading to breathlessness and a nauseating smell.

Path to legal reform

• Keeping animals in intensive confinement constitutes a crime under the provisions of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, 1960.
• Moreover, the operational activities at these industrial facilities cause unnecessary pain and suffering to the animals because of mutilation, starvation, thirst, overcrowding, and other ill-treatment, which is also a violation of the PCA Act.
• The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has classified poultry units with more than 5,000 birds as a polluting industry that requires compliance and regulatory consent to establish and operate.

• The 269th Law Commission of India Report in 2017 placed on record a representation by the Tata Memorial Centre that contained evidence that non-therapeutic antibiotics given to poultry cause antibiotic resistance since living conditions are unhygienic.
• It further said that with more open, cleaner, and ventilated living spaces, animals are less likely to need constant antibiotics, making their eggs and meat safer for consumption.
• These rules laid down guidelines as per existing laws and international best practices for animal care, waste management, and antibiotic use, among others.
• However, the Draft Rules for the egg industry released by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare in 2019 are weak and tokenistic.

Way forward

• Strict oversight for compliance and enforcement of environmental regulations is the need of the hour, given the CPCB’s reclassification of the poultry industry as a highly polluting ‘orange category’ industry.
• In light of the bird flu public health crisis and the climate emergency, it is crucial for the situation to be addressed.

Editorial 2 : Why are unclassed forests ‘missing’?

Context

In compliance with a February 19, 2024, Supreme Court order, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) uploaded the various State Expert Committee (SEC) reports on its website earlier in April.

Key concern

• This interim order was in response to a public interest litigation challenging the constitutionality of the Forest (Conservation) Act Amendment (FCAA) 2023.
• A key concern in the petition was that the status of unclassed forests, which were to be identified by the state SEC reports, wasn’t known or if they had been identified at all.

What does the FCAA stipulate?

• With the enactment of FCAA, unclassed forests — which have legal protection under the landmark T.N. Godavarman Thirumalpad (1996) case — would lose this protection, leading to their inevitable diversion.
• The SEC reports, which specified that ‘forests’ as per their dictionary meaning and all categories of forests irrespective of ownership and notification status would be included under the ambit of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980.
• As a result, unclassed forests, also known as deemed forests, would require the Central government’s approval in case a project proponent sought to divert that land for non-forest use.
• Unclassed or deemed forests may belong to forests, revenue, railways and other government entities, community forests or those under private ownership, but are not notified.

Have these forests been identified?

• In 1996, MoEFCC told a Joint Parliamentary Committee that the SECs had identified unclassed forests that had been taken on record.
• This was in response to criticism that the proposed law undermined the Godavarman judgment and would exclude all unclassed forest land from its purview.
• The MoEFCC had assured the Committee that “the amended Act would be applicable” to the SEC-identified unclassed forests.
• The MoEFCC has now uploaded the SEC reports on its website, they reveal a grim picture: no State has provided verifiable data on the identification, status, and location of unclassed forests.
• In fact, seven States and Union Territories — Goa, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Lakshadweep, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal — appear not to have constituted the SEC at all.
• Twenty-three States have shared their reports but only 17 are in line with the Court’s directives.
• Many States have said the one month provided by the top court was too short and “the nature of work voluminous”, and as a result haven’t undertaken physical cadastral surveys nor demarcation of unclassed forest lands.

What do the reports say?

• Only nine States have provided the extent of unclassed forests.
• Also, almost no State or UT specified the geographic locations of forests.
• Any identifying geographical information of forest land, where given, is only of reserve or protected forests, which isn’t useful because this information is already available with Forest Departments.
• The SEC reports also question the veracity of the reports of the Forest Survey of India, the only government agency to survey and assess forests.
• For example Gujarat, whose SEC report says its unclassed forests cover 192.24 sq. km while the Survey has reported it as significantly higher at 4,577 sq. km (1995-1999).
• The treatment of SECs without on-ground verification is likely to have resulted in the large-scale destruction of forests — which ought to have been identified, demarcated, and protected 27 years ago.
• But with no baseline data from 1996-1997, we have no idea how much unclassed forest has been lost.
• For example, Kerala’s SEC didn’t include the Pallivasal unreserve, an ecologically fragile area in Munnar; this area was also devastated during the 2018 floods.

What would be the effects of FCAA?

• The loss of such forests is likely to be a recurring theme in all States, and needs to be investigated.
• It is also clear the reports were hastily put together, using incomplete and unverified data collected from readily available records, and submitted to the Supreme Court in order to fulfil their obligations.
• The Godavarman order of the SC was to be implemented in letter and spirit.
• The failure to do this is a lost opportunity to achieve the requirements of the Indian Forest Policy, which envisages 33.3% forest cover in plains and 66.6% in the hills.

Way Forward

• Promulgating the FCAA without examining the SEC reports displays a lack of diligence on the MoEFCC’s part and will have consequences for India’s ecosystems and ecological security.
• Those responsible need to be held to account, and the national government needs to take ameliorative action to re-identify, retrieve, and protect forest areas as per the 1996 judgment.