Western Ghats States at Odds Over Eco-Sensitive Areas Notification

## A Long-Standing Dispute The Western Ghats, a region considered one of the world's eight 'hottest' biodiversity hotspots, has been at the centre of a long-standing dispute over the definition of Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESA). The Union Environment Ministry has released a new draft notification defining ESA across 56,825 sq km of the Western Ghats, but states including Kerala and Goa continue to resist the boundaries due to concerns about tourism, farming, and real estate development. The Western Ghats stretch from the Tapti river valley in the Gujarat-Maharashtra border down across 1,500 kilometres south to Kanyakumari, crossing Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu along the way. This region is home to more than 7,000 species of flora and fauna and is extremely landslide prone, necessitating 'special measures of protection and mitigation'. ## Economic Concerns Representatives from Kerala, Karnataka, and Goa have expressed apprehensions over the economic consequences of restricting economic activity within the ESA zones. The tenure of the expert committee formed to guide the ESA notification process has been extended to 2027, to help settle these issues and finalise the area. In Goa, where large parcels of land are being converted from agriculture and forest areas to settlements, the ESA has the potential to override state legislation and stop large real estate and industrial projects in applicable regions. Tahir Noronha, an architect and urban planner, has expressed concerns that misinformation about the nature of restrictions has been spread among villagers, and that ministers with vested interests in developing these areas have convinced many that they will lose the ability to construct homes for their family. ## A Fraught Process The inability to finalise the ESA boundaries has persisted since 2011, when they were first proposed by a committee led by ecologist Madhav Gadgil. The Gadgil committee report recommended the entire 1,29,037 square kilometres of the Western Ghats come under the ESA, with different ESA zones signifying different levels of protection. The Western Ghats' ecological diversity comes from its topographical heterogeneity, featuring tropical wet evergreen forests, montane stunted evergreen (shola) forests, lateritic plateaus, grasslands, and moist deciduous and dry deciduous forests. It is also the source of three major river systems, the Godavari, Kaveri, and Krishna. ## Conserving the Western Ghats The significance of finalising the ESA gained prominence when a devastating landslide struck Wayanad, Kerala, in 2024, triggered by heavy rainfall. The sixth ESA draft was re-notified over a month after the previous draft notification had lapsed, and one day after the landslide struck. According to TV Ramachandra, a former scientist with the Indian Institute of Science, the urgency of finalising the ESA lies in the many risks posed by fragmentation and unchecked development in the Western Ghats, including more frequent landslides and water scarcity. He notes that villages in the vicinity of natural forests enjoyed double the yield compared to other landscapes, so there is an economic value to this preservation too. The Union Environment Ministry has issued a new draft notification defining ESA across 56,825 sq km of the Western Ghats, but states including Kerala and Goa continue to resist the boundaries due to concerns about tourism, farming, and real estate development. The tenure of the expert committee formed to guide the ESA notification process has been extended to 2027, to help settle these issues and finalise the area.