Guest Column| Why parties need to adopt Haryana Green Manifesto-2024
Despite Haryana having the lowest forest cover in India, a mere 3.6% as compared to the national average of 21%, deforestation continues blatantly. In May and June this year, the state experienced extreme heatwaves, with temperatures reaching 50°C, impacting public health and livelihoods.
For the first time in the history of Haryana -- a first of its kind of participatory, grassroots democratic exercise has taken place before the assembly elections -- wherein inputs of rural and urban stakeholders from 17 of the 22 districts and diverse experts in the field of ecology, agriculture, urban planning, sustainable architecture, waste and water management, have been taken to spell out a green vision for the state.
Green Manifesto 2024 is a critical response to the escalating environmental crisis in Haryana.
Lifelines under attack
The Aravallis, Haryana’s only barrier against desertification, critical water recharge zone, pollution sink and wildlife habitat, are being razed to the ground by mining and real estate development and poisoned as a result of toxic landfills and burning of waste. Cattle and wildlife living in the Aravalli foothills have been dying drinking the poisonous waste water and villagers are suffering from cancer, skin and liver diseases. Groundwater levels have fallen to 2,000 feet in many villages in south Haryana, where mining is rampant and the rural population is suffering from lung ailments, including the killer silicosis disease, as a result of lethal pollution caused by blasting of hills and stone-crushing units.
To protect the essential ecosystem services provided by the Aravallis and Shivaliks for Haryana, the key demands given in the Green Manifesto are to legally designate the two as ‘critical ecological zones’ where no destructive activities and commercial projects are allowed; mainstream the use of alternative building material to save what is left of our hills; designate Mahendergarh district as a “pahadi dark zone” and cease all mining and stone-crushing operations due to critically low groundwater levels of 1,500-2,000 feet; withdraw the state’s appeal in the Supreme Court to legalise mining in the national capital region (NCR); stop all mining activities and stone-crushers near human habitation and wildlife-sensitive zones; remove encroachments; restore degraded areas, remove landfills in Bandhwari, Pali, near ITI colony on the Old Sohna-Alwar road; and stop illegal dumping and burning of chemical waste of industrial units from Bhiwadi in Khori Khurd and other villages of Nuh district. Villagers whose farm lands have been impacted should be given compensation and allotted quality farmland in the same or adjoining village.
Lungs being destroyed
Despite Haryana having the lowest forest cover in India, a mere 3.6% as compared to the national average of 21%, deforestation and tree-felling continue blatantly. In May and June this year, the state experienced extreme heatwaves, with temperatures reaching 50°C, negatively impacting public health and livelihoods. The state is highly climate sensitive with 95% of Haryana’s 22 districts having a high and medium climate risk score.
For protecting Haryana’s existing forest and tree cover, the Green Manifesto asks for legal protection be given to all the state’s forests by including un-notified forests as ‘deemed forests’ under the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA); legislate a Tree Act for Haryana on the lines of the stringent Delhi Preservation of Trees Act, 1994; declare all open natural ecosystems (ONEs), such as the blackbuck natural habitat in Fatehabad district, as conservation or community reserves, ensuring that Haryana’s ONEs are taken out of the Wasteland Atlas of India which maps these crucial ecosystems as ‘unproductive’ land to be converted for agricultural or industrial use; besides making a plan to manage invasive species across the state.
To increase Haryana’s extremely low forest cover, ecologists have asked for an action plan to reach a target of 10% native forest and tree cover in four years. It is critical to revive Haryana’s ‘dharohar’ of having a ‘bani’ in every village with the involvement of local communities and legally designate them as community reserves, provide monetary incentives in the form of tree pension to encourage farmers to grow native trees on their fields, bring back traditional trees of Haryana, such as Lesoda, Khejri and Aravalli species like Indrok and Jaal that are disappearing, and do native planting in an ecologically correct manner: Tall trees, under-storey trees, shrubs, climbers, grasses to create biodiversity-rich spaces across the state.
Food security under threat
The Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India, 2021, shows that 8.24% (3,64,154 hectares) of the total geographical area of Haryana has degraded, negatively impacting food security. Decades of chemical farming and spraying of insecticides has poisoned our soil and water, causing cancer among our people.
The Green Manifesto asks for promoting crop diversification as a key climate-change adaptation strategy by ensuring guaranteed purchase of every crop grown by the farmers on the MSP announced by the Centre, creating an action plan to restore soil and its microbial diversity, incentivising natural farming practices that improve soil health, scaling up ‘keeth pathshalas’ operating for the past 15 years in a few villages in Haryana to all districts to educate farmers about nature’s balance of vegetarian and non-vegetarian insects so that there is no need for spraying insecticides.
We are hoping that all our leaders cutting across party lines make a public commitment in their party manifestos to protect and revive Haryana’s natural and farming ecosystems. peopleforaravallis@gmail.com
The writer is founder member of People for Aravallis, an NGO of rural and urban citizens and ecological experts, working to conserve the oldest mountain range in India. Views expressed are personal.
