When conservation clashes with livelihood Premium

The recent rain-related disasters have brought back into focus the K. Kasturirangan panel report that recommended declaring 37% of the total Western Ghat region as an ecologically sensitive area, including 20,668 sq. km in Karnataka, spanning over 1,576 villages in 10 districts. The implications of this on livelihoods have, yet again, left people sharply divided.

Visitors to Shettihalli, a village located amid thick forests about 20 km away from Shivamogga town in central Karnataka, have to pass through a check-post. The staff there enquire with them about the purpose of their visit and seek details of the persons they are planning to meet in the village. They also take a photo of the visitor’s vehicle before allowing it to pass.

This is one of the villages that came to being after the construction of the Linganamakki dam across the Sharavati in the 1960s. A few families displaced from Sagar taluk due to the project meant to generate electricity for Karnataka were asked to settle amid the forest, which is now part of the Shettihalli Wildlife Sanctuary. Shettihalli is one of the villages that comes under the ecologically sensitive area of the Western Ghats as per the draft notification issued by the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) according to the recommendations of a high-level working group headed by space scientist K. Kasturirangan.

Around 100 families have settled in Shettihalli, which lacks basic amenities despite being located close to the district headquarters. The residents do not see a KSRTC bus in the village except during elections when State transport buses bring polling staff and ballot boxes. Until a few years ago, the residents used to reach Shivamogga by foot and even carry patients on their shoulders whenever they needed emergency healthcare.

“We left our place at Byakod in Sagar taluk in 1963 when work on the Sharavati hydroelectric project started. But, we got power supply only 60 years after settling here, that is in 2023. There is no public transport and no proper road,” says S.G. Halappa, a resident of Shettihalli, who was five when his parents moved there.

Children study up to class 5 in the government primary school in the village, and almost all of them join a residential school for class 6. “Hence, only parents and grandparents are in the village. You will not see any students or youth. Maybe, after some years, the village will become a haunted place with no people,” says Mohan Kumar, another resident.

For several years, the residents have been fighting for basic amenities. They approached court seeking electricity supply and succeeded in their efforts after many years. “That was a long legal battle. We are worried what our plight will be if our place is declared an ecologically sensitive area when our condition is already bad because of the existing forest laws,” says Devaraj P., an advocate and native of Shettihalli.

The horrific landslides during heavy rain in Wayanad of Kerala and the landslip at Shirur in Uttara Kannada in Karnataka, in which many people lost their lives, have triggered a debate over the relevance of reports on safeguarding the biodiversity hotspot — the Western Ghats.