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Radical Ecological Democracy
Escaping the
Globalised ‘Development’ Trap
‘Development’• Development = opening up of
opportunities: intellectual, cultural, material, social
vs• ‘Development’ = material
growth (through industrial and financial expansion)– measured in % economic
growth, per capita income, etc
• ‘Development’ model currently dominant only 50-60 years old
Today’s vision of
‘development’
Violence against nature, people, and cultures
Destruction of India’s environment
– 50% forest disappeared in last 200 years– 70% waterbodies polluted or drained out– 40% mangroves destroyed– Some of the world’s most polluted cities and
coasts– Nearly 10% wildlife threatened withextinction
Smitu Kothari
The social context • Ecosystem-dependent people (60-70% of
India’s population): food, medicine, livelihoods, fuel, shelter, clothing, culture
• Environmental destruction = livelihood, cultural, and physical displacement…for tens of millions of people
‘Globalisation’• Global flow of ideas, cultures, materials is millennia old
• Globalisation in latest avatar is dominated by:
–unrestricted financial and economic flows–imposition of one model of ‘development’ across the world
1991-onwards…• Trade (export-import) liberalisation• Foreign direct investment• Delicensing / single window clearances• Privatisation
Economic ‘reforms’?
‘Liberalisation’: relaxing standards and procedures for
industry • 30 dilutions in Env. Protection Act
notifications (Coastal Regulation, Env. Impact Assessment), at behest of industry, and agencies like World Bank
• Special Economic Zones (SEZ)...or Special Exploitation Zones?!
• Increasing diversion of natural ecosystems like forests (mining, dams), coasts (aquaculture, ports) … 2 lakh ha. forests in last 5 years
• Over-exploitation of resources for export (commercial fisheries, minerals…quantum jump) … Indian Ocean signs of depletion
Results….
Impacts: India’s ecological deficit (mirroring world trend)
• World’s third largest ecological footprint
• Using twice what can be sustained by our natural resources
• Decline in capacity of nature to sustain us, by almost half
(Global Ecological Footprint and CII, 2008)
Impacts: India’s ‘development’ refugees
• Over 60 million displaced in last 50 years• 40% of displaced are adivasis, resettlement
abysmal (Planning Commission)• Many millions more dispossessed of land,
water, natural resources, livelihoods • Displacement of traditional livelihoods (e.g.
handlooms)• Pauperisation of marginal/small farmers:
200,000 suicides (many in Punjab!)
Impacts: growing inequality, leaving half our population behind
• Myth of growing employment: ‘jobless growth’ in organised sector:– 26.7 million in 1991– 27 million in 2006!
• Wealth inequities: – top 10% own 53% wealth– bottom 10% own 0.2%
• % below poverty line: 38 to 55%• World’s largest number of
malnourished and undernourished women/children
Water…the contested resource• Several hundred million people without safe
drinking water
• Globally, 3 times more expenditure on bottled water ($100 billion), than needed to provide clean drinking water and sanitation to every person on earth
• Indian bottled water market growing 20-40% annually (global: 4.5%): from 2 mill. (1990) to 150 mill. cases (2010)!
• Coca Cola mines groundwater away from villages that were using it (“if you can’t get water, drink Coke”!)
• Enormous waste problem
Smitu Kothari
India the new Coloniser (joining China, Japan…)
Karaturi Global: 350,000 ha. in Ethiopia for floriculture, sugarcane, palm oil, etc
Eurovistaa: 10,000 ha. in Tanzania for cotton, 55,200 ha in Indonesia for palm oil
More coming up in L. America and Africa
Direct/indirect support by government
India (& China, etc) on the path of ‘globalised development’?
Gandhi:
‘if India is to take Britain’s path of ‘development’, it will strip the
world bare like locusts’
Something fundamentally wrong with development model?
Towards alternatives
Two imperatives….
• Ecological security (ecosystems, species, populations, ecological functions…)
• Livelihood security (esp. of those most directly dependent on ecosystems and natural resources)
Towards tribal self-rule, with conservation: Mendha-Lekha (Maharashtra)
Informed decisions through monitoring, and regular study circles (abhyas gat)
All decisions in gram sabha (village assembly); no activity even by government officials without sabha consent
Conservation of 1800 ha forests, now with full rights under Forest Rights Act
Vivek Gour-Broome
Earnings from sustainable NTPF use (over Rs. 1 crore in 2011-12), and use of govt schemes towards:
• Full employment
• Biogas for 80% households
• Computer training centre
• Training as barefoot engineers
www.kalpavriksh.org
Gaddis
Changpas
Pipens
Heronries
Traditional tanks
Yuksam
Bishnois
Sacred mangroves
Sacred groves
Tragopan , and Golden langurprotection
Turtle conservation
Turtle conservation
Community Forestry
Van Panchayats
Grassland management JFM
GLIMPSES OF COMMUNITY CONSERVED AREAS IN INDIA
(from: Draft Directory of CCAs , Kalpavriksh )
ArvariSansad
Sacred groves
Peoples Protected Areas
Note: list and related publications available with Kalpavriksh
Community forests in Orissa
Dangejheri…all women’s forest protection committee
180 villages have joined in a Federation of forest protection committees
Nagaland: indiscriminate hunting to strong conservation
About 600 villages have declared forest and wildlife reserves
Luzaphuhu WL reserve
Forest reserve of Chizami and 5 villages
Khonoma Village Tragopan Sanctuary
Sendenyu WL reserve, with its own “Wild Life Protection Act”
Van Panchayats and self-initiated community forests, Uttarakhand
12,000 VPs (12-13% of state forests), other community
forests (e.g. Chipko)
Baiga chak (Madhya Pradesh): ‘modern’ conservation by ‘primitive’ tribe
Stopping commercial logging, claiming community forest
rights
Community Forest Rights (FRA)
Assertion of CFRs against industrial projects (e.g. POSCO), mining (e.g. Vedanta), logging (e.g. Baigachak), plantations (Odisha)
Several hundred claims accepted in Maharashtra (>7 lakh acres), Odisha (>70,000 acres) & Andhra
126,998 acres in Baiga & other areas, MP
Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Sanctuary & (illegal) Tiger Reserve, Karnataka
Community Forest Resource titles to Soliga, over half of sanctuary; community-
based wildlife/tiger conservation plan process initiated
Food security: sustainable agriculture
• Reviving traditional diversity, promoting cultivated and wild foods• Creating community grain banks • Empowering women/dalit farmers, securing land rights• Creating consumer-producer links (Zaheerabad org. food restaurant) • Linking to Public Distribution System
Deccan Development Society (AP): integrating conservation, equity, &
livelihoods through sustainable agriculture
Beej Bachao Andolan, Garhwal, Uttarakhand
Vijay Jardhari
An individual revolutionary…
Natwar Sarangi
Narishu vill, Cuttack dist, Odisha
GenX: Jubraj Swain
Growing 360 varieties of rice
Seed albums and banks
Water security: decentralised harvesting & distribution
Arvari Sansad (Parliament), Rajasthan: water and food security through landscape governance
Livelihoods and jobs
Economic democracy…
Livelihood security through community-led cooperatives, self-help groups, producer companies: Dharani, Andhra Pradesh; Kachchh Mahila Vikas Sanghatan / Kasab, Gujarat; Nowgong APCL, Madhya Pradesh; Nyoli, Uttarakhand; Swach, Pune; Aharam Traditional Crop Producer Co.,Tamil Nadu)
Jharcraft (Jharkhand) Employment for 2.5 lakh families…
reviving crafts, reducing outmigration
Economic democracy…
Markets and trade: Predominantly local, at least for basic needs (village free trade zone, Kuthambakkam, Tamil Nadu; proposed Green Economic Zone, Tejgadh, Gujarat; Amar Bazar eliminating middlemen, Assam)
Indicators of human well-being replacing GDP
Local currencies and barter, to reduce stranglehold of money in our lives!
The Village and the City …
Gram swaraj: outmigration is not inevitable
Ralegan Siddhi and Hivare Bazaar (Maharashtra), Kuthambakkam (TN)
Towards sustainable cities Bhuj (Kachchh): •reviving watersheds, decentralized water storage and management •solid waste management and sanitation •livelihoods for poor women •dignified housing for poor •Information-based empowerment under 74th Amendment
(Hunnarshala, Sahjeevan, Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan, ACT, Setu)
Dignified livelihoods for urban poor
Kagaj Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat
&
Swach
(Pune)
Other alternativesEducation: traditional and modern, oral and written, local and global •Pachashala, AP•Jeevanshala, Narmada•Adivasi Academy, Guj•Beeja Vidyapeeth, Uttarakhand•Bhoomi College, Karnataka
Other alternatives…Technologies to reduce ecological impact, reach the poor (malkha cotton weaving, AP; Hunnarshala housing, Kachchh)
Energy: decentralised, renewable (Ladakh solar; Bihar integrated)
Radical ecological democracy (RED)
• achieving environmentally sustainable human welfare, through governance mechanisms that: – empower all citizens to participate in
decision-making– ensure equity in socio-economic status – respect the limits of the earth and the rights
of nature
Radical Ecological Democracy: A NEW POLITICS
Decentralised decision-making
Political/financial/administrative powers with gram sabhas and urban area sabhas …. Extending 73/74th Amendments to Constitution
Localisation: clusters of settlements organised to be self-reliant in meeting basic needs
Embedded within larger circles of exchange and decision-making
ecoregional governance
participatory institutions at landscape (and seascape) level (e.g. Chilika, Arvari Parliament … proposed W. Ghats authority)
cutting across current political boundaries (e.g. river basin authorities)…eventually aligning political boundaries with ecological ones (bioregionalism/ecoregionalism)?
state and national governance Land/water use plans: identifying areas permanently conserved for biodiversity, food security, water, off-limits to damaging industrial/mining/infrastructure activities
Reforming govt agencies: As facilitators, guarantors of rights of poor; environment and livelihoods at core of all ministries/depts; accountability and transparency through citizens’ charters, public audits, etc
Proposed National Environment & Development Commission, constitutional body
Global governance
United Peoples (to replace United Nations)?
Peoples’ Sustainability Treaties
What else?
Radical Ecological Democracy: A NEW ECONOMICS Located within ecological limits (freshwater, climate, biochemical cycles): unending growth is impossible
Equity as core principle and outcome
Indicators of human well-being: food/water/energy security, dignified livelihoods, happiness/ satisfaction, social relations, health and learning …
Facilitation of local currencies and non-monetised exchanges
Fundamental values & principles of RED
• Diversity and pluralism (of ideas, knowledge, ecologies, economies, polities, cultures…)
• Self-reliance for basics• Cooperation, collectivity, and ‘commons’ • Rights with responsibilities/duties• Dignity of labour• Respect to subsistence • Qualitative pursuit of happiness• Equity• Simplicity• Decision-making access to all• Respect for all life forms • Biophysical sustainability
How do we get to RED?
Creating space, buying time…
• People’s resistance (Vedanta/POSCO, Orissa; anti-SEZ; farmers against landgrab; 000s of others)
• NGO and community networking, joint actions
The government responds…
• New laws: – Right to Information Act– National Employment Guarantee
Act– Scheduled Tribes and Other
Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006
• New programmes: – Organic farming policies /
programmes in 16 states (Sikkim, Kerala, Bihar…)
– Kerala decentralised planning / Nagaland communitisation / Jharkhand’s Jharcraft
But beware of false or superficial solutions…. REDD/REDD+, CDM, geoengineering, carbon trade, etc
Another word of caution…
Not a call for blind revival of traditions (often socially oppressive, fatalist)
Not fundamentalist environmentalism (green-saffron alliance; tiger vs. tribal…)
Some issues to resolve….
Will big industry be needed? Under whose control?
Will profits remain an incentive, will private sector have a role?
What is the role of the ‘middle classes’?
What ‘political’ forces will lead the way?
Consumerism: how to bell the cat?
Personal actions: choices in use of materials, energy, transportation, etc
Social actions: policies providing incentives for responsible consumption, disincentives for wasteful consumption
An end to globalisation?
• Global flow of ideas, cultures, materials will continue, but on principles of Radical Ecological Democracy
– Primacy to local self-reliance in basics– Ecological sustainability – Social, economic equity– Citizens’ decision-making
NO IMPOSITION OF ONE MODEL ACROSS WORLD!
Scenarios for 2060…Business as usual: widespread ecological collapse, worse social inequities, water/resource wars, xenophobia, fortress mentality
Managerial responses (tech/market fixes, better laws/policies): collapse is slowed down, not averted; inequities persist
Radical ecological democracy: full-scale collapse averted, seeds sown for dramatic paradigm shifts, bioregionalism and localisation gain over nationalism
____ __ __ _ ______ ________ __ ______ ___________ ______ __
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India is in a unique position to evolve alternative models of human
well-being with environmental sustainability
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