Karnataka orders crackdown on illegal activities that have damaged Western Ghats

BENGALURU: The massive landslide incidents at Shirur in Uttara Kannada district and Wayanad in Kerala, along with multiple minor landslides along the Western Ghats of Karnataka over the past few weeks, seem to be ringing alarm bells for the state govt. Concerned over rapacious anthropogenic activities such as forest land encroachment, illegal homestays, resorts, and residential layouts that have left the ecologically sensitive ecosystem of the Western Ghats in peril, the Karnataka Forest Minister has cracked the whip on such activities and ordered their closure within a month, besides initiating legal action.

Close on the heels of landslide incidents both in Karnataka and Kerala claiming more than 200 lives, Forest Minister Eshwar Khandre has directed the Additional Chief Secretary of the forest, environment, and ecology department to crack down on all illegal homestays, resorts, orchards, and residential layouts by cutting hillocks and encroaching on the forest land along the Western Ghats. In a detailed letter to the ACS, Khandre has also instructed the department officials to evict all forest encroachments since 2015 over the next month and submit a compliance report with details of the eviction.

Referring to scientists' and geologists' reports all along the Western Ghats in Karnataka, the minister said in his letter, “Over the years, people have set up coffee and rubber plantations, layouts, homestays, and resorts by cutting several decades-old trees and unscientifically cutting hill ranges in all the Western Ghats districts, causing geological disturbances. Further, the increased footfall of visitors to these sensitive areas in the name of weekend trips, hiking, and trekking has further added to the problem. In this backdrop, strict legal action shall be initiated against such activities along the Western Ghats passing through Chikkamagaluru, Shivamogga, Mysuru, Chamarajanagar, Belagavi, Dakshina Kannada, Uttara Kannada, Kodagu, and Hassan.”

The minister’s decision comes close on the heels of widespread demand from conservationists across Karnataka following the massive landslides all along the Ghats since the onset of the monsoon. Activists from several districts of the Western Ghats had slammed the state govt over its cavalier attitude towards the conservation of the Western Ghats landscape and the rampant rise in real estate activities triggering landslides. In fact, a team of experts from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the Karnataka Biodiversity Board had submitted a detailed plan to the state govt in 2021 after visiting multiple landslide-hit areas of Karnataka and recommended corrective steps and mitigation measures. However, three years since the submission of the report, not much has been done to address the issue of landslides, and more activities such as roads, tunnels, and hydel power generation projects have been planned in the Western Ghats region of Karnataka.