1. Introductory
1.0 Prologue
Land is a finite non renewable natural resource, indispensable for human beings.
This land gets derelict due to improper use, gets lost into ocean floor by getting
eroded if it is left without green cover. This process by which it gets lost thus
is by itself cumulative (Ghosh 2000a), and there is only one earth to live. The
prime responsibility of human generation is to leave a habitable earth for living
of the future generations.
This land, the solid cover of the earth, is being disturbed by human being since
10,000 years (Lull 1976) as they learned agriculture and started disturbing the
natural green cover. The matter was not that serious till the population was not
that dense and till the technological development of men was not sufficient to
search out newer processes to exploit land.
The deleterious effect of such development was slightly realised in nineteenth
century, record of which is the National Forest Policy of 1894. Parallel to this
attempt to protect forest, came the series of technological developments one of
which is mining. Men started excavating the earth to get minerals from it, to
use it for various human purposes. Mens' greed for such benefits was supported
by the urgument that a very small percent of global land will be disturbed by
mining. hence it is not required to prohibit mining. Thus mining could not be
prohibited by the realisation of need for protecting land and land cover. Similarly,
all developmental activities of men right from agriculture to recreation (needed
or superfluous) were being conducted on earth at the cost land cover (LC). Thus
new land uses (LUs) started gradually replacing the nature created LC.
The problem being invited was realised globally again and again. Very prominent
official record of that is the conventions on preserving biodiversity signed in
1992 with declaration on principles on forests at the Rio-Di-Generio Conference.
Realisation of this in India came much earlier, as recorded by Indian religious
tradition of worshipping different trees, as also the National Forest Policies
at different time levels, i.e. 1894, 1952, 1988 and also the Policy Initiatives
of the Hon'ble prime minister of India, Shri Atal behari Bajpayee on the world
environment day, 1999. The country has really made serious effort on conserving
and increasing its green cover. It was to some extent a green revolution in 1980s.
The most benevolent approach to preserve green cover in mining areas of India
(MAs) was made in 1987 by making it mandatory that all mining projects, New or
having some re-organisation, re-orientation or expansion should have an Environmental
Management Plan (EMP) prepared by some environmental experts and get it approved
by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) Government of India (GoI). It
was decided that Land Use Management Plan (LUMP) should form a very important
chapter in these EMPs which was to look after how the land, to be disturbed by
mining, should be reverted back to the maximum extent, to some beneficial use,
preferably to develop green cover over these. Thus in 1980s the mining areas made
a serious attempt to grow more greenery on mining degraded lands. Formulation
of such EMPs became mandatory for any such developmental activity which could
have a chance to damage the environment. In spite of such consorted attempt to
conserve and grow more greenery, it is observed that India is not able to combat
its trend of decreasing green cover. The deleterious effects observed are very
discernible. Mention may be made of
* some study of UNEP (Mohanty 2001), which has reported that the country is heading
towards severe water scarcity.
* some study of global land assessment of degradation (Anon 2000), has reported
that the globe has lost 22% of its green cover in last half century.
* Among the would's top five rivers carrying maximum sediment load to ocean, three
are those passing through India (Holeman, 1968).
This has resulted a situation which requires re-doing the activities and re-viewing
the procedures of planning and working for greening the lands.
Not withstanding the fact that the MAs cover only about 0.04% of the country's
total land, it has been realised that the matter is very serious, and it is already
an ocean of danger. Hence each and every sector should be careful to see that
not a single drop of further danger is invited.
This report comprehences the observations, findings, case studies, realisations,
all together for searching out the root cause of the problem in MAs and attempts
to uproot it. On a thorough study of the situations following facts have been
revealed.
* in many MAs the suggested LUMP could not be implemented properly because of
resistance from the people around
* in many MAs the suggested LUMP could not be implemented properly due to some
technological or financial problems.
* in many MAs the suggested LUMP was implemented but the green cover did not sustain.
This resulted the following realisations and inferences.
* any land being used for mining was being used in pre-mining days by the people
living there. Thus the people around will like to see that the activities on that
land be of their interest during and after mining.
* whatever developmental activities are conducted should be conducted to improve
the quality of life (QoL) of these people. Hence the LUMP should be able to meet
the requirements and aspirations of these people.
* The possibility of developing any LU Pattern (LUP) as per any LUMP depends upon
certain physical characters of the land, e.g. availability of soil, soil fertility,
optimum water & temperature, chances of growth (not to be cut or gazed any) suitable
topography and many others. Hence these can be considered as determinants of LU.
Any LUMP will be able to develop and sustain if and only if it takes into consideration
these LU determinants.
It has been globally realised that there cannot be any universal LU law (Rhind
& Hudson, 1980). LU planning (LUPg) system of US can easily be made available
from United States Geological Survey (USGS) circular no. 721, 1976. The National
Bureau of Soil Survey & LUPg (NBSS-LUP) is the National organisation in India
working for this matter. The problem lies in the fact that it is difficult to
fit the mining degraded lands in the system followed by the NBSS-LUP because
* mining degraded lands get so much degraded and stoney (without any topsoil and
provision for water) that hardly any of these will appear suitable to grow greenery
as per NBSS-LUP system, while the basic aim is to increase green cover.
* it has been realised that the local peoples aspiration should get prime importance
in LUPg for MAs; while in NBSS-LUP system there is very limited provision for
that.
Hence a LUPg system has been suggested which can take care of the problems identified
and suggest an implementable LUMP.
Implementation of LUMP results through land reclamation. Some shortcomings have
also been identified in the reclamation technologies being followed presently.
Hence some remediations have been suggested to combat the problems of non-implementation
due to technological or financial shortcomings and non-sustainability of some
of the green covers developed.