This is not the first time that an editorial on land use has been proposed in this paper’s editorial. Without a land use policy, Meghalaya’s agricultural land is converted into industrial plots. Its forests are ravaged to make way for unsustainable mining. A policy is essentially a guideline that informs us about the roadmap that Government is using to pursue its developmental goals. A land use policy will direct land owners to use be responsible custodians of their land. Meghalaya is a tribal state governed by, above all else, the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution which gives the communities unqualified rights over their land. But rights must go hand in hand with responsibilities. A forest is not to be seen as a conglomeration of trees which have to be cut down. There is the question of biodiversity which has to be understood. Forests are carbon sinks that absorb all the carbon dioxide released through human activities and by other life forms. Forests in turn provide us with oxygen which is life. We have all learnt this basic lesson in school but don’t use it when we are placed in responsible positions and have to take hard decisions to conserve forests. Biodiversity essentially means that there are, within forests, many other life forms that subsist and generate their own by-products to give the forests their vitality.
Globalisation has turned even the indigenous knowledge of tribals co-existing with nature, on its head. Extractive industries have come in with a vengeance and our elected representatives are compelled to take stances they might not believe in, for their political survival. So forests are dispensable casualties. Companies exploiting minerals ceaselessly and ruthlessly are supported despite their reluctance to invest in reviving forests in areas that are already on the verge of desertification. Over time we have seen that collective and individual rights over land, water and forests without corresponding responsibility has become a curse. Even catchment areas are not spared and have been converted into private water sources. The worldwide argument that individual rights are subservient to collective rights and that public good is paramount does not seem to obtain in Meghalaya. Individuals have leased out even forest lands to mining companies and the Forest Department has sat back in apathy saying that its writ runs only inside ‘reserved forests.’ Meghalaya is very quickly turning into a ‘free for all territory’ where money can buy everything. Unless the state enacts a land use policy and with it a land ceiling act, some individuals will own up all of Meghalaya while the rest of the population will be reduced to landless labourers.
