IN Meghalaya the forests are dwindling and rivers face serious pollution issues. While this is a state inhabited largely by the indigenous Khasi, Jaintia and Garo tribes that are extolled as having an intrinsic connection with nature, today what is visible is that tribals appear to have distanced themselves from nature. Forests are mindlessly denuded without any concern for consequences, so long as they are of commercial value. Available data suggests that there are about 40,000 coal mines in Meghalaya of which 26,000 are abandoned rat hole mines. In 54 years the state has failed to reclaim these abandoned mines and to reafforest the areas where these mines are. Consider the forests that have been brought down to make way for these mines across the state. There is as yet no data on how much forest cover has been lost as of today and how much of forest cover is needed to balance life in this state which was once a biodiverse ecosystem.
According to the last India State of Forest Report (ISFR), Meghalaya has experienced a significant loss of over 84 square kilometres of forest cover between 2021 and 2023. This should be a wake up call as it concerns the state’s environmental health. But no civil society group really cares to read through these disturbing statistics. They are interested in only those sensational issues that bring political dividends. While the Lumpongdeng issue is real and needs advocacy as it means constructing a 5-star facility right next to the Umiam Lake without any clear environmental clearance and public consultations which is the foreground to every project implementation, other issues matter too. That public consultations hardly ever happen is Meghalaya’s sad governance trajectory. Having said that the fact that Lumpongdeng has found so much traction as to turn the issue into a political football, raises important questions about the rest of the environment. Have the VPP or Congress or NPP or BJP ever come near a polluted river to help in cleaning up garbage and restoring the marine health of the rivers of this state? Its easier for them to shout on the streets and create public opinion in their favour. This is a great disservice to the living environment from where humans draw their breath.
Picking and choosing environmental issues undermines the credibility of the group/groups taking up the matter. If a group protests against deforestation in one place but ignores pollution in another (especially when politically inconvenient), people begin to see advocacy as biased rather than principled. People begin to lose trust in such NGOs. Besides, the last thing that is needed at this critical juncture in Meghalaya’s history is to politicize environmental issues. When advocacy targets only the Government or certain projects, the environment becomes a political weapon not a shared concern. This then leads to polarisation even while the environment loses its non-partisan character. The environment needs all minds to converge and speak on its behalf. River pollution which is a now an environmental crisis in Meghalaya affects forests while mining affects agriculture as acid mine drainage kills the water. Selective advocacy shows that the NGOs pick only some projects to draw attention to themselves while leaving out deforestation, mining, river pollution and poor garbage management. In short selective advocacy means caring about the environment when convenient instead of caring for the environment consistently. Its time to call out this selective love for some environmental issues and not for others that are in a more critical state.
