Can Environment and

Development Go Together?

Ashish Kothari

Kalpavriksh

What is the most important

thing in your life?

• Oxygen … no-one can live without it for

more than 2-3 minutes!

70% comes from marine algae…

India’s Impressive Growth• One of world’s biggest economies, rapid growth,

amongst world’s richest persons, 600 million

mobile phones …

Today’s vision of ‘development’

Violence against nature, people, and cultures

Destruction of India’s environment

– >5.5 million ha. forest diverted in last 60 years

– 70% waterbodies polluted or drained out

– 40% mangroves destroyed

– Some of the world’s most polluted cities and coasts

– Nearly 10% wildlife threatened with extinction

‘Green / White revolution’ models

•addiction to outside seeds, water, fertilisers, pesticides, credit

•soil loss and degradation

•dependence on market, govt, moneylenders

•monocultures, bias against diversity

•neglect of dryland, seasonal, shifting agriculture

Pauperisation of marginal/small farmers: >200,000

suicides (many in heartland of green revolution!)

Destruction of India’s agriculture

Self-devouring growth

World Bank (2013): Costs of

environmental damage = 5.7%

points econ. Growth

(impacts taken into account)

•urban & indoor air pollution

•inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene

•agricultural damage by soil salinity, water-logging and soil erosion

•pasture degradation

•deforestation

Jobless growth; continuing and

new poverty

• Myth of growing employment: ‘jobless growth’ in organised sector:– 26.7 million in 1991

– 30 million in 2012

• % below poverty line: 38 to 70%

• World’s largest number of malnourished and undernourished women/children

• 60 million people displaced by ‘development’ projects

Where is all the money going?

1% richest own almost 50% wealth!!!!

India the new Coloniser

(with China)

>500,000 hectares of pasture/agricultural land

taken over by Indian companies in Ethiopia

More in L. America and rest of 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’

Towards alternatives

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

An individual revolutionary…

Natwar Sarangi

Narishu vill, Cuttack dist, Odisha

GenX: Jubraj Swain

Growing >400 varieties of rice

Seed albums and banks

Water security: do we need

big dams and canals?

Arvari Sansad (Parliament),

Rajasthan: water and food

security through

landscape governance

Kachchh

Water self-sufficiency in one of

India’s lowest rainfall regions

Natural resources:

conservation & livelihoods

Self-rule & decentralised governance:

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

2013: all agricultural land donated to

village, collective ownership

www.kalpavriksh.org

Livelihood security

Jharcraft (Jharkhand)

Employment for 2.5 lakh families…

reviving crafts, reducing outmigration

Dharani, AP: farmer’s company(facilitated by Timbaktu Collective)

The Village and the City …

Gram swaraj (village self-rule):

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)

Learning & education Traditional and modern, oral and written, local and global

Continued links with cultural and ecological roots

•Pachashala, AP

•Jeevanshala, Narmada

•Adivasi Academy, Guj

•Beeja Vidyapeeth, Uttarakhand

•Bhoomi College, Karnataka

Energy, technology…

Technological innovations to reduce ecological impact,

reach the poor (malkha cotton weaving, AP;

Hunnarshala housing, Kachchh)

Energy: decentralised, renewable, efficient (Ladakh solar; Bihar integrated; SELCO Karnataka)

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

100% by 2015, Kerala by 2020?

Decentralised governance

Nagaland ‘communitisation’: devolution of

govt powers over education, electricity,

health to village councils

Result: sharp increase in quality & quantity of

services

Radical ecological democracy

or

Ecological Swaraj

• achieving human well-being, through

pathways that:

– empower all citizens to participate in decision-

making

– ensure equitable distribution of wealth

– respect the limits of the earth and the rights of

nature

What is an alternative?

•Ecological sustainability

•Social well-being & justice

•Direct democracy

•Economic democracy

•Cultural and knowledge diversity

Fundamental values & principles

• Diversity and pluralism (of ideas, knowledge, ecologies, economies, polities, cultures…)

• Self-reliance for basics (swavalamban)

• Cooperation, collectivity, and ‘commons’

• Rights with responsibilities/duties

• Dignity of labour

• Respect for subsistence

• Qualitative pursuit of happiness

• Equity / equality (gender, caste, class, ethnic)

• Simplicity, enoughness (aparigraha)

• Decision-making access to all

• Respect for all life forms

• Ecological sustainability

What can we do?

•Visit, understand, study community initiatives

•Support struggles against destructive

development

•Make our lifestyle sustainable

•Make our school/college sustainable

•Spread awareness amongst others

•Don’t keep quiet if you see injustice!!!

India is in a unique position to

evolve alternative models of well-

being with sustainability & equity …

collaborating with other countries

and peoples

• www.kalpavriksh.org

• www.vikalpsangam.org

• chikikothari@gmail.com

For more information….