Before Wayanad: Karnataka’s Western Ghats saw rising landslides, met sluggish action

Experts warned of disaster for years as hills collapsed, but officials dragged their feet on protecting the fragile ecosystem.

Rescue work at the landslide site near Shirur in Ankola taluk, July 21, 2024. | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement

Exactly two weeks before the devastating landslide took place in Wayanad, Kerala, a similar, albeit smaller, tragedy took place in Shirur village in Ankola taluk, Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka on July 16. It gripped in panic people who live in seven districts of the State along the Western Ghats.

According to news reports, the heavy thunderstorms in the region led to a wave of sandy slurry descending from the hill near Shirur, situated near the Gangavali River on National Highway 66. The landslide swept away a tea shop near the highway, buried three trucks and pounded the settlement of Uluvare on the other side of the river. A total of 13 people were washed away from Shirur and Uluvare of which only eight bodies were recovered despite a two-week long intensive search operation.

A landslide in this region was not surprising considering that a 2022 advisory report titled Karnataka State Action Plan: Management of Landslides prepared by the Karnataka State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA) had deemed Ankola as a part of the “Landslide Susceptible Zone”. The report further tabulated that 439 landslides occurred in Uttara Kannada district between 2009 and 2021. This was the highest in any district in the State and was followed by Shivamogga (356), Chikkamagaluru (193), Udupi (99), Dakshina Kannada (88), Kodagu (79) and Hassan (18). In this 12-year-period, 66 people lost their lives because of these disasters.

According to the KSDMA report, landslides affect “at least 15.30 percent of the land area of Karnataka… in 29 taluks”. All the affected taluks are in the Western Ghats region meaning that, in every monsoon season, residents living in these areas are vulnerable to landslides. In this year alone, 46 landslides have taken place in the Western Ghats in Karnataka leading to the temporary closure of crucial link highways between the plains and coastal cites such as Mangaluru and Udupi. Environmental journalist Nagesh Hegde blamed the incidents of landslides on two reasons: human-induced unscientific developmental activity and the impact of climate change leading to erratic rainfall patterns.

Following the incident at Shirur and the catastrophe in Wayanad, Forest Minister Eshwar B. Khandre appointed a Special Task Force (STF) on August 2 to recover encroached land in the Western Ghats. More than two lakh acres of forest lands, mainly in the forests of the Western Ghats, which feed several rivers that flow across Karnataka, have been encroached. On the same day, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah also announced that his government would reconsider the scrapping of the K. Kasturirangan Commission Report (formally titled Report of the High-Level Working Group on Western Ghats) that was submitted in 2013. While these gestures were welcomed by environmentalists, questions were also raised by many among them who asked why a tragedy needs to take place before the government wakes up.

“Ideally, this should have been done after 2019 when 61 people lost their lives in Kodagu during the disastrous floods and landslides,” said an environmentalist requesting anonymity. While appointing the STF, Khandre said, “If we do not wake up now, the next generation will not forgive us.” The sentiment must be lauded but it is questionable whether the government will take any serious steps in clearing the massive infrastructure of development projects and tourism ventures that have littered the Western Ghats in Karnataka over the past few decades.

The government’s past actions do not offer any glimmer of optimism as Karnataka has rejected the recommendations of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (headed by environmentalist Madhav Gadgil), the diluted recommendations of the Kasturirangan Report and has not followed up on the five draft notifications issued by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) recommending the demarcation of Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESAs). (The sixth draft was issued on July 31, a day after the Wayanad landslide).

‘Unscientific, outdated’

The Kasturirangan Report proposed to demarcate 20,668 sq. kms. in Karnataka as an ESA. The implications of this would be that activities such as mining and quarrying would be prohibited and other developmental activities such as large constructions and road building, curtailed. Considering that this would affect development work in 1,576 villages in the districts of Chamarajanagar, Kodagu, Mysuru, Hassan, Shivamogga, Chikkamagaluru, Uttara Kannada, Udupi, Dakshina Kannada, and Belagavi, residents and politicians from the area opposed the recommendations leading to a rejection of the report. Last year, Khandre even termed the report “unscientific” and “outdated”.

A section of the opponents to the Kasturirangan Report has organised themselves under the banner “Rajya Aranya Bhoomi Hakku Horaatagarara” (“Campaigners for State Forest Land Rights”). A member of this group, Raju Nayak said, “According to the Kasturirangan Report, permanent structures, roads, industries and tourism-related infrastructure cannot come up in the ESA. This will have a serious impact on the lives of the people living in villages and will impede development.” Commenting on the opposition, Hegde said, “The frenetic development that the Western Ghats in Karnataka are seeing is not beneficial to the inhabitants of the region but aids only outsiders. The sustainable development that needs to take place for the benefit of the residents has been clearly stated in the Gadgil Report.”

Karnataka was not the only State that rejected the Kasturirangan Report as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Kerala and Tamil Nadu also did not implement these recommendations. After this, the MoEF&CC issued five draft notifications recommending the declaration of ESAs in the Western Ghats but even these have been ignored by successive governments in Karnataka. In 2022, a new “High Level Committee of Western Ghats Eco-Sensitive Areas” headed by retired Indian Forest Service officer Sanjay Kumar was appointed by the MoEF&CC. Looking at the fate of the recommendations of past committees that have been gathering dust, it is not surprising when environmentalists are sceptical of this reformulated iteration of another group of scientists and bureaucrats.

Col C.P. Muthanna, former president of the Coorg Wildlife Society, said, “The destruction of forests and the pace of constructions has picked up in Kodagu over the past few decades. If nothing is done, even the watershed of the Cauvery River will reduce affecting the water needs of cities downriver. The recommendations of the Gadgil report must be implemented in our district at least.” Col. Muthanna’s ardent pleas stem from a real danger: the large influx of tourists is testing the natural resilience of the district, evident from the fact that more than 42 lakh tourists visited Kodagu last year while the resident population is only around five lakhs.

Akhilesh Chipli, an environmentalist based in Shivamogga district, who vehemently endorsed the implementation of the Kasturirangan report, said, “On the face of it, the recent response of the State government to the disasters seems environment-friendly but if you look at the list of proposed development projects [in the Western Ghats], it is a recipe for destroying the environment. The latest example is the approval for the Sharavathi Pumped Storage and Hydroelectricity Project in the protected area of the Sharavati Valley Sanctuary.” Energy Minister K. J. George contended that with the project’s capacity of 2000 MW, it would play a “crucial role in the State’s energy landscape.” Chipli disagreed with this and said that it is time that governments start looking at alternative sources of clean energy such as solar rather than destroy forests.

Kalkuli Vittal Hegde, an environmentalist from Chikkamagaluru district, said, “Strict laws must be implemented to deal with quarrying and mining activities that are being undertaken in the hills of the Western Ghats. It is important that unscientific road widening projects should be suspended. Even the landslide that took place in Shirur happened because of an unscientific highway development project. In the long run, everyone including governments, environmentalists and ordinary people should also work towards reducing global warming to prevent the frequency of natural disasters.”