Impolitic moves

A FEW months before he was unceremoniously shifted to theministry of textiles, India's minister for environment andforests Karnal Nath had told a staff member of the Centre forScience and Environment that while usually it @s the job ofofficials to brief a minister, the opposite was the case in hisministry. Kamal Nath himself had been briefing his officers,since almost all his senior staff had been replaced by new facesover the years.

True to form, his hasty replacement in September was preceded by a reshuffle of most of his top officials. Three newadditional secretaries, 4 newjoint secretaries and several othermiddle-ranking officials had joined the ministry in the pastfew months under a working secretary who himself was justabout a year old in the ministry.

The importance of the role of the ministry in developing alegislative and policy framework for the promotion of environmentally sound development in the country and in negotiating various international environmental agreements hasalways been apparent enough. But the manner in which thedepartment lost most of its experience and expertise in onegrand sweep displays the administration's lack of appreciationfor the dangers plaguing the environment.

Detractors will claim that it is not difficult to recoup lostexpertise and experience- The claim has an element of truth toit, but there is a proviso: the country has to have the luxury oftime and resources at its disposal. Decisions (which have beenpending) on issues of forest management, affecting millions ofpeople in the country, will necessarily be delayed further as thenew incumbents in office will need time to grasp the essence ofthe problems.

An example is the fate of the draft bill on the BiodiversityConvention, which has become uncertain as the minister andthe specific official dealing with it have been replaced in onego. Organisations working in the public interest, which hadspent their resources to brief the minister and his officials onproblems related to Tchri dam, land use policy, the Forest Bill,preservation of the traditional knowledge of tribals etc willnow have to wait further for crucial decisions. The fledglingnature of this ministry, combined with the weak institutionalmemory of our government departments, will probably forcethese groups to write off their past work and make a new startalmost from scratch.

Today, the ministry of environment and forests (mu:) isfacing a grave challenge : it has to stonewall the efforts towardsshifting of liability and burden of solution to global environmental problems onto India and other developing countries.It also has the mandate from the Indian populace to push aglobal proactive (as opposed to reactive) agenda. The NIEFnegotiates on behalf of the country on half-a-dozen internationat treaties, like the Montreal Protocol on the ozone layer,the Biodiversity Convention, the Basel Convention onHazardous Waste Trade and the World Trade Organization'snegotiations on environmental impact of international trade.The irony ties in the fact that all these treaties, schedulehave their meetings by December, will suddenly find In&concerned officials and minister changed.

The meeting on the Basel treaty in September had lixilat the crucial issue - vital to economy and environment -4trade in metal scraps. The Montreal Protocol meeting, toheld in late November, will review the rights and respo'14ties of developing countries including India. The climchange negotiations continue later in October to JolIndia and other developing countries' demands foragreement by 1997 to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions. Ibiodiversity treaty in November will consider the issueaccess to genetic material for the developing world and4sharing of technology.

In these negotiations, expertise (not only in handlinlqissue at hand, but also in the various actors and inter,involved), more than political clout, has been leading thein the last few years. It takesyears to acquire this kind ofskdl. No Wonder the industrialised countries, which dominate the discussions, prefer tobe led in them by seasonedminds and much visible faces.

Environmental management requires a cross-sectoralresponse from the Indiansociety on longterm strategicpolicy development in globalnegotiations and on immediate operational activities tosolve our current problemsand needs. It cannot be left inthe hands of short-lived officials who leave before gainingor passing on any information or expertise.

One action the new minister, Rajesh Pilot, could taketo prevent this from happening is by establishing an advisory body to the ministrywhich could serve as a thinktank for providing objective,strategic and scientific advice on national policies, stratesand programmes. This body should compose of experlspecific relevant fields, and with an abihty to bridge scientmenvironmental, technological, economic, social and polissues.

The body should be above the wheeling-dealing of pgpolitics and have a longterm mandate to provide a forurnintegrating expertise on global environment managem IThis will be one waythe critical resources of the societycanoptimally used for keeping our environment officialdominformed.