Co-operation is odious

India's National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (nbsap) is out. Finally. But one parent has already disowned it -- the Union ministry of environment and forests (moef). The nodal implementing agency, Pune-based non-governmental organisation (ngo) Kalpvriksh, has been forced to release the final technical report as a public document, after valiantly trying for almost a year to get the government to publish a report they had asked Kalpvriksh to help coordinate in the first place.

The report was to be a comprehensive document meant to help guide legislation and policy in conserving biodiversity in India. It was a undp -funded initiative. The administrative agency in-charge was Biotech Consortium of India Limited. Of the total budget of about Rs 4 crore, Kalpvriksh was given about Rs 20 lakh spread over 4 years. The rest -- about 2 crore -- went to over 100 agencies, including several state government agencies, ngos, community groups and individual experts. In fact, in a mid-course correction, almost a third of the total budget earmarked by moef and the undp to a handful of consultants was instead given to more decentralised bodies.

But one fine day the government decided to reject what it had been assiduously working on with the non-government sector. It held back the report's public release. Officers in the ministry maligned it, in hushed whispers, as being un-scientific. This when the government agencies, including the ministry, had gone through the entire document (it is a tediously large one) with a fine toothcomb to remove anything not to its taste.

Taking to technicalities The decision not to accept its own plan taken, the government resorted to technicalities. It said it will release the document as a 'technical report', thus no longer obliged to really implement any of its recommendations. At the same time, it formulated and passed legislations effecting India's biodiversity -- the amendment to the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, the Biodiversity Act, 2002 and other regulations.

There was nothing unusual with passing such legislation, for the government also has an on-going forest commission. But the question is: when Kalpvriksh did commendably release the report in public, why did the government come out maligning the organisation, insinuating that the organisation had taken money and not performed to expectations? The crudity with which moef has gone about discrediting the report does lend credence to accusations of many ngos that the ministry has, over time, become averse to their participation in any kind of environmental auditing and instead become a facilitation agency for the 'development lobbies'.

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