Wayanad landslides: A tragedy of three reports buried by dissent

Mundakkai in Meppadi panchayat in Kerala, the centre of a series of landslides that hit Wayanad district early on Tuesday, experienced 572 mm of rainfall over 48 hours. According to India Meteorological Department (IMD) guidelines, rainfall exceeding 204.4 mm in a day is classified as extremely heavy.

The landslide debris reached Chooralmala Angadi, 6 km from the epicentre, in an area not known to be prone to landslides.

Just three kilometres downhill from the current epicentre Mundakkai is Puthumala, where in August 2019, another landslide claimed 17 lives and completely washed away Puthumala post office, Chamundeshwary temple, Puthumala mosque, the canteen of the tea estate of Harrison Malayalam, and two settlements of tea estate labourers.

This area falls in an ecologically sensitive zone, according to reports by both the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) chaired by Professor Madhav Gadgil and submitted in 2011, and the High-Level Working Group (HLWG) led by space scientist K. Kasturirangan in 2013.

The HLWG was set up to look into the WGEEP panel report as Gadgil had suggested demarcating 64 per cent of the Western Ghats as an Ecological Sensitive Area (ESA).

But the recommendations could not be implemented as there was severe opposition to the suggestions, and the Union ministry did not notify the area as ecologically sensitive. Kerala and Karnataka opposed designating some areas as ecologically sensitive, which delayed protections, and allowed continued rock quarrying, mining, and new industrial developments.

The Gadgil report designated the entire Western Ghats as an ESA and recommended that no new dams based on large scale storage be permitted in ecologically sensitive zone 1. Since both the Athirappilly and Gundia hydel project sites fall in this zone, these projects should not be accorded environmental clearance, the report said.

According to the Gadgil report, talukas in Vythiri, Mananthavadi and Sultan Bathery fell within ESZ 1, the most ecologically sensitive zone in the Western Ghats. The report had suggested that this region should promote only minimal-impact tourism.

The Kasturirangan committee report suggested designating only 37 per cent of the Western Ghats — approximately 60,000 sq. km — as ESAs and included 13 villages from Wayanad, including Achooranam, Pozhuthana, Kottappadi, Chundale, Vellarimala, Thariye, Vellarimala and Kunnathidavaka.

However, some of the areas where Tuesday's landslides struck — Chooralmala, Mundakkai, Vythiri and Attamala — were not marked as ecologically sensitive. The other problem with this report was that it was based on satellite images and not field visits.

It should be remembered that there had been intense protests in Kerala against the implementation of the Gadgil panel recommendations. The Catholic church was among those who had sworn to oppose the proposal by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) to implement the WGEEP report.

The Syro-Malabar Church had even claimed that there might be an international conspiracy behind the WGEEP. A church spokesperson argued that implementing the report would jeopardise the livelihoods of thousands in around 100 villages, as they fall within the designated ecologically sensitive zones.

After six districts objected to the Gadgil report, the ministry had constituted the HLWG to look into it. The Kasturirangan committee broadly supported the Gadgil report, but proposed minor adjustments to the zonal classifications. Gadgil criticised these changes, arguing that even minor alterations could damage the already fragile Western Ghats.

The only politician across party lines who supported both the Union government panel reports was the Congress MLA P.T. Thomas, who passed away in December 2021. He had then stated that the Gadgil committee report included no anti-farmer recommendations. However, his support for the report angered protesters, especially Catholic church leaders, who openly criticised him.

In October 2013, a three-member committee led by Oommen V. Oommen, former chairperson of the Kerala State Biodiversity Board (KSBB), was formed by the Kerala government in response to protests in Idukki, Wayanad, and Kozhikode against the draft notification issued by the MoEFCC.

The state panel had then submitted a report to chief minister Oommen Chandy stating that the Kasturirangan panel's method for identifying ESAs was flawed. According to the panel, if 20 per cent of a village's area is ecologically sensitive, the entire village is classified as an ESA, regardless of the 80 per cent that may be urbanised.

The state panel claimed the Kasturirangan panel's ESA identification would lead to serious issues in a state like Kerala, where population density is high owing to shortage of land. It noted that most of the 123 ESA villages in Kerala have a population density exceeding 250 people per sq. km.

The state panel recommended physically verifying the ESA villages identified by the Kasturirangan panel and the ESZ 1 & 2 proposed by the WGEEP. It suggested excluding all populated areas, farmland, and plantations from ESAs. This verification had to be carried out by a committee with representatives from local bodies, biodiversity management committees, and the revenue, forest, and agriculture departments.

“The state panel report had also marked the forest areas in Achooranam, Kottappadi, Chundale, Kunnathidavaka, Meppadi panchayat and Vellarimala villages as ecologically sensitive. We submitted a cadastral map marking the ecologically sensitive areas based on ground reports,” said Oommen, who added that the state panel had suggested a reduction of around 3,900 sq. km as ESZ, translating to 9,800 sq. km in the 123 villages.

Oommen stated that his panel travelled from Kannur to Thiruvananthapuram across the Western Ghats, held 30 meetings with farmers, and addressed their concerns. Their report, submitted in January 2014, was unanimously approved by the state Assembly and sent to the MoEFCC. A draft notification was issued on 14 March 2014, but it remains unimplemented. Oommen lamented that had the report been acted upon by 2015, the recent tragedy might have been mitigated, and the destruction would have been less severe.

Highlighting the reasons for the current tragedy, Oommen said heavy rains have occurred in a short period of time, and that weakens the already fragile soil, resulting in landslides. “In some areas, tree cover was removed for plantation cultivation, and this too has weakened the soil. People also farm in the area which is not in the best interest of soil stability,” he added.