THERE is a legend describing the encounter between Neil Armstrong and American Indians when Armstrong and other astronauts were undergoing training in a remote moon like desert in western United States. When an old American Indian encountered the astronauts and came to know that they were planning to travel to the moon, he asked if they could do a favour for him and his tribe. The old man said that that holy spirits live on the moon and he would like the astronauts to pass on a message to them. The old man uttered something in his tribal language and then asked the astronauts to repeat it again and again till they memorized it. On being asked what it means, the old man replied, stating that it is a secret that only his tribe and the moon spirits are allowed to know.

Once they returned to their base, the astronauts found a person who could translate this secret message. After reading it, the translator could not stop laughing. On being asked by the astonished astronomers what it meant, the translator explained what was written. It meant: ‘Don’t believe a single word these people are telling you. They have come to steal your land.’

This is a legend and yet there is remarkable similarity with the reality facing both local communities and natural ecosystem across the world. The Western Ghats is no different. Every law enacted, policy formulated and institution created for protection of the Western Ghats ultimately had only one unstated purpose – finding ways and means to destroy this unique biodiversity hotspot. This article focuses on how the law and legal institutions have dealt with the Western Ghats over the last two decades.

Any discussion on the Western Ghats invariably starts with the Silent Valley movement in the late 1980s. The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s strong desire to protect Silent Valley in Kerala from a hydroelectric project led to the promulgation of an ordinance – the first time ever that an ordinance was resorted to for enacting an environmental law – since the Parliament was not in session. Such was the urgency in bringing about a law. Thus was born the Forest (Conservation) Ordinance, 1980 which later became the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. A one-and-a-half-page law – the shortest environmental statute in India – took away the powers of state governments as absolute owners of forest lands. The people’s movement to save the Silent Valley not only led to the project being shelved, it led to the central government asserting its constitutional duty to protect and conserve forests across the length and breadth of the country.

The next milestone was in 2002, when the Supreme Court (K.M. Chinnappa vs Union of India) had to choose, in its own words, between ‘a dollar friendly approach and an eco-friendly’ approach.1 Thankfully, it chose an ‘eco-friendly’ approach. The issue related to the iron ore mining by Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Ltd – a large profit making public sector undertaking in the Western Ghats in Karnataka within the Kudremukh National Park. The Supreme Court in a landmark decision directed for a time bound closure of the iron ore mining company. The Supreme Court judgement was unprecedented: never before was such a large state owned, profit making, export oriented corporation shut down on environmental grounds. The opening sentence of the judgment is worth quoting: ‘By destroying nature, man has committed matricide, having in a way killed mother earth.’ - Reproduced