Mining Our Wildlife

As I drove slowly on a winter morning on the dusty roads of Dandeli-Anshi Tiger Reserve a set of pugmarks revealed that a tiger had ambled along the track. The pug marks looking brilliant in the soft morning light enthralled me. About thirteen years ago I was witness to giant tippers filled with iron ore speeding on these same roads ensuring near decimation of large-bodied wildlife from this are. This reserve was mining precincts till the late 90s when a land mark Supreme Court judgment ordered the stoppage of all non-forestry activities within protected areas. Wildlife is slowly recovering in Dandeli-Anshi though other depletive factors continue to endanger this high potential area for tiger and its prey.

Several mines operated within Dandeli Wildlife Sanctuary in the mid 90s. Pic:Sanjay Gubbi

Karnataka that holds the largest iron ore reserves anywhere in the country has pillaged ecologically sensitive areas in the Western Ghats for several decades. Iron ore mining and quarrying for granite has taken a severe toll in key wildlife habitats. This has resulted in disastrous effects through habitat fragmentation, especially for those species that require large home ranges and are sensitive to disturbances. Tigers, elephants, dholes, lion-tailed macaques, great pied hornbill to name a few such species. These animals are fussy about where and how they live.

Mining brings all those activities that are against the interests of protecting wildlife. Roads are cut opening up fragile ecosystems for human intrusion. Large-scale human settlements are set up in forests for labour force and other staff, further fragmenting and degrading habitats.

Other developmental essentials such as power lines that bring in electricity, pipelines that carry semi-finished products to nearest ports are all imperative to wildlife. These linear structures break continuous tree canopies for several kilometers restricting tree dwelling species to smaller forest fragments. This limits their access to food sources in other areas of the forest. Another effect is inbreeding due to genetic separation resulting in weak or sterile offsprings. Species such as the lion-tailed macaque, a highly endangered Western Ghats endemic with fewer than 4,000 surviving in the wild, are the ones severely affected by linear fragmentation.

Impact on hydrology

Surface mining industry is a farmer’s nightmare primarily affecting eastward flowing rivers that water the fields in the southern plateau. It changes hydrological profile of an area by degrading catchments affecting both quantity and quality of water. It increases run-offs during monsoons and pollutes rivers and streams that take birth from these rolling hills. Mining has heavily polluted Tunga, Bhadra, Kali in Karnataka, with Selaulim, Mandovi, Zuari and other rivers meeting similar fate in Goa. Roads cut within mining concessions tearing the fragile hillsides exposes the area for erosion taking mud directly into nearby streams and rivers further contributing to siltation.

Reservoirs built with billions of rupees of public money are clogged with mine silt decreasing their water holding capacity. Colossal waste of tax payer’s money for a few thousand dollars of forex the mining industry brings back to the country’s economy. Studies by Jagadish Krishnaswamy of Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment in collaboration with Wildlife Conservation Society-India Program showed that over 50 percent of silt load in Bhadra dam was from mining activities carried out in Kudremukh National Park. Interestingly the mine area formed less than one percent of the total catachment area of the River Bhadra against which the dam was built.

The Kudremukh saga

Halting of mining in Kudremukh has become the poster boy of conservation success stories in the country. Perhaps it’s the best example of blend of legal intervention and outreach success in the history of wildlife conservation movement in the country.

Kudremukh is one of the few rainforest habitats where tigers still survive. Apart from tigers, the dark green stunted rainforests called sholas, which play a critical role in water regulation, interspersed with lush green grasslands that turn golden in summer are also the largest block of lion-tailed macaque habitat in the country depicting its biological importance. A public sector mining company ravaged these rainforests for over three decades for iron ore. However based on an order from the Supreme Court, in response to a public interest litigation filed by Wildlife First a conservation NGO, mining was halted in the end of 2005.

In Kudremukh National Park the mining company carried out open cast mining right above the birth place of River Bhadra. Pic: Niren Jain

The company still holds on to the land and advocates reopening the mine in this fragile national park. Eco-tourism being one of their favorite selling points to clasp on to the land. The company spends nearly 60 crore rupees annually in upkeeping the plant, machinery and employees knowing well that they are violating the court’s order. While the mining company continues to violate the order and pillage public funds, nature is set to return to the mined area. Mined slopes are swathed with green moss, a sign of regeneration and hope. However it will take a few decades before the area could return to its original vegetation. Or perhaps it never will, but the large-scale disturbance and pollution caused by the mine has ended.

The mining company has dumped mining waste called as tailings inside the national park submerging 340 ha of pristine forests and grasslands. In the year 2000 the pipeline carrying slurry to Mangalore port broke releasing about 4,000 tonnes of iron ore slurry heavily polluting the streams and rivers. This was not the first such instance.

Water coming out of mining area (left) and water from pristine forests. Pic: Shekar Dattatri

Other areas

Not far from Kudremukh, the hills of Kemmangundi were plundered by another public sector for over 70 years till 2003 when the company shut shop with the expiry of their lease. With an average rainfall of 2,400 mm the mine constantly polluted Somavahini and Hebbehalla two important tributaries of River Bhadra. Even today several species of amphibians and fishes that are new to science are discovered in the rivers and streams that stumble down the hills of Kudremukh, Kemmangundi and other forests in the Western Ghats. These species could have been lost forever if the mining had continued.

Many other parts of the Western Ghats have been blighted by mining and quarrying bringing irreversible changes to wildlife habitats. Black granite quarrying in the Male Mahadeshwara hills threatens an all important elephant corridor between the wet and dry zones of the Ghats. Currently a total of 26 mining leases have been granted in Ponnachi, Meenyam and Martalli, an indication of reckless economic development planning.

Beyond Western Ghats, forest remnants in the dry districts of Bellary, Tumkur, Chitradurga, Koppal, Bangalore are all seeing their last days due to the plundering for iron ore and granite. Four-horned antelope, possibly chinkara, leopards, hyenas, sloth bears, wolves, elephants are losing their turf to mainly feed the Chinese dragon.

Nationwide mines continue to bulldoze tiger and other wildlife habitats. Panna Tiger Reserve that has one of the two legal diamond mines in the country, acted as one of the most critical depletive factors for losing all its tigers. Sariska that had marble mines met with similar fate in 2004. Threat of iron ore mining looms over the buffer area of Bandipur Tiger Reserve while coal mining intimidates the buffer of Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve. The last habitat of the Asiatic lions in Gir could be lost to limestone mining and salt mining in Rann of Kutch has put the only remaining population of Indian wild ass in peril. Several other forest lands in Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Orissa are facing the brunt of both legal and illegal mining activities. Two districts in Goa have 100 mining leases with both these districts having 65 percent forest cover.

As our country grows economically richer, we are growing biologically poorer. Policy makers seem to be inattentive to the call of conservationists about the connection of forests and wildlife to watershed and further to poverty alleviation. Though important for economic development exploitation of natural resources should follow a hands-off approach in ecologically sensitive areas if species such as tigers and lion-tailed macaques have to see through this century. However it needs strong political commitment and active engagement by those managing our wildlife habitats.

An edited version of this article was published in The Hindu Survey of the Environment