• Director General Office

Common but Different Futures: AI Inequity and Climate Change

h worse quality public services.”[18] Part of the challenge for low and middle income countries (LMICs) is the absence or unreliable availability of basic infrastructure like electricity and high-speed internet. Similar inequalities mark R&D, patents, startups, funding, skilling and hiring in AI, with the United States and Europe accounting for the lion’s share of investment, academic output, and hiring (see Figures 1a,1b, and 1c).[19] From Top Left: Number of AI Patents; Global distribution of private investments in AI, AI hiring. Source: Global AI Vibrancy Tool, Stanford University. Regional labels are the author’s own.[20] How would the concentration of AI development and capacity—technical and governance—in the Global North affect emissions, and by extension, emission politics and narratives? As Anita Gurumurthy and Nandini Chami of IT for Change write in their 2019 essay:[21] The AI-led global order is entrenched firmly in what activists and scholars have argued is a form of neocolonisation. Today, economic power is a function of how AI technologies are employed in networked systems organised around incessant data processing. As data started flowing on a planetary scale with the advent of the internet, creating and multiplying social and economic connections, predatory capitalism found a new lease of life. The incumbents of the digital revolution, who have shaped global value chains, have the first-mover advantage in AI. This edge is not only in data, digital infrastructure, and capital, but also their ability to set the terms by which other actors engage in governance and ethical debates. (This idea is explored further in the final section.) Elephant in the Dark: Granularity in Emissions In 2020, ICT accounted for between 0.8 and 2.3 gigatons CO2eq in global GHG emissions. Researchers put ICT’s contribution at 1.8 and 2.9 percent of global emissions according to low and mid estimates, and up to 6.3 percent per the “worst-case” estimates.[22] At the same time, AI development and adoption across sectors has skyrocketed, as has compute demand[b] associated with even larger AI models. The compute demand of large AI models, according to a 2018 study by OpenAI, has been doubling every 3.4 months—meaning that since 2012, compute has grown by 300,000 times.[23] Some studies have also attempted to quantify the hypothetical carbon emissions generated by neural network training in different regions, based on server location, type of GPU, and training time.[24] Another study on Natural Language Processing (NLP) models estimated that training a single model generated five times the volume of CO2 emission as a car in its entire lifetime.[25] Table 1: Carbon Footprint of Major NLP Models Estimated carbon costs and cloud compute costs for selected training models. Source: Emma Strubell, Ananya Ganesh and Andrew McCallum, “Energy and Policy Considerations for Deep Learning in NLP”. [26] We can therefore turn to data centre energy use as a partial proxy for AI-related compute demand.[27] A 2015 research paper on ICT-linked electricity consumption estimated energy use of data centres to hit 539 TWh in 2018, and 2967 TWh in 2030, even with improvements in efficiency.[28] A 2017 update to this paper noted that by 2025, data centres could account for 3.2 percent of global carbon emissions.[29] A 2020 study measuring energy use against compute demand, from 2010 to 2018, noted a 6-percent increase in energy use.[30] Global data centre energy use, it further found, accounted for 1 percent of global electricity consumption, which—for comparison—is more than the total electricity consumption of a country like Thailand.[31] Current projections indicate that the APAC data centre market is expected to grow by 12.2 percent between 2020-24, with Southeast Asia alone growing at 12.9 percent. This is followed by Europe, the Middle East, and Africa at 11.1 percent, and North America at 6.4 percent.[32] Figure 2: Regional Growth in Data Centre Markets Regional Data Centre Growth (2020-2024). Source: Cushman and Wakefield (2021)[33] A key issue with many of these data centre studies, however, is that the geographic groupings they employ do not help generate granular insights. Figure 3 demonstrates this using regional data centre statistics from four major cloud service providers—Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, and Microsoft Azure—followed by a breakdown by country in Table 2. Figure 3: Data Centres by Region Regional distribution of data centres of major CSPs. Source: Amazon Web Services Global Infrastructure, Google Data Centers, IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure.[34] Table 2: Data Centres by Country Select country-level number of data centres of major CSPs. Source: Amazon Web Services Global Infrastructure, Google Data Centers, IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure.[35] While regional data might be useful in providing high-level insights, such as the paucity of centres in Sub-Saharan Africa and South America, it paints an incomplete picture. For instance, the United States alone accounts for the overwhelming majority of data centres operated by the big four, as well as an average of 39.5 percent of availability zones worldwide.[36] Therefore, even as other regions project double-digit growth in the coming decade, data centre infrastructure is currently unbalanced, and likely to remain so in the near future. In Search of an Equitable Model for Sustainable AI Powerful actors such as governments, regional institutions, and technology companies, have already embarked on a process of building narratives on AI and emissions. This risks recreating the same inequities that have historically marked climate agreements. For instance, technology giants have responded to climate concerns by announcing “net zero” policies and initiatives. Microsoft has pledged to be carbon-negative by 2030 and remove all the carbon the company has emitted since 1975;[37] Alphabet, for its part, has announced sustainability bonds worth USD 5.75 billion that will fund environmentally and socially responsible projects;[38] meanwhile, Facebook is undertaking initiatives toward sustainable supply chains;[39] and Amazon has made a pledge to be net-zero by 2040.[40] To be sure, such pledges are an important signalling tool, indicating that internet giants acknowledge their massive carbon footprint. However, they often rely on the decades-old inequitable carbon offset system which is being criticised for allowing companies to purchase their way out of making any fundamental change in how their operate.[c] There is also little transparency regarding the lifecycle emissions of their operations, including not just the facilities under their direct ownership, but within their broader global supply chains—this makes these “net zero” claims nearly impossible to measure. Another example is the focus on compute efficiency. In January 2021, Google announced the launch of Switch Transformer, a more efficient version of the older, more unwieldy Transformer. The idea with increasing compute efficiency is increasing the number of parameters in a neural network and improving performance, while keeping compute costs constant.[41] Yet, the emphasis on “efficiency” as the silver bullet to offset emissions distracts from the fact that there is still little transparency on the impact of such measures on actual life cycle emissions, leaving independent researchers who may want to verify these claims in the dark. Additionally, efficiency-oriented solutions have the second- and third-order effect of reducing costs and increasing consumption, termed the Jevons Paradox. This is a relationship seen, historically, in ICT-enabled efficiency improvements, where efficiency gains in energy use required for ICT reduced production costs, which led to an increase in the overall consumption of energy.[42] This phenomenon is captured in two relatively new terms—“ethicswashing” and “greenwashing”. Entities seek to mark an ethical checkbox to assuage the concerns of their increasingly climate-conscious shareholders and customers, without undertaking any substantive changes in their global operations.[43] Recommendations Local impact assessment. As earlier sections pointed out, granular data, in terms of geography and energy mix, are needed to drive policy action. Researchers are already proposing models for emissions impact,[44] but require more robust datasets to provide actionable recommendations. Other researchers have also recommended integrating an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) framework in AI governance.[45] Working toward complementary standards for AI emissions governance across geographies. Some geographies are already instating carbon-neutral requirements for data centres. For instance, several CSPs and data centre operators with a presence in Europe—including Google, IBM, AWS, Intel, and Microsoft—have signed a Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, part of the EU’s roadmap to becoming carbon-neutral by 2050.[46] The Pact sets targets in energy efficiency, transition to clean energy, water conservation, and reuse and repair. These (voluntary) commitments will be monitored by the European Commission. The danger of non-uniform standards is the creation of a new form of “carbon havens”, where global enterprises might move operations to developing countries with comparatively lax regulations on emissions linked to AI and allied technologies. Developing countries should explore the CBDR principle in the context of the climate costs of AI. Developing countries must get ahead of the curve by actively engaging in the process of defining parameters for the climate impact of AI. Small and developing economies are already playing catch-up in AI, contending against powerful incumbents in developed and large economies. While the economic growth imperative of AI is understandably the priority, not engaging in emerging debates in climate and AI risks these narratives and soon, governance processes, being shaped by contexts and terms set by a small group of powerful actors. Annex “Solving” Climate Change: AI for a Sustainable and Inclusive Future 22 February 2021 In February 2021, ORF organised virtual consultations, with a focus on stakeholders from Global South countries. Invited participants included industry representatives, civil society organisations, academia, and relevant government representatives. Discussions centred on AI in the context of the sustainable development goals, specifically SDGs 10 and 13 on reduced inequalities and climate action, respectively. The aim of the consultations was to seek answers to the following questions: How can we forge best practices, mitigate harms, and cooperate in a manner that ensures that the bounties generated by AI will be realised by all, and in a way that leaves a better planet for future generations? Participants put forward four marquee issues and ideas: First, striking the balance between community-centred and state-centred approaches. While the state remains the locus of global governance efforts, a reliance on purely state-centred approaches to sustainable AI will risk marginalising stakeholders whose interests may not be represented at the national level, either because of lack of visibility and resources to make their voices heard or, in some cases, persecution. Second, the lack of interfaces between climate change and AI governance processes. Sustainability needs to become a core principle under ethical AI, and requires the active buy-in of industry, government and multilateral/multistakeholder bodies. Third, making sustainable AI a policy priority for developing countries. The COVID-19 pandemic will further intensify the focus on economic recovery for developing countries, but sustainable recovery—including through sustainable AI—should remain in focus. Finally, the need to acknowledge differential capacities. A common framework for sustainable AI should account for differences in capacity, while balancing the geopolitical framing that characterises global governance of emerging technologies. Participants Abhishek Gupta Founder, Montreal Institute of AI Ethics and Machine Learning Engineer, Microsoft Anirudh Kanisetti Associate Fellow, Takshashila Institution Arthur Vieira Plataforma CIPÓ Attlee Gamundani Young ICTD Fellow, United Nations University Institute in Macau Christopher Cordova Co-founder and Director, AI for Climate Danit Gal Associate Fellow, Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence Emanuela Girardi Founder, Pop AI & High-Level Expert Group on AI of the Italian Government, Italy Eniola Mafe Lead, 2030 Vision Secretariat, World Economic Forum Gabrielle Alves Junior Researcher, Plataforma CIPÓ Janet Salem Economic Affairs Officer, UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific Marie-Therese Png Ph.D. Candidate, Oxford Internet Institute Olga Cavalli Co-founder/Academic Director, ARGENSIG – SSIG Priya Donti Co-founder, Climate Change AI Serge Stinckwich Head of Research, UN University Institute of Macau Trisha Ray is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Observer Research Foundation. Endnotes [a] “The countries or companies that reduce emissions below their cap have something to sell, an unused right to emit, measured in tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Countries and companies that don’t meet their target can buy these one-tonne units to make up the shortfall. This is called emissions trading, or cap and trade.” See: “What are Market and Non-Market Mechanisms?”, UNFCCC [b] ‘Compute demand’ refers to the demand for computational power to carry out computing tasks, such as storage, processing and analytics. [c] Carbon offsetting enables entities to “compensate” for their emissions by funding projects elsewhere that reduce emissions. See: United Nations Carbon Offset Platform: [1] See, for example: David Rolnick, Priya L. Donti, Lynn H. Kaack et al, “Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning”, arXiv:1906.05433 [cs.CY]. Cedric Villani, “For a Meaningful Artificial Intelligence: Towards a French and European Strategy”, AI for Humanity (2018). “Artificial Intelligence Strategy of the German Federal Government”, The Federal Government of Germany (2020). “Austria AI Strategy Report”, European Commission (2019). [2] “Government AI Readiness Index (2020)”, Oxford Insights. [3] Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain, “Global Warming in an Unequal World: A Case of Environmental Colonialism”, New Delhi, India: Centre for Science and Environment (1991). [4] ORF Consultations: “Solving” Climate Change: AI for a Sustainable and Inclusive Future”, February 22, 2021 (see Annex). [5] “What is the Kyoto Protocol?”, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, accessed October 1, 2021. “The Cancun Agreements: Outcome of the Work of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action Under the Convention,” 15 March 2011, Doc. FCCC/CP/2010/7/Add.l. Sikina Jinnah, “Makers, Takers, Shakers, Shapers: Emerging Economies and Normative Engagement in Climate Governance”, Global Governance, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Apr.-June 2017), pp. 285-306. [6] Sikina Jinnah, “Makers, Takers, Shakers, Shapers: Emerging Economies and Normative Engagement in Climate Governance”. [7] See, for instance: Implications of the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change: Hearing 105-457 Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 105th Congress (1998). [8] Anirruddh Mohan, “From Rio to Paris: India in global climate politics”, ORF Occasional Paper 130, Observer Research Foundation, December 2017. [9] Anirruddh Mohan, “From Rio to Paris: India in global climate politics”. [10] “Paris Agreement”, UNFCCC (2015). [11] The EU submitted INDCs as a bloc. See: “CAIT Paris Contributions Map”, World Resources Institute. [12] Kate Hampton, Mridula Pandey and Shirish Sinha, “A just path to a decarbonised future”, Observer Research Foundation, November 12, 2021. [13] Lorenzo Fioramonti, How Numbers Rule the World: The Use and Abuse of Statistics in Global Politics (Zed Books, London: 2014): p. 86. [14] Angela Carpenter, and Marcus Wagner, “Environmental justice in the oil refinery industry: A panel analysis across United States counties”, Ecological Economics 159 (2019): 101-109. Heidi Bachram, “Climate fraud and carbon colonialism: the new trade in greenhouse gases”, Capitalism nature socialism 15, no. 4 (2004): 5-20. [15] Alan Chan, Chinasa T. Okolo, Zachary Terner et al, “The Limits of Global Inclusion in AI Development”, arXiv:2102.01265v1 [cs.CY], Feb 2, 2021. [16] “AI Policy and National Strategies”, Artificial Intelligence Index Report 2021, Stanford University. [17] “Government AI Readiness Index (2020)”, Oxford Insights. [18] “Government AI Readiness Index (2020)”, Oxford Insights. [19] Data from “Global AI Vibrancy Tool”, Stanford University. [20] “Global AI Vibrancy Tool”, Stanford University. [21] Anita Gurumurthy and Nandini Chami, “The Wicked Problem of AI Governance”, Artificial Intelligence in India Vol. 2 (2019). [22] Charlotte Freitag, Mike Berners-Lee, Kelly Widdicks et al, “The climate impact of ICT: A review of estimates, trends and regulations “, arXiv (2020). [23] Dario Amodei and Danny Hernandez, “AI and Compute”, OpenAI, May 16, 2018. [24] Alexandre Lacoste, Alexandra Luccioni, Victor Schmidt et al, “Quantifying the Carbon Emissions of Machine Learning”, arXiv1910.09700v2 [cs.CY], November 4, 2019. [25] Emma Strubell, Ananya Ganesh and Andrew McCallum, “Energy and Policy Considerations for Deep Learning in NLP”, arXiv:1906.02243v1 [cs.CL], [26] Adapted from Emma Strubell, Ananya Ganesh and Andrew McCallum, “Energy and Policy Considerations for Deep Learning in NLP”, arXiv:1906.02243v1 [cs.CL]. [27] Charlotte Freitag, Mike Berners-Lee, Kelly Widdicks et al, “The climate impact of ICT: A review of estimates, trends and regulations “, arXiv (2020). [28] Anders S.G. Andrae and Tomas Edler, “On Global Electricity Usage of Communication Technology: Trends to 2030” Challenges 6, no. 1: 117-157 (2015). [29] Anders S.G. Andrae, “Total Consumer Power Consumption Forecast”, Nordic Digital Business Summit (October 2017). [30] Eric Masanet, Arman Shehabi, Nuoa Lei, Sarah Smith, and Jonathan Koomey, “Recalibrating global data centre energy-use estimates.”, Science 367, no. 6481 (2020): 984-986. Estimates do vary based on methodology, as there is no set standard for measuring the emissions and energy impact of ICT. See also: Lotfi Belkhir, Ahmed Elmeligi, “Assessing ICT global emissions footprint: Trends to 2040 & Recommendations”, Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 177(2018): Pages 448-463, [31] “Energy Consumption: International”, U.S. Energy Information Administration, [32] “Data centre Market Global Comparison”, Cushman & Wakefield (2021). [33] “Data centre Market Global Comparison”, Cushman & Wakefield. [34] “Regions and Availability Zones”, Amazon Web Services. “Discover our Data Center Locations”, Google Data Centers. “IBM Cloud global data centers”, IBM Cloud, “Global Infrastructure”, Microsoft Azure, [35] [35] “Regions and Availability Zones”, Amazon Web Services. “Discover our Data Center Locations”, Google Data Centers. “IBM Cloud global data centers”. “Global Infrastructure”, Microsoft Azure. [36] There is also variation not just in per capita electricity consumption, but also in energy mix and usage of data centres amongst locations in the same region, which is masked in grouped data. For instance, cloud servers located in North America emit anywhere from 20g CO2eq/kWh (Quebec, Canada) to 736.6 CO2eq/kWh (Iowa, US). [37] Brad Smith, “Microsoft will be carbon negative by 2030”, Microsoft Blog, January 16, 2020. [38] Ruth Porat, “Alphabet issues sustainability bonds to support environmental and social initiatives”, Google Blog, August 3, 2020. [39] “How Facebook partners with academia to help drive innovation in energy-efficient technology”, Facebook Research, February 5, 2021. [40] “All In: Staying the Course on Our Commitment to Sustainability”, Amazon. [41] William Fedus, Barret Zoph, Noam Shazeer, “Switch Transformers: Scaling to Trillion Parameter Models with Simple and Efficient Sparsity”, arXiv:2101.03961 [cs.LG], [42] Miriam Börjesson Rivera, Cecilia Håkansson, Asa Svenfelt and GöranFinnveden, “Including second order effects in environmental assessments of ICT”, Environmental Modelling & Software, 56 (2014): pp.105-115. Ray Galvin, “The ICT/electronics question: Structural change and the rebound effect”, Ecological Economics, 120 (2015): pp. 23-31. [43] Natasha Bernal, “Google, Microsoft and the strange world of corporate greenwashing”, Wired, January 31, 2020. See also: “Ethics Washing”, AI Ethics Living Dictionary. [44] See, for example: Dennis Bouley, “Estimating a Data Center’s Electrical Carbon Footprint”, White Paper 66, Schneider Electric. David Patterson, Joseph Gonzalez, Quoc Le et al, “Carbon Emissions and Large Neural Network Training”, arXiv:2104.10350v3 [cs.LG], April 23, 2021. [45] Abhishek Gupta, Camylle Lanteigne and Sara Kingsley, “SECure: A Social and Environmental Certificate for AI Systems”, arXiv:2006.06217v2 [cs.CY], July 19, 2020. [46] “Signatories”, Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact.

• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

Delhi smog tower cleans air, but test continue on efficacy and range

Now, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee(DPCC ) plans to test its effective range to determine whether the tower is actually improving air quality in the surrounding area. Preliminary data submitted by the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay to the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) shows a 50-60% reduction in PM 2.5 concentration, but only between the inlet and the outlet of the smog tower installed at Connaught Place earlier this year. Now, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee(DPCC ) plans to test its effective range to determine whether the tower is actually improving air quality in the surrounding area. To do this, the committee has installed sensors every 100 metres from the smog tower. DPCC officials say the data collected will be able to give a better idea on the smog tower’s effectiveness. Experts have long argued that smog towers are not a long-term solution to Delhi’s air pollution problem, and that not only would people have to remain extremely close to the smog tower to breathe clean air, but thousands of such smog towers would have to be installed all across the city to bring about a change in air quality. Like any purifier or smog tower in this case, there will be some reduction in the air quality readings at the outlet, but we are now looking to identify the exact impact and how big the radius of the relatively cleaner air is,” said a DPCC official involved in the project who asked not to be named. “After three months since testing first began, a detailed quarterly report will be generated,” the official added. After the smog tower became operational in October, DPCC has been receiving daily air pollution reports from IIT Bombay. The tower is located next to the Shivaji Stadium metro station. Real-time readings are being displayed on a giant screen installed outside the smog tower. One such a daily report, reviewed by HT for November 21, showed the inlet PM 2.5 concentration at 9 am to be 383 micrograms per cubic metre. The concentration at the outlet was found to be 223 micrograms per cubic metre. When HT visited the smog tower the following day, when Delhi’s air quality index (AQI) was 311 (very poor), the giant screen outside the tower displayed the outside PM 2.5 concentration to be 140 micrograms per cubic metre, with the treated air having a concentration of 73 micrograms per cubic metre. Similarly, on HT’s visit on December 2, when AQI was 429 (severe), the smog tower displayed a PM 2.5 concentration of 460 micrograms per cubic metre outside the tower, while the controlled air was said to have a PM 2.5 concentration of 324 micrograms per cubic metre. To assess the possible impact an anti-smog tower may have on the ambient air quality in its surroundings, the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) last year carried out an experiment with an air purifer outside, using it as a smaller scale model of the actual smog tower. The experiment, which was carried out at a balcony, measured readings within 12 feet of the device and found that while ambient air quality improved by 20-25 micrograms per cubic metre within the flow of the air, the impact was reduced when measured away from the flow of the air. Ambient air quality also rose as soon as the device was turned off. It concluded that people would have to be around the tower to feel any impact at all. While there was a 30% reduction in the PM 2.5 concentration just outside the boundary of the smog tower, even moving 15 feet away from it towards the metro station reduced this to practically nothing, said Karthik Ganesan, fellow and director at CEEW, who had carried out the experiment. “This was an amateur experiment but I don’t see how any formal exercise is going to reveal a different finding. Taxpayers’ money will be better spent on scaling up air pollution monitoring, building a better understanding of air pollution data and sources, improving the capacity of agencies responsible for managing air quality, educating common citizens, and strengthening our regulatory regime,” said Ganesan. Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director at Centre for Science and Environment, said that around the world , smog towers haven’t emerged as a solution to the air pollution problem, with long-term solutions instead requiring money to be spent to strengthen public transport and control local sources of pollution. “There is no scientific study at the moment to back the need for smog towers.” Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated the anti-smog tower in August of this year; it was built at a cost of ₹20 crore. At the time, he mentioned that a two-year long study will be carried out by IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay on its effectiveness. “This tower has been established as a pilot project and detailed studies will be conducted on its performance. Once satisfactory results are received, then the model can be replicated and more such towers can be established in other parts of Delhi,” he said. The first smog tower was installed in Delhi in the busy Lajpat Nagar market by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Gautam Gambhir in January 2020. Two more were installed by Gambhir in the Gandhi Nagar and Krishna Nagar markets later that year. Delhi also has a smog-tower at Anand Vihar, built on the same size and technology as the Connaught Place tower, but set up by the Centre, following Supreme Court orders. That tower was inaugurated in September. No formal study has been launched for the tower yet to study its efficacy.

• Solid Waste Management and Circular Economy

लेह में प्रति व्यक्ति रोज 1.2 KG कचरा पैदा कर रहा, नीति आयोग के CEO बोले- वेस्ट मैनेजमेंट सिस्टम सभी जगह जरूरी

किताब में सामने आया है कि सॉलिड वेस्ट (Solid Waste) के मामले में देश में लेह (Leh) देश के 15 राज्यों पहले नंबर पर है। यहां प्रति व्यक्ति प्रतिदिन 1.2 किलोग्राम सॉलिड वेस्ट निकल रहा है। गंगटोक में यह महज 200 ग्राम ही है। नई दिल्ली। नगर पालिकाओं में सॉलिड वेस्ट के मैनेजमेंट (solid waste management) पर नीति आयोग (Niti Ayog) और सेंटर फॉर साइंस एंड एनवायर्नमेंट (CSE) की एक रिपोर्ट सामने आई है। इस रिपोर्ट के आधार पर नीति आयोग 'वेस्ट वाइज सिटीज : बेस्ट प्रैक्टिस इन म्युनिसिपल सॉलिड वेस्ट मैनेजमेंट' नाम की पुस्तक का विमोचन किया। इसमें बताया गया है कि भारतीय शहर किस तरह से अपने सॉलिड वेस्ट का मैनेजमेंट कर रहे हैं। इस किताब में 28 शहरों के सॉलिड वेस्ट मैनेजमेंट के क्षेत्र में किए जा रहे कामों को दर्शाया गया है। इसमें बताया गया है कि लद्दाख के लेह से केरल के अलाप्पुझा तक, मध्य प्रदेश के इंदौर से लेकर ओडिशा के ढेंकनाल तक और सिक्किम के गंगटोक से गुजरात के सूरत तक 15 राज्यों के 28 शहर किस तरह वेस्ट मैनेजेंट कर रहे हैं। किताब में सामने आया है कि सॉलिड वेस्ट के मामले में देश में लेह देश के 15 राज्यों पहले नंबर पर है। यहां प्रति व्यक्ति प्रतिदिन 1.2 किलोग्राम सॉलिड वेस्ट निकल रहा है। गंगटोक में यह महज 200 ग्राम ही है। यह किताब नीति आयोग के उपाध्यक्ष राजीव कुमार, सीईओ अमिताभ कांत, विशेष सचिव डॉ. के राजेश्वर राव और सेंटर फॉर साइंस एंड एनवायर्नमेंट (CSE) की महानिदेशक (DG) सुनीता नारायण ने जारी की। नीति आयोग के उपाध्यक्ष राजीव कुमार ने कहा कि भारतीय विकास के भविष्य को देखते हुए शहरीकरण बहुत महत्वपूर्ण और शहरों में कुशल अपशिष्ट प्रबंधन प्रणाली को लागू करना बहुत आवश्यक है। 15 राज्यों के 25 शहरों का डेटा इकट्‌ठा किया यह रिपोर्ट स्वच्छ भारत के मिशन 2 की शुरुआत के बाद तैयार की गई है। इसमें देश के 15 राज्यों के 28 शहरों का जिक्र है जिन्होंने इस क्षेत्र में बेहतर काम किया है। जुलाई 2021 में इस रिपोर्ट का काम शुरू किया गया था। पांच महीने तक इसमें अलग-अलग डाटा जुटाए गए। इसमें सॉलिड वेस्ट से जुड़े 10 अलग-अलग पहलुओं के क्रॉस-सेक्शन से देखा गया। इनमें स्रोत पृथक्करण (सोर्स सेग्रिगेशन), रीसाइकिलिंग, टेक्नोलॉजी इनोवेशन से लेकर विभिन्न प्रकार के अपशिष्‍टों और प्रणालियां जैसे बायोडिग्रेडेबल्स, प्लास्टिक, ई-अपशिष्‍ट, सी एंड डी अपशिष्ट और लैंडफिल का प्रबंधन शामिल है। इन शहरों पर सर्वे इंदौर, अलाप्पुझा, पणजी, मैसुरू, वेंगुर्ला, बोब्बिली, भोपाल, सूरत, जमशेदपुर, ढेंकनाल, गंगटोक, बिचोलिम, कोंकण, नॉर्थ दिल्ली, गुरुग्राम, पुणे, करड, चंद्रपुर, तालीपरम्बा, अंबिकापुर, बेंगलुरू, लेह, विजयवाड़ा, केंदुझार, काकीनाडा, पारादीप, तिरुवनंतपुरम, पंचगनी और जमशेदपुर शामिल हैं। देश में प्रति व्यक्ति औसत 500 ग्राम कचरा रोज पैदा कर रहा इस किताब के मुताबिक 28 शहरों में प्रतिदिन प्रति व्यक्ति 0.19 से लेकर 0.99 किग्रा सॉलिड वेस्ट पैदा हो रहा है। सभी शहरों का औसत देखें तो यह प्रति व्यक्ति 0.39 KG है। यह बताता है कि छोटे शहर भी बड़े शहरों की अपेक्षा अधिक सॉलिड वेस्ट पैदा कर रहे हैं। रिपोर्ट के मुताबिक टूरिस्ट सिटी पणजी और लेह में प्रति व्यक्ति सॉलिड वेस्ट देश भर की अपेक्षा अधिक हो रहा है। देश में प्रति व्यक्ति 0.3 से 0.5 किग्रा सॉलिड वेस्ट पैदा कर रहा है, जबकि लेह में प्रति व्यक्ति 1.2 KG सॉलिड वेस्ट निकल रहा। दूसरे नंबर पर पणजी है। यहां हर व्यक्ति 1 किलो सॉलिड वेस्ट निकल रहा है। गंगटोक इस मामले में सबसे बेहतर है। यहां प्रति व्यक्ति सॉलिड वेस्ट 0 है। देश का सबसे साफ शहर इंदौर प्रति व्यक्ति 400 ग्राम सॉलिड वेस्ट पैदा कर रहा है, जबकि भोपाल में यह प्रति व्यक्ति 600 ग्राम है। वेस्ट प्रोसेसिंग में इंदौर-भोपाल आगे, बेंगलुरू सिर्फ 60% का कर रहा प्रोसेसिंग : 28 शहरों में से 16 शहर 90 फीसदी तक कचरे की प्रसेसिंग कर रहे हैं, जबकि बेंगलुरू, गंगटोक, गुरुग्राम और उत्तरी दिल्ली अभी इस अंतर को पाटने में लगे हैं। यह शहर 60 प्रतिशत वेस्ट प्रोसेसिंग ही कर रहे हैं। अलाप्पुझा ने शुरू की क्लीन होम क्लीन सिटी परियोजना रिपोर्ट में बताया गया है कि अलाप्पुझा ने कचरे से निपटने के लिए क्लीन होम क्लीन सिटी नामक प्रोजेक्ट शुरू किया है। इसका पहला और महत्वपूर्ण कदम सोर्स सेग्रिगेशन है। सोर्स सेग्रिगेशन से इस परियोजना में आने वाला खर्च कम हुआ है। इंदौर में कचरा प्रबंधन के लिए शहर के अधिकारियों ने एक कम्युनिकेशन सिस्टम बनाया। इसका उद्देश्य नागरिकों को अलगाव को अपनाने के लिए प्रेरित करना था। इसकी मॉनीटरिंग भी तेज की गई। अधिकारियों ने पता लगाया कि हर वार्ड में कचरे की मात्रा कितनी होती है और इसकी के हिसाब से कचरा उठाने की गाड़ियां और कर्मचारी लगाए। हर वार्ड की मांग आधारित व्यवस्था, संचार तंत्र और जनता की भागीदारी से इंदौर स्वच्छता में नंबर वन बन सका।

• Sustainable Mobility

दिल्ली में वाहनों से होने वाले प्रदूषण पर लगाम के लिए 1,700 से अधिक पुराने वाहन जब्त

नई दिल्ली: वाहनों से होने वाले प्रदूषण पर लगाम लगाने के लिए दिल्ली सरकार ने दस साल से अधिक पुरानी डीजल कारों या 15 साल से अधिक पुरानी पेट्रोल कारों सहित 1,754 वाहनों को जब्त कर लिया है। इससे संबंधित आंकड़े को पर्यावरण और वन विभाग द्वारा तैयार की गई एक संकलित कार्रवाई रिपोर्ट (एटीआर) में साझा किया गया था, जिसमें 17 नवंबर से 6 दिसंबर तक का आंकड़ा दिखाया गया था। इसी अवधि के दौरान 749 वाहन मालिकों पर जुर्माना लगाया गया है और 1,417 लोगों पर मुकदमा चलाया गया है। 2015 में नेशनल ग्रीन ट्रिब्यूनल (एनजीटी) और 2018 में सुप्रीम कोर्ट के अनुसार, 10 साल से अधिक पुराना कोई भी पंजीकृत डीजल वाहन और 15 साल से अधिक पुराना पेट्रोल वाहन राष्ट्रीय राजधानी क्षेत्र में चल नहीं कर सकता है। हालांकि, 10 साल से अधिक पुराने डीजल वाहनों के मालिकों को एक बड़ी राहत देते हुए, दिल्ली के परिवहन मंत्री कैलाश गहलोत ने 18 नवंबर को घोषणा की है कि एक बार इलेक्ट्रिक किट के साथ एक वाहन को रेट्रोफिट करने के बाद, यह राष्ट्रीय राजधानी की सड़कों पर 10 वर्षों से ज्यादा चल सकता है। इस बीच, 7,79,304 स्पष्ट रूप से प्रदूषण करने वाले वाहनों और बिना प्रदूषण नियंत्रण प्रमाणपत्र (पीयूसीसी) के वाहनों का भी इसी समय सीमा के दौरान निरीक्षण किया गया है। इनमें से 21,449 का चालान किया गया है, 7,168 को जब्त किया गया है और 21,679 वाहन मालिकों पर मुकदमा चलाया गया है। सेंटर फॉर साइंस एंड एनवायरनमेंट (सीएसई) के अनुसार, प्रदूषण के स्थानीय स्रोतों के मामले में वाहनों से होने वाला उत्सर्जन दिल्ली के पीएम 2.5 स्तरों में सबसे अधिक योगदान देता है। यातायात के आवाजाही को ठीक करने और भीड़भाड़ से बचने के लिए कुल 27,038 चौराहों, व्यस्त बाजार क्षेत्रों, अनधिकृत पाकिर्ंग स्थल आदि की निगरानी की गई है। इसके अलावा, औद्योगिक प्रदूषण पर नियंत्रण रखने के लिए, कुल 1,432 उद्योगों की जांच की गई है, जिनमें से 10 को बंद कर दिया गया है। अन्य 10 को गैर-अनुमोदित ईंधन का उपयोग करने के लिए जुर्माना लगाया गया है। रिपोर्ट में यह भी उल्लेख किया गया है कि सभी निरीक्षण किए गए उद्योग पाइप्ड नेचुरल गैस (पीएनजी) पर स्विच कर चुके हैं, जहां कनेक्टिविटी उपलब्ध है। सीएसई के अनुसार, इस साल 24 अक्टूबर से 8 नवंबर के बीच उद्योगों ने राष्ट्रीय राजधानी में हवा में 9.9-13.7 प्रतिशत का योगदान दिया है।

• Down To Earth

Towards a Systems Approach to the Management of Grasslands in India

Preeti Kapuria Grasslands that provide a variety of ecosystem services for humans—including carbon storage, which is important to mitigating climate change—are among the world’s most threatened habitats. In India, grassy ecosystems are not accorded any legal protection. Vast acres of these grasslands are converted for revenue-generating use, altering their ecological dynamics and threatening the livelihoods and cultures of pastoral and agrarian communities that are intimately connected to them. This brief studies the case of the Challakere grasslands in Karnataka, traditionally protected as common grazing land, an extensive portion of which has been diverted for the government’s township project called ‘Science City’. The brief argues for a systems thinking approach that will treat the protection, restoration and sustainable use of grasslands as policy imperatives. Attribution: Preeti Kapuria, “Towards a Systems Approach to the Management of Grasslands in India,” ORF Issue Brief No. 510, December 2021, Observer Research Foundation. Introduction Grasslands—or open regions dominated by grass and characterised by warm, dry climate—are one of the most widely distributed terrestrial biomes[a] globally.[1],[2] The proportion of the earth’s land area covered by grasslands varies between 20 and 40 percent.[3] Tropical and sub-tropical grassy ecosystems host a range of flora and fauna that have adapted to extreme weather conditions including droughts or wildfires. (For example, grasslands found in Africa, Australia, South America, and India, require seasonal droughts and wildfires to maintain biodiversity.)[4] As biodiversity hotspots, grassy ecosystems are home to a rich diversity of plant species, birds, and extant mammalian fauna.[5] They support vital ecosystem services such as water and climate regulation, forage for livestock production, biogeochemical cycling, and carbon storage, as well as cultural and recreational services. Tropical and sub-tropical grasslands store about 15 percent of the world’s carbon on land. Nearly 20 percent of the world’s population depends on tropical grasslands for their livelihoods. Being a source of fuel and food, grasslands are also prime grazing territory for many animals.[6] These grassy ecosystems, however, continue to remain under-appreciated in national and global policy discussions on Ecosystem Services.[7] Grasslands are highly degraded amidst manifold threats: excessive grazing by livestock; altered fire regimes; encroachment by invasive plant species; high rates of land clearance and increasing land-use intensity; encroachment by trees; and disruption of the disturbance regimes[b] that maintain ecosystem functions. Compounding their decline is lack of management and, often, complete abandonment.[8] In India, grassy ecosystems are spread across several biogeographic regions and occupy 24 percent of the overall geographical area.[9] Historically, these grasslands have been poorly understood and, consequently, undervalued.[10] Policymakers wrongly view them as ‘seasonally dry tropical forests’ or ‘degraded forests’,[11] or even ‘wastelands’. Such lack of understanding dates back to the British era, when the colonists’ policy treated grassy ecosystems as unproductive land with no economic value, classifying them as wastelands; forest and agricultural lands, meanwhile, were classified as productive lands because of the revenue they generated.[12] Consequently, communities that depended on these lands—nomadic pastoralists, artisans, and agro-pastoralists—became irrelevant in development policies.[13] Between 1880 and 2010, India lost some 20 million hectares (mha) (or 49.4 million acres) of grassland and shrub land, and 26 mha (64.2 million acres) of forests. The rate of loss was highest after the ‘green revolution’ of the 1960s that sought to ‘industrialise’ agriculture.[14] Absent a sound management plan for the development of pasture land and protection of existing grasslands, India lost 31 percent, or 5.65 mha (13.9 million acres) of grassland area in only the decade from 2005 to 2015. The total area under grasslands reduced to 12.3 mha (30.3 million acres) from 18 mha (44.4 million acres) between 2005 and 2015. The country also lost around 19 percent of its common lands[c] during the same period. The area under common lands decreased to 73.02 mha (180 million acres) from around 90.5 mha (223.5 million acres) between 2005 and 2015.[15] The declining common lands including grasslands have serious livelihoods implications for the large rural economy. For example, India has more than 500 million livestock and more than 50 percent of the fodder for this livestock comes from grasslands.[16] This brief aims to contribute to the existing global discussion on the importance of grasslands as highly productive, unique ecosystem supporting critical ecosystem services. It studies the case of the Amrit Mahal Kavals[d] in Challakere Taluk of Chitradurga District in Karnataka, where the livelihoods of local communities are deeply interlinked with the grasslands in the region. Like in other arid regions, Challakere, too, depends heavily on livestock-rearing to tide their families over long periods of drought and unpredictable rainfall. Considering the grassland area as ‘degraded’ land, the state government of Karnataka between 2009-2010 diverted nearly 10,000 acres of Challakere grassland (protected for centuries as Amrit Mahal Kavals) to construct what it calls a ‘Science City’—or a hub of military, scientific and commercial establishments. The land conversion is causing the destruction of not only the local socio-cultural institutions built on the principles of sustainability, resilience and integration, but also the ecosystem itself.[17] The ease with which these grasslands were converted to other uses, was made possible partly because of a crucial gap in the forestry policy of India. Current legislation does not accord any protection to savanna grasslands. Indeed, a report by the task force set up by the Planning Commission on Grasslands and Deserts (2006) noted that grasslands were the most neglected ecosystems by the Ministry of Environment and Forests.[18] More than a decade later, the Draft National Forest Policy 2018, while focusing on increasing forest and tree cover, still continues to undervalue the country’s grasslands.[19] Grasslands are integrated human-nature systems with interdependencies between the social and ecological components. This brief presents an appropriate framework to describe human-nature interactions in order to determine the drivers of change, causes of specific outcomes, and responses that can minimise the impact of change for sustaining grasslands. Taking the case of the Challakere grasslands, the brief illustrates the application of a Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework in structuring and organising relevant indicators needed for making decisions on the state of the system and the impact of the decisions made in the past or to be made in the future.[20] The aim is to help policymakers identify options for managing and protecting grasslands in India. Tropical Grassy Ecosystems, Ecosystem Services, and Management Challenges Tropical grasslands and savannas cover approximately 20 percent of the global land surface in the tropics.[21] Grasslands often lie between forests and deserts.[22] Many factors, including the physical and chemical properties of soil, the frequency of fires, water availability, and livestock grazing and browsing animals are some of the important determinants of grassland distributions and dynamics.[23] The amount and seasonality of rainfall are key determinants of the distribution and structure of grassy ecosystems.[24] Grasslands (including all forage systems used by grazing livestock) occupy large areas of the world’s 117 million sq.km of vegetated lands[25] or 52.54 million sq.km (40.5 percent) of global land area [26] and 69 percent of the world’s agricultural land area.[27] The ecosystem provides forage for over 1,800 million livestock units and wildlife populations, and also supports more than 800 million people, globally by producing food, fibre, fuel and medicines.[28] In addition to contributing to the production of goods and services that have direct economic value, grasslands also provide important non-physical services. Tropical and sub-tropical grasslands store approximately 15 percent of the world’s carbon on land, account for an estimated 30 percent of total global terrestrial net primary productivity, and have a significant role in global carbon and energy cycles.[29] Indeed, grasslands perform multiple roles in producing food and rehabilitating crop lands, in environmental management and cultural heritage.[30] Table 1 provides a detailed description of distinct ecosystem services provided by grasslands. Table 1: Ecosystem Services from Grasslands Source: Zhao et al (2020)[31]; Bengtsson et al (2019)[32] Grasslands also affect ecological processes at landscape (e.g., pollination), regional (e.g., water regulation, recreation), and global scales (e.g., climate regulation). There are misconceptions about the origins and ecology of these systems.[33] They have been neglected, misclassified and misunderstood, as a result.[34] Ironically, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) schemes that seek to reduce CO2 and protect biodiversity are extensively applied to grassy ecosystems. The CDM focuses on afforestation and reforestation, whereas REDD+ aims to prevent degradation and reduction in the extent of tropical forests. In response to both these programmes and following the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) vegetation classification system to define forests,[35] afforestation of grasslands has been put forward as a legitimate climate mitigation strategy.[36] These activities, however, continue to promote tree plantations in ecologically inappropriate sites and conditions. Considered either as a degraded form of forest created due to tree clearing, burning and grazing, or a subclimax or secondary successional stage—grassy ecosystems have been misclassified, causing them immense human-induced irreversible destruction. The disturbances are compounded by a policy focus on trees, rather than ground layer composition and function. A glaring example of human activity and institutional structures destroying tropical grassy ecosystems is the Brazilian cerrado—the second richest botanical savannah region on earth, which has been reduced to dysfunctional fragments over time.[37] In India, grasslands are the least protected ecosystems. Less than 1 percent of grasslands in the country lie in the protected area network. To secure legal protection, these areas have to be notified as Protected Areas under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 or notified as Protected or Reserve Forest under the Indian Forest Act,1927. As grasslands have spontaneous natural vegetative growth like forestland, their conversion must be restricted under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980.[38] However, there has been little effort on the part of the government to protect grasslands against conversions. The vast tracts of grasslands of Challakere, despite being declared as District Forests per Rule 33 of the Karnataka Forest Rules, 1969[39] have systematically been diverted for developmental projects. This has led to the degradation of this common grazing pasture and grassland ecosystem. Challakere Grasslands: History and Value The Challakere grasslands protected as Amrit Mahal Kavals are semi-arid grasslands in the Challakere Taluk of Chitradurga district in the Indian state of Karnataka (see Map 1).[40] Amrit Mahal Kavals are distributed across six districts and 62 places of Chikkamagaluru, Chitradurga, Hassan, Tumkur, Mandya and Davanagere of the state.[41] Kavals are common grazing pastures and grassland ecosystems that form a critical support system and habitat for the sustenance of livelihoods of agrarian and pastoral communities; they are also sites of rich biodiversity.[42] These kavals were originally set aside several centuries ago, during the Vijayanagara empire, and protected as grazing pastures for a strong, fast breed of indigenous cattle called Amrit Mahal that could tolerate harsh dry conditions and was once a military draft animal.[43],[44] This makes the Kaval area perhaps the only largest grassland in the world that is dedicated to the protection of a species of cattle.[45] The kaval grasslands have long provided ecological and livelihoods services to the local communities of this region. Apart from cattle and goats, sheep-rearing and allied activities of shearing, spinning and weaving woolen blankets and baskets from palm fronds are mainstays of the local economy. Because of dry conditions, groundnuts and millets are commonly grown which not only form a basis of an edible oil industry, but millets are also the staple diet of local communities. Over 250,000 people from about 70 villages who live around the Kaval sustain their livelihoods from these commons. The villagers collect fruits, greens, water, medicinal plants and firewood that are important for their food, nutritional and health security. The grasslands are also an integral part of local culture. People consider grasslands as sacred spaces and celebrate them through various festivals.[46] The Kavals form watersheds of irrigation tanks that capture surface water flow, and are also a source for groundwater recharge. Map 1: Challakere in Chitradurga District, Karnataka Source: http://164.100.238.9/images/hyr.jpg The Conversion of Challakere Amrit Mahal Kaval Post-Independence At the time of Independence, the state of Karnataka had about 400,000 acres of Amrit Mahal Kavals. After 1947, these kavals have been systematically diverted to different urban and industrial projects in addition to expansion of agriculture. Today only 60,000 acres of kaval land remain,[47] managed by the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science Departments of the state. Around 14,500 acres of protected grassland area, which also harbour vast biodiversity, were preserved over centuries for the Amrit Mahal cattle in Challakere in Chitradurga district. During 2007-2009, some 9,394 acres of this protected area were appropriated by the Union government and the state government of Karnataka for the ‘science city’ project, and another 21,976 acres were allotted to various institutions.[48] What remains now is a mere 30,000 acres of fragmented parcels across several districts of Karnataka. The following were the allocations of the kaval land: Defence Research Development Organisation/ Aeronautical Development Establishment (promoting a weaponised drone testing and manufacturing facility) – Land allocated: 4,290 acres Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (promoting a special materials and nuclear enrichment facility, for both civilian and defence purposes). A nuclear fuel enrichment and re-processing plant linked to India’s nuclear weapons and nuclear submarine project – Land Allocated: 1,810 acres Indian Institute of Science (promoting a Synchrotron and Advanced Aerospace Research Centre). Now used for a solar energy research centre and teacher training unit – Land Allocated: 1,500 acres Indian Space Research Organisation (setting up a centre for Spacecraft Technologies) – Land Allocated: 573 acres Karnataka Small Scale Industries Development Corporation (promoting various ancillary industrial units) – Land Allocated: 300 acres Sagitaur Ventures India Pvt. Ltd. (promoting a solar park along with Grid Connected 25MW solar PV power project) – Land Allocated: 1,250 acres. The appropriation did not involve any government body or even village panchayats whose consent is essential under the Panchyat Raj Act and revenue laws.[49] Moreover, issues concerning compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement were ignored. From common grazing lands to degraded parcels of grassland, this large-scale conversion of the Challakere grasslands was set mainly on the ground that these grasslands are unproductive wastelands which can have value with new plantations and construction of facilities of national importance. The plans ignored not only the ecological significance and constraints of a grassland ecosystem, but also the potential impacts of such activities. Indeed, over the years, the diversion of the grasslands has undermined the capacity of the ecosystem to deliver ecosystem services. After all, grasslands represent an integrated human-nature system where people live, work, and interact. Therefore, the management of such systems requires an understanding of the dynamics of an integrated human-nature system with reciprocal feedbacks and interdependencies. This lends such systems to analyses based on systems theory and complex systems science.[50] Frameworks that can explain and organise human-nature interactions are needed in order to determine the drivers of change, causes of specific outcomes, and responses that can minimise the impact of change.[51] In this context, a DPSIR framework can be considered as a way of structuring complex environmental problems by incorporating cause-and-effect relationships. The framework has proven to be vital in building a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between the state of the ecosystem and the drivers of threats leading to that state. It provides an organised method for analysing the causes, consequences, and responses to changes in the system. DPSIR: A Decision Support System for the Management of Grassland Ecosystems The nature of interactions between humans and their immediate environment is complex. This brief adopts a straightforward approach to organise and link the broad elements of the degradation of Challakere grassland in a Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) model. DPSIR is a systems-thinking approach that assumes a cause-and-effect relationship between interacting components of an integrated human-nature system.[52] The DPSIR framework presents a causal chain of the driving forces originating from the underlying needs of society, economy and development, which exert increasing pressure on the environment. This in turn results in environmental changes that have cascading impacts on human well-being and the ecosystem. These undesired impacts generate responses to reduce or contain the pressures and improve the condition of the changing environment. The framework has been adopted by several international organisations, such as US Environmental Protection Agency, UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and the European Union for structuring environmental information and developing interaction indicators. It brings together and summarises information in a standard, logical, and hierarchical way.[53] Advancement to the DPSIR framework has come from the ecosystem-based model of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which includes the ecosystem processes and functions along with ecosystem services supported by such processes and their impact on human well-being. Figure 1 offers an overview of an extended DPSIR framework that can be used to study the cause-and-effect relationship of disturbances to the ecosystem and their impact on the ecosystem itself and human well-being. Figure 1: An Extended DPSIR Framework for Studying the Cause-and-Effect Relationship of Disturbances to Grassland Ecosystem Note: Modified by the author Source: Zhao[54] The application of DPSIR illustrated here can contribute to the understanding of relationships between state and driver factors that can then facilitate the generation of indicators relevant for managing grassland ecosystems. The definitions in the framework’s information category are sufficiently general and subject to interpretation for them to be utilised in other contexts. A View of the Degradation of Challakere Using a DPSIR Framework The framework used in the present context of the Challakere grassland is presented in Figure 2. It is extended to include the connection between ecosystem services and human well-being, the recognition of which is crucial to the conservation of the ecosystem and sustenance of human life. The ecosystem services provided by grasslands are scale-dependent since the structure and function of grassland ecosystems, as well as human demands for ecosystem services, vary with spatial and temporal scales.[55] The impact of climate change on grassland modification is not considered, and the analysis is confined to local ecosystem scale. Figure 2: The DPSIR Framework in the Context of the Degradation of Challakere Grassland Source: Author’s own Adopting such a framework makes explanations more concrete and describes conceptual relationships that can be estimated. It is acknowledged that the actual relationship between two categories may be non-monotonic and indirect. Nevertheless, a description like this can serve as a basis for identifying relevant variables and models at a scale appropriate to the context of the study. The DPSIR categories are explained taking Challakere grassland as a case in point. The challenge is to understand better the multifunctionality of grasslands in order to enhance their conservation value in India. a. Driver category This category focuses on human activities that give rise to threats (pressure) on natural systems. Drivers can be categorised into “immediate drivers” (those proximate to Pressures) and “underlying drivers” that influence the level and nature of immediate threats. The underlying driver can be thought of as the “least protected ecosystem” status of grasslands in India. Immediate driver is identified as the search for location by the government of India to construct an establishment of national importance. b. Pressure category Pressures (or threats) connect drivers to environmental state. Ecological threats to grasslands can be defined as either proximate or ultimate. Ultimate threats are the vulnerability of grasslands to state change, the perception of grasslands as “wastelands or degraded forest land”, while proximate threats include climate change, land-use change, and invasive species that influence ecosystem structure and functioning. In the context of the Challakere grassland, pressures are defined by land-use change because of the unilateral decision of the Government of India to divert 9,394 acres of grassland area for the ‘science city’ project. The greatest threat to grasslands is the perception of grasslands as degraded landscapes or wastelands that require human intervention to acquire value. Such narratives and perceptions that lack scientific evidence, affect the way land-use and management decisions concerning this ecosystem are made. [56] c. State category This covers indicators against which the condition of the ecosystem that has undergone change in structure and functionality can be assessed. The information created under this category indicates the status at a given point in time, which refers both to the effects on the ecosystem and to stock of available resources. The diversion of the Challakere grassland has pushed the system toward critical thresholds. The grassland has been built over, replaced with plantations, or invaded by invasive species.[57] The adverse impacts of diversion of the Kavals have also affected highly threatened fauna. The populations of Black Bucks, the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard, and the Lesser Florican, for whom such grazed commons were a perfect habitat, have now nearly disappeared from the region. d. Impact category Impacts include both ecosystem and human well-being effects. The proposed projects are highly sensitive and hazardous, disrupting the watershed and the associated groundwater recharge and destroying the wildlife habitat and the self-sustained rural economic life of the region. Agriculture has declined as much of the area’s water has been diverted for the Science City. The development of a solar park has destroyed hundreds of check dams[e] built inside the grasslands by the village assemblies, resulting in the drying up of the lake in the area.[58] Polluting industries are widespread, such as stone crushers that provide construction material to the projects. Some of the groundwater sources are beginning to show contamination of toxic arsenic and fluorides.[59] With the establishment of military-nuclear-science-industrial complex, local communities have been denied physical access to commons by enclosing the grasslands with a 100-km-long security wall reinforced with barbed-wire fences. Locals are forced to migrate to cities in search of viable livelihoods as farming and related activities have become unfeasible with the deterioration of the commons.[60] With the destruction of the grassland, the population of Deccani sheep, whose wool is used to make blankets, for example, has also reduced drastically. This has deprived local artisans income-generating opportunity. e. Response category This includes the initiatives intended to reduce and mitigate at least one impact or contain the threats caused by the driving forces. The response may also be built around creating awareness about the social and ecological significance of grassy ecosystems and the need to sustainably protect this ecosystem. Challenged by civil society groups in the National Green Tribunal (South Zone), the initial response in 2013 was in the form of a stay order on the projects on grounds that the proposed projects have violated environmental and social justice norms. Later, in August 2014, the stay was lifted and the projects were accorded conditional clearance by the Ministry of Environment and Forests to proceed only after securing necessary environmental clearances. To be sure, the discussions on the diversion of kavals in the National Green Tribunal has helped draw attention to the extensive degradation of grassland ecosystem, and the recognition of the loss of traditional rights of access to kavals. In reality, however, the consequences of the diversion have been devastating for farming, pastoral and artisanal communities. The application of DPSIR presented here is a linear representation of complex real-world problems. Nevertheless, the strength of the DPSIR model is that it makes it easier to visualise and explain the interactions between changes in the biophysical environment and human systems. It is only when such interactions are captured, presented and explained, can a well-informed response be sought. Finally, the framework sets a basis for studying each component of the framework as a sub-system or a complete system with complex interlinkages. An exercise like this would then be closer to the processes on the ground. Policy Recommendations Globally, the fragmentation and degradation of grasslands is threatening progress towards multiple goals. These include the Biodiversity Targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) of 2020 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, specifically SDG 15 (protecting, restoring and promoting sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems) and SDG 13 (climate change mitigation). Arresting grassland degradation is also central to the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030) that stresses on the importance of adopting restoration strategies for degraded ecosystems.[61] The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification considers grassland degradation to be broadly associated with two underlying drivers: climate change and human activities.[62] The conversion of grasslands to other uses such as farmlands, built infrastructure, and forestry, contributes significantly to their degradation not only in India but in many other parts of the world. Moreover, the lack of a national policy on grassland management also hampers grassland conservation in India, along with poor land use planning, invasive species, and inadequate coverage of grassland habitats under a protected area network. At present, management practices outside protected areas are designed to supply fodder, with a focus on livestock.[63] India has the highest livestock population in the world with high levels of dependence on grassy ecosystems. Yet, despite this visible dependence, the country does not have a comprehensive policy on management and conservation of this ecosystem. Grasslands in India have been historically undervalued in national policies, and continue to be considered as unproductive wastelands, making them vulnerable to land conversion.[64] These fragmented and human-dominated landscapes which are also home to endangered and endemic wildlife require management approaches that can incorporate multiple human uses of natural resources along with wildlife conservation. [65] This brief offers the following recommendations for developing an effective management plan for grassland conservation in India. Acknowledge and value the benefits provided by grasslands to humans on a par with other ecosystems such as forests. These benefits are in the form of ecosystem services such as food production, water supply and regulation, carbon storage and climate mitigation, soil erosion control, and a variety of cultural services. Efforts are required in integrating ecosystem and biodiversity value in national and local planning and change perceptions of grasslands as waste spaces. Misplaced narratives that have led to this perception need to be replaced with science-based evidence that conveys the complexity of grassy ecosystems. Classify grassy ecosystems as a major land use type alongside forestlands and wetlands. This is important given their high ecological and conservation value. Review and update current laws and policies on conservation of grassy ecosystems in India to provide them adequate legal protection. Take periodic stock of the extent, condition, and the capacity of grasslands to provide goods and services in the future.[66] Depending on the context of investigation, natural and socioeconomic factors can both lead to degradation by driving loss in biodiversity, ecosystem functions or services. Similarly, degradation can be defined both in terms of ecological and socioeconomic indicators wherein tradeoffs among combinations of ecosystem services may be prioritised. A social-ecological perspective of degradation can be adopted, following which degradation can be assessed in terms of the gap between supply and demand in ecosystem services. Formulate standardised indicators of grassland condition to facilitate effective decision-making on strategies related to conservation, restoration and sustainable use of grasslands. The indicators must consider the local environmental conditions, global and local drivers of change, and their social and ecological impacts, as well as broad management and restoration objectives and the cost-effectiveness of such strategies. Create mechanisms for the sharing of scientific knowledge underpinning grassland management within different biogeographic regions of the country and across different parts of the world. This can help advance the ecological understanding of grasslands and place discussions around grassy ecosystems on national and global platforms. Devise a National Grassland Development and Grazing Policy that will complement the grassland management efforts focused on sustainable use of grasslands and biodiversity conservation. Create institutional capacity which is multidisciplinary in its approach in order to understand the threat dynamics in grassy ecosystems, and subsequently direct management responses towards improving the resilience of these ecosystems against the impacts of threats. Conclusion Grasslands have significant ecological value, including acting as a carbon sink which is imperative for climate action. However, there is inadequate operational ecological knowledge for decision-making concerning grasslands,[67] partly because they are diverse and difficult to define since apart from grasses, other forms of plant life contribute to their species richness and diversity.[68] This brief has shown how a succession of policymakers have adopted a simplified view of grassland conservation—one that considers only the tree layer and leaving out grassy ground layer from any conservation efforts and policy discourses. These systems therefore continue to be lost to human settlements, agriculture, excessive grazing by livestock, altered fire regimes, and even large-scale conversions for development purposes. Conceptual frameworks are needed to capture, organise, visualise, explain and draw attention to the complex links between humans and nature, and in particular, as they apply to grassy ecosystems. The DPSIR framework suggested in this brief is one such conceptual framework that can explain the ecological significance of grasslands, and how intricately they are tied to human lives and local economies. The development at Challakere in Karnataka, studied in this brief, reinforces the forestry-centric bias that has existed since the colonial era: protect forests for the timber they provide, and neglect grasslands that have no productive or economic value. Most traditional institutions ensuring sustainable management of grasslands in the past have since broken down. Legal protection must be accorded to grassy ecosystems, which from hereon must be included in sustainable development strategies. This in turn requires a systems perspective that will arrest the degradation of grasslands. Preeti Kapuria is Fellow at ORF, Kolkata. Endnotes [a] A biome is a large area characterised by its vegetation, soil, climate, and wildlife. There are five major types of biomes: aquatic, grassland, forest, desert, and tundra. [b] ‘Disturbance regimes’ refers to disturbance frequency, severity, size, or timing that can trigger rapid reorganisation into new ecosystem states. [c] ‘Common land’ is land subjected to rights enjoyed by a person or collectively by a number of persons, to take or use part of a piece of land or produce of a piece of land which is owned by someone else. [d] Kavals are the common lands that for centuries have been collectively protected and used by traditional norms and have sustained livelihoods of the people in the region. The habitat supports a variety of highly threatened and critically endangered species of flora and fauna that are endemic to arid scrub and grassland ecosystems. [e] A check dam is a small, sometimes temporary, dam constructed across a drainage ditch, swale, or channel to lower the velocity of flow. Reduced runoff velocity reduces erosion and gullying in the channel and allows sediments to settle out. A check dam may be built from stone, sandbags filled with pea gravel, or logs. [1] Following World Resources Institute (WRI), definitions for grasslands vary. Some studies have classified grasslands only on the basis of vegetation while others characterise them by climate, soils, and human use of the ecosystem. However, in the literature certain limits and descriptions have been used to distinguish between forest, grassland and different structural savanna types. Accordingly, forest represent complete tree canopy cover and three or more overlapping vegetation strata; woodlands: 50-100 percent tree canopy cover, and a graminaceous layer; savannas: 10-15 percent cover by woody plants and well developed grass; grasslands: less than 10 percent tree cover. The grassland major habitat types (MHTs) can be divided into six categories: tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands; temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands; flooded grasslands and savannas; montane grasslands and shrublands; Mediterranean shrublands; and tundra. [2] Yuanyuan Zhao et al., “ Grassland Ecosystem Services: A Systematic Review of Research Advances and Future Directions,” Landscape Ecology 35(2020):793-814 [3] FAO, Are Grasslands Under Threat? Brief Analysis of FAO Statistical Data on Pasture and Fodder Crops , 2015, http://www.fao.org/uploads/media/grass_stats_1.pdf [4] Claire Wolters, “Grassland Threats, Explained,” National Geographic, August 22, 2019, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/grassland-threats/ [5] Catherine L. Parr et al., “Tropical Grassy Biomes: Misunderstood, Neglected, and Under Threat,” Trends in Ecology & Evolution 29, no. 4 (2014), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2014.02.004 [6] James A. Foley, “Tropical Grassland Ecosystems are Mismanaged and Threatened, Study Says,” NatureWorld News, March 15, 2014, https://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/6361/20140315/tropical-grassland-ecosystems-are-mismanaged-and-threatened-study-says.htm [7] J Bengtsson et al., “Grasslands-More Important for Ecosystem Services than you Might Think,” Ecosphere 10(2) (2019): e02582. 10.1002/ecs2.2582 [8] J Bengtsson et al., “Grasslands-More Important for Ecosystem Services than you Might Think” [9] G.S. 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Vasavi, “ The ‘Non-Science’ of Grabbing Grasslands and Promoting a Futuristic ‘Science City’,” Boom, March 9, 2016, https://www.boomlive.in/the-non-science-of-grabbing-grasslands-and-promoting-a-futuristic-science-city/ [18] “Report of the Task Force on Grasslands and Deserts” [19] IANS, “India is Paying a Price for Losing its Grasslands (Environment Feature),” Business Standard, April 20, 2018, https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/india-is-paying-a-price-for-losing-its-grasslands-environment-feature-118042000258_1.html [20] Peter Kristensen, “The DPSIR Framework” https://wwz.ifremer.fr/dce/content/download/69291/913220/…/DPSIR.pdf [21] Parr et al., “Tropical Grassy Biomes: Misunderstood, Neglected, and Under Threat” [22] Christina Nunez, “Grasslands, Explained,” National Geographic, March 15, 2019, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/grasslands/ [23] Dhritiman Das et al., “The Influence of Abiotic and Spatial Variables on Woody and Herbaceous Species Abundances in a Woodland-Grassland System in the Eastern Terai of India,” Journal of Plant Ecology, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1093/jpe/rtab080 [24] Parr et al., “Tropical Grassy Biomes: Misunderstood, Neglected, and Under Threat” [25] D.R. 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Using Remote Sensing and GIS Technologies,” Journal of Geography, Environment and Earth Science International 24(7): 56-71 (2020) [42] “Forfeiting Our Commons: A Case for Protecting and Conserving Challakere’s Amrit Mahal Kavals as Livelihoods-Supporting, Biodiversity-Rich and Ecologically-Sensitive Grassland Ecosystems” [43] Mrunmayee and D.V. Girish, “Precious Amrit Mahal Kavals are not Wastelands,” Conservation India, May 25, 2021, https://www.conservationindia.org/articles/precious-amrit-mahal-kavals-are-not-wastelands [44] Anjali Vaidya, “A Science City Rises as an Ecosystem Disappears,” TheWire, October 6, 2016, https://thewire.in/environment/challakere-science-city-kaval [45]Ashwatha, “A Geographical Analysis of Challakere Amrit Mahal Kaval Grasslands. Using Remote Sensing and GIS Technologies” [46] “Forfeiting Our Commons: A Case for Protecting and Conserving Challakere’s Amrit Mahal Kavals as Livelihoods-Supporting, Biodiversity-Rich and Ecologically-Sensitive Grassland Ecosystems” [47] Ashwatha, “A Geographical Analysis of Challakere Amrit Mahal Kaval Grasslands. Using Remote Sensing and GIS Technologies” [48] “Forfeiting Our Commons: A Case for Protecting and Conserving Challakere’s Amrit Mahal Kavals as Livelihoods-Supporting, Biodiversity-Rich and Ecologically-Sensitive Grassland Ecosystems” [49] Leo F. Saldanha and Bhargavi S. Rao, Notes for the India Workshop of Governance of Socio-Technical Transformation Project (GoST), Bengaluru, Environment Support Group, 2020, https://drive.google.com/file/d/13Vha7Ak2mfmCI2ee_VSbSXNUnSq33g8l/view [50] Preeti Kapuria, “Lessons from COVID-19: Promoting Sustainability in Food Production to Limit Zoonotic Transmissions,” ORF Issue Brief No. 452, March 2021, Observer Research Foundation [51] Tracy Hruska et al., “Rangelands as Social–Ecological Systems,” in Rangeland Systems , ed. D.D. Briske (Springer Series on Environmental Management, 2017), 263-302. DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-46709-2_8 [52] Patricia Bradley and Susan Yee, Using the DPSIR Framework to Develop a Conceptual Model: Technical Support Document, Washington, DC US Environmental Protection Agency, 2015, https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_report.cfm?Lab=NHEERL&dirEntryId=311236 [53] Joana Patrício et al., “DPSIR—Two Decades of Trying to Develop a Unifying Framework for Marine Environmental Management?,” Front. Mar. Sci. 3:177 (2016). [54] Zhao et al., “ Grassland Ecosystem Services: A Systematic Review of Research Advances and Future Directions” [55] Zhao et al., “ Grassland Ecosystem Services: A Systematic Review of Research Advances and Future Directions” [56] David L Hoover et al., “Traversing the Wasteland: A Framework for Assessing Ecological Threats to Drylands,” BioScience 70. No.1(2020), https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biz126 [57] Vaidya, “A Science City Rises as an Ecosystem Disappears” [58]Elizabeth Mani, “Diversion of Amrit Mahal Kaval Grasslands in Karnataka Affects Cattle, Pollutes Groundwater,” Land Conflict Watch, September 9, 2021, https://www.landconflictwatch.org/conflicts/diversion-of-amrit-mahal-kaval-grasslands-in-karnataka-affects-cattle-pollutes-groundwater [59] Madhumathi D.S, “A Battle Royal Over Grassland,” The Hindu, May 27, 2017, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/a-battle-royal-over-grassland/article18586662.ece [60] “Notes for the India Workshop of Governance of Socio-Technical Transformation Project (GoST)” [61] Bardgett et al., “Combatting Global Grassland Degradation” [62] Chengcheng Gang et al., “Quantitative Assessment of the Contributions of Climate Change and Human Activities on Global Grassland Degradation,” Environ Earth Sci 72:4273–4282 (2014), DOI 10.1007/s12665-014-3322-6 [63] “Ecology and Management of Grassland Habitats in India” [64] Bardgett et al., “Combatting Global Grassland Degradation” [65] “ Ecology and Management of Grassland Habitats in India” [66] Robin White, Siobhan Murray and Mark Rohweder, Grassland Ecosystems, Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems, World Resources Institute, 2000. [67] Zhao et al., “ Grassland Ecosystem Services: A Systematic Review of Research Advances and Future Directions” [68] John Blair, Jesse Nippert, and John Briggs, Grassland Ecology.

• Solid Waste Management and Circular Economy

Waste mgmt: Wrong data find place in NITI Aayog report

Thiruvananthapuram: While it was a matter of pride for the city being featured by NITI Aayog among the 28 cities across the country for best waste management practices, erroneous figures and findings in the report may have spoiled the party for the city corporation. In the report titled ‘Waste wise cities-Best practices in solid waste management’ a joint initiative of NITI Aayog and centre for science and environment Thiruvananthapuram was chosen along with two other cities under the area ‘Innovative models’. The report hails Thiruvananthapuram as an example of how a decentralized model of waste management could minimize the cost burden for urban local bodies. It gives special thrust on the economic sustainability and cost efficiency of the model. The economic success of this model is substantiated by presenting revenue figures from the sale of compost and biogas and refuse derived fuel (RDF) along with various other sources like user fee, penalties, chicken waste disposal fee and sale of recyclables. But, nowhere in the corporation could records be seen about sale of compost, biogas or refuse derived fuel. As per the NITI Aayog’s report, the corporation grosses nearly Rs 10 lakh per month from combined sale of compost, biogas and RDF. How does the corporation earn monthly from a sale that never happened is a question that puzzles even the officials. The monthly collection from penalty is pegged at Rs 1 lakh, which again is way below what actually the corporation earns from levying penalties. It further says that the corporation’s total expenditure in solid waste management per month is Rs 38 lakh, which is used for scientific disposal of inerts, rejects and making of RDF. The corporation is yet to roll out a scheme for making RDF in the city. Even regarding the expenditure, the figures do not match with the reality. Corporation spends around Rs 58.64 lakh per month to pay 388 temporary staff appointed to take care of composting units and material recovery facilities, while the report pegs the total expenditure at below Rs 40 lakh per month. The report mentions creation of Sanmathi park by converting a dump yard but does not indicate that the civic body handed over 2 lakh kilos of non-recyclable, non-reusable legacy waste to Clean Kerala Company from three dump yards at Putharikandom, Erumakuzhy and Attakulangara, spending Rs 24.32 lakh. As per the status report prepared by the city corporation in 2019, there is a large gap between total dry waste being generated and actual saleable quantity. For instance, the city generates 18.07 tonnes of plastic waste per day. However, the saleable quantity is just 10.84 tonnes. The document carries a disclaimer “While care has been taken in the analysis of the data that was collected from the respective city corporations, NITI Aayog and CSE do not guarantee or warrant the accuracy, reliability or completeness of the information in this document”. NITI Aayog special secretary K Rajeswara Rao, however, states in the document differently that “In the process of developing this document, a series of consultations were held with selected ULBs, think-tanks, academia, private players, NGOs/CSOs, etc. In addition, the research teams also visited these 28 cities to capture granular details by witnessing on-ground operations”.

• Solid Waste Management and Circular Economy

Bengaluru Shows The Way In Managing Waste Using ICT Solutions

Bengaluru has emerged as a leader in managing waste using ICT solutions, according to a report of a country-wide study and survey jointly conducted by NITI Aayog and Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Besides Bengaluru, Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh and Leh (Ladakh) have found a mention in the report for their solar-powered waste management systems, while Delhi and Gurugram have been upheld for their management of construction and demolition waste.

• Solid Waste Management and Circular Economy

NITI Aayog and CSE release Waste-wise Cities: Best practices in municipal solid waste management

The report, titled ”Waste-Wise Cities: Best Practices in Municipal Solid Waste Management”, documents best practices from 28 cities in 15 states of India. Waste-wise Cities: Best practices in municipal solid waste management – a comprehensive knowledge repository of how Indian cities are managing their solid waste – was released on 6th December by NITI Aayog vice-chairperson Rajiv Kumar, CEO Amitabh Kant and special secretary K Rajeswara Rao, along with Sunita Narain, director general, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). India's solid waste management sector has witnessed unparalleled growth in last few years. The Swachh Bharat Mission Phase 2 is launched to further strengthen the efforts for a clean India. The report, titled "Waste-Wise Cities: Best Practices in Municipal Solid Waste Management", documents best practices from 28 cities in 15 states of India. The new report is the result of a country-wide study and survey jointly conducted by NITI Aayog and CSE. The repository is the result of five months of extensive on-ground collective research that was initiated in July 2021. The entire gamut of municipal solid waste management has been seen from a cross-section of 10 different aspects that explains a sustainable value chain. These thematic aspects range from source segregation, material recovery and technological innovations to the management of different kinds of wastes and systems such as biodegradables, plastics, e-waste, C&D waste and landfills. Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Vice-Chairperson, NITI Aayog said "Looking at the future of Indian development where urbanisation is going to be the key and cities will be the driving force of economic growth, implementing efficient waste management systems in cities is extremely important. He further emphasised "Jan Andolan for Swachhta is very essential, where everybody is involved and understands importance of source segregation and overall waste management operations. He further added, "With extensive mass communication for behavioural change, every city can and must aspire to become Indore. It is also important that these best practices are referred and adapted by tier 2 and tier 3 cities." He also highlighted that "Frontier technologies have to be used in for converting waste to highest form of energy." He added, " The key to achieving zero waste cities is to strengthen governance capabilities specially in the municipalities and other ULBs." Shri Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, Efficient management of solid waste will be India's key challenge in its rapid urbanisation story. He stressed on the need to promote source segregation and circularity in waste management as business practices along with necessary rules and regulations. He further added that cities need to become the agent of change in this sector for smooth transition to a circular economy. Dr. K. Rajeswara Rao, Special Secretary, NITI Aayog said that the book is a knowledge repository compiling success stories of 28 cities across the country that achieved remarkable progress in various areas of waste management. He emphasised that urban local bodies across the country should have access to knowledge resources that present strategies for different components of the waste management service chain. He highlighted the key learning from the best practices including, behaviour change communication, source segregation of waste, innovative models of circular economy, advance data management and technology like GIS tracking of waste transportation vehicles etc. Sunita Narain, who directed the research along with Rajeswara Rao, said: "The Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) 2.0, launched on September 1, 2021, is now based on a clear strategy for solid waste management in cities – a strategy that focuses source segregation, material reprocessing, and zero-landfills. This change needs to be recognised and disseminated so that waste does not add to contamination and become a public health menace. Waste should become a resource to be reworked, reused, and upcycled. The compendium is a resource for developing cities to get new ideas, learn about the strategies, institutional arrangements, technologies and implementation modalities that have made things possible for some of the cities to emerge as stand-out performers.These cities could well be a learning laboratory through exposure visit and the evidences needs to be showcased at appropriate forum and scale to reach the masses. NITI Aayog and CSE will jointly host workshops to disseminate the learning with cities across the nation.

• Sustainable Mobility

Half of Delhi pollution caused by vehicles! Here are three ways to clean the city’s mobility system

As per a 2018 study by ARAI and TERI, motor vehicles are the primary source of pollutants within Delhi and contribute to about 40 percent of PM 2.5 emissions — one of the key reasons for the city’s toxic air As the Air Quality Index (AQI) in the National Capital improves from ‘severe’ to ‘very poor’ on the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), so does the issue of ambient air quality in Delhi. That’s because the conversation around air pollution in Delhi starts with the onset of winter, coincides with Diwali and stubble burning, and ends around the start of the New Year with the change in weather and stubble burning. However, the question is: Is Delhi’s air pollution only a three-month issue? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Let’s take a look at some data to get some perspective on Delhi's air quality — the National Capital had its first ‘good air’ day of 2021 in October, thanks to a heavy downpour. In 2016 and 2018, Delhi has not seen even a single ‘good air’ day. In 2017 and 2019, only two such days were reported. Last year, when the country was under lockdown with limited economic activities, even then, Delhi experienced only five ‘good air’ days. Therefore, air pollution is a year-round problem in Delhi that gets noticed only in winters. We keep talking about Delhi’s air quality, but air pollution is not restricted to the capital alone. As per the monitoring network IQAir, nine of the world’s ten most polluted cities in 2020 were in India. Similarly, a report by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC) found that all of India's 1.3 billion residents face annual average pollution levels that exceed guidelines as set by the World Health OrganiSation (WHO). The study also estimated that around 52 crore Indians have reduced life expectancy due to air pollution. Therefore, air pollution is a major public health issue in the country, impacting over 40 percent of our population. Why can we not clean something as basic as the air we breathe? One may argue that there is a lack of awareness around air pollution in the country which could be the reason. But, what is stopping Delhi, which is often in national and international news due to its air quality, from cleaning its air? To understand this, we first need to focus on what pollutes Delhi’s air. There are many reasons for air pollution, but one of the key reasons for Delhi’s toxic air is PM 2.5 — an ultra-fine particulate matter size of 2.5 micrometers. To understand in simple terms, PM 2.5 is 40 times smaller than human hair. Due to their small size, they can travel deep into our bodies and infiltrate our lungs and even our bloodstream, causing severe diseases like lung cancer. The levels of PM2.5 are considered “good” when they are below 50 and “satisfactory” when the level is below 100. Currently, in Delhi, the levels are almost 400. So, what are the sources of PM2.5 emissions? In the case of Delhi, there are two kinds of sources — internal and external. Internal sources are the emissions that happen within the city such as transport, waste burning, etc. While, external emissions are those happening outside Delhi, like the stubble burning in the neighbouring states. The proportion of internal to external sources keeps on changing, but is seen maximum during the Diwali and stubble burning phase. However, the biggest challenge to Delhi’s air quality is the emission from the transport sector. A 2018 study by ARAI and TERI estimated that motor vehicles are the primary source of pollutants within Delhi and contribute to about 40 percent of PM 2.5 emissions. Interestingly, a recent study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) estimated that motor vehicles accounted for more than 50 percent of pollutants emitted from within Delhi during the early phase of winter this year, i.e. from 24 October to 8 November. The other important elements are stubble burning or smoke from firecrackers during Diwali. However, motor vehicle emissions happen all around the year, making it the most crucial and continuous source of pollution in the city. Therefore, to clean Delhi's air, the focus should be on cleaning its transportation system. Delhi can achieve this by following three-pronged strategies: Avoid The first and foremost strategy is solving the problem’s source, which means avoiding the need to travel long distances using motorised transport. This can be done by integrating land use and transportation. For example, Dwarka in Delhi was planned as a sub-city to house one million people. Today, most of the Dwarka residents either travel to Gurugram or go to central Delhi for work. So, the easiest way to solve the issue would have been a mixed-use development instead of focusing predominantly on single-use residential development. Therefore, an integrated transport system could have given a different look to the sub-city. Shift Shifting the focus and priorities towards sustainable modes of transport is another important aspect of reducing vehicular emissions. Delhi has the highest area under roads compared to other metros in the country. It also has a maximum number of automobiles in the country. Historically, the city has mostly focused on solving congestion by widening roads and building flyovers/underpasses, but neither the congestion has reduced nor the travel speed has improved. However, what has gone up is the transport emission. Therefore, it is not rocket science to understand that more roads mean more vehicles, and more vehicles mean more emissions of toxic gases. So, instead of building more roads, Delhi should focus on creating streets that promote safe walking and cycling and double the existing bus fleet. Improve Improving the quality of fuel and vehicles is also an important strategy in reducing the emission for this sector. In the past, Delhi did try reducing emissions by transitioning public transport and paratransit vehicles fuel to CNG. However, the benefits from this transition were quickly offset by the significant increase in private vehicles. Therefore, switching to zero-emission vehicles like electric vehicles (EV) will be an important move towards reducing tailpipe emissions in Delhi. Reforming the parking management system along with creating low emission zones will further increase the uptake of electric vehicles in Delhi. The current state government in Delhi is taking some innovative and progressive steps to transform the city’s transportation system. The Delhi EV Policy and the proposal to re-develop 540 kilometre on urban roads in Delhi are important steps in this direction. However, what is needed is a great pace and faster implementation of these strategies. In addition, the surrounding cities of Delhi such ass Noida, Gurugram and Ghaziabad also need to take some similar initiatives to create the desired impact.

• Solid Waste Management and Circular Economy

NITI Aayog CSE and release ‘Waste-wise cities’ – compendium of best practices in municipal solid waste management

New Delhi : Waste-wise Cities: Best practices in municipal solid waste management – a comprehensive knowledge repository of how Indian cities are managing their solid waste – was released on 6th December by NITI Aayog vice chairperson Rajiv Kumar, CEO Amitabh Kant and special secretary K Rajeswara Rao, along with Sunita Narain, director general, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). India’s solid waste management sector has witnessed unparalleled growth in last few years. The Swachh Bharat Mission Phase 2 is launched to further strengthen the efforts for a clean India. The report, titled ”Waste-Wise Cities: Best Practices in Municipal Solid Waste Management”, documents best practices from 28 cities in 15 states of India. The new report is the result of a country-wide study and survey jointly conducted by NITI Aayog and CSE. The repository is the result of five months of extensive on-ground collective research that was initiated in July 2021. The entire gamut of municipal solid waste management has been seen from a cross-section of 10 different aspects that explains a sustainable value chain. These thematic aspects range from source segregation, material recovery and technological innovations to the management of different kinds of wastes and systems such as biodegradables, plastics, e-waste, C&D waste and landfills. Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Vice-Chairperson, NITI Aayog said “Looking at the future of Indian development where urbanisation is going to be the key and cities will be the driving force of economic growth, implementing efficient waste management systems in cities is extremely important. He further emphasised “Jan Andolan for Swachhta is very essential, where everybody is involved and understands importance of source segregation and overall waste management operations. He further added, “With extensive mass communication for behavioural change, every city can and must aspire to become Indore. It is also important that these best practices are referred and adapted by tier 2 and tier 3 cities.” He also highlighted that “Frontier technologies have to be used in for converting waste to highest form of energy.” He added, “ The key to achieving zero waste cities is to strengthen governance capabilities specially in the municipalities and other ULBs.” Shri Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, Efficient management of solid waste will be India’s key challenge in its rapid urbanisation story. He stressed on the need to promote source segregation and circularity in waste management as business practices along with necessary rules and regulations. He further added that cities need to become the agent of change in this sector for smooth transition to a circular economy. Dr. K. Rajeswara Rao, Special Secretary, NITI Aayog said that the book is a knowledge repository compiling success stories of 28 cities across the country that achieved remarkable progress in various areas of waste management. He emphasised that urban local bodies across the country should have access to knowledge resources that present strategies for different components of the waste management service chain. He highlighted the key learning from the best practices including, behaviour change communication, source segregation of waste, innovative models of circular economy, advance data management and technology like GIS tracking of waste transportation vehicles etc. Sunita Narain, who directed the research along with Rajeswara Rao, said: “The Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) 2.0, launched on September 1, 2021, is now based on a clear strategy for solid waste management in cities – a strategy that focuses source segregation, material reprocessing, and zero-landfills. This change needs to be recognised and disseminated so that waste does not add to contamination and become a public health menace. Waste should become a resource to be reworked, reused, and up cycled. The compendium is a resource for developing cities to get new ideas, learn about the strategies, institutional arrangements, technologies and implementation modalities that have made things possible for some of the cities to emerge as stand-out performers. These cities could well be a learning laboratory through exposure visit and the evidences needs to be showcased at appropriate forum and scale to reach the masses. NITI Aayog and CSE will jointly host workshops to disseminate the learning with cities across the nation.

• Solid Waste Management and Circular Economy

Waste-wise cities: వేస్ట్ మేనేజ్‌మెంట్‌లో దేశంలోని 28 నగరాలు బెస్ట్.. జాబితాలో ఏపీలోని మూడు నగరాలు..

భారత్‌లోని నగరాల్లో మున్సిపల్ సాలిడ్ వేస్ట్ మేనేజ్‌మెంట్ (municipal solid waste management) ఉత్తమ విధానాలు, ఘన వ్యర్థాలను ఎలా నిర్వహిస్తున్నాయనే దానిపై నీతి ఆయోగ్ (NITI Aayog), సెంటర్ ఫర్ సైన్స్ అండ్ ఎన్విరాన్‌మెంట్ (CSE) సంయుక్తంగా సమగ్ర రిపోర్ట్‌ను రూపొందించాయి. ఈ రిపోర్ట్‌ను నీతి ఆయోగ్ వైఎస్ చైర్ పర్సన్ రాజకీయ కుమార్, సీఈవో అమితాబ్ కాంత్, ప్రత్యేక కార్యదర్శి కె రాజేశ్వరరావు, సీఎస్‌ఈ డైరెక్టర్ జనరల్ సునీతా నరైన్ (Sunita Narain) డిసెంబర్ 6వ తేదీన విడుదల చేశారు. భారతదేశ ఘన వ్యర్థ పదార్థాల నిర్వహణ రంగం గత కొన్ని సంవత్సరాలలో అసమానమైన వృద్ధిని సాధించిందని నివేదికలో పేర్కొన్నారు. భారత్‌ను మరింతగా శుభ్రత వైపుగా నడిపించేందుకు స్వచ్ఛ భారత్ మిషన్ రెండోవ దశ ప్రారంభించబడిందన్నారు. “వేస్ట్-వైజ్ సిటీస్: బెస్ట్ ప్రాక్టీసెస్ ఇన్ మున్సిపల్ సాలిడ్ వేస్ట్ మేనేజ్‌మెంట్” పేరుతో రూపొందించబడిన నివేదిక.. భారత దేశంలోని 15 రాష్ట్రాల్లోని 28 నగరాలు ఉత్తమ పద్ధతులను అనుసరిస్తున్నట్టుగా గుర్తించింది. నీతి ఆయోగ్, CSE సంయుక్తంగా దేశవ్యాప్తంగా అధ్యయనం చేసి ఈ నివేదికను రూపొందించాయి. ఇందుకోసం జూలై 2021 నుంచి ఐదు నెలల పాటు విస్తృతంగా క్షేత్ర స్థాయిలో పలు అంశాలను పరిశీలించారు. మున్సిపల్ ఘన వ్యర్థాల నిర్వహణకు సంబంధించి సస్టైనబుల్ వాల్యూ చైన్‌ను వివరించే 10 విభిన్న అంశాలను పరిగణలోకి తీసుకున్నారు. వ్యర్థ పదార్థాల నిర్వహణలో అత్యుత్తమ విధానాలు అనుసరిస్తున్న 28 నగరాల విషయానికి వస్తే.. లడఖ్‌లోని లేహ్, కేరళలోని అలప్పుజా, మధ్యప్రదేశ్‌లోని ఇండోర్, ఒడిశాలోని దెంకనల్, సిక్కింలోని గ్యాంగ్‌టక్, గుజరాత్‌లోని సూరత్.. నగరాలు ఉన్నాయి. అయితే ఈ జాబితాలో ఆంధ్రప్రదేశ్‌లోని మూడు నగరాలు కూడా నిలిచాయి. బయోడిగ్రేడబుల్ వేస్ట్ మేనేజ్‌మెంట్‌‌ విభాగంలో విజయనగరం జిల్లాలోని బొబ్బలి (Bobbili), టెక్నాలాజికల్ ఇన్నోవేషన్ విభాగంలో తూర్పు గోదావరి జిల్లాలోని కాకినాడ (Kakinada), కృష్ణా జిల్లాలోని విజయవాడ‌లకు (Vijaywada) చోటుదక్కింది. ఈ సందర్బంగా డాక్టర్ రాజీవ్ కుమార్ (Dr Rajiv Kumar) మాట్లాడుతూ.. ‘భారత అభివృద్ధి భవిష్యత్తును పరిశీలిస్తే.. పట్టణీకరణ కీలకం కాబోతోంది. నగరాలు ఆర్థిక వృద్ధికి చోదక శక్తిగా మారతాయి. నగరాల్లో సమర్థవంతమైన వ్యర్థ పదార్థాల నిర్వహణ వ్యవస్థలను అమలు చేయడం చాలా ముఖ్యం. స్వచ్ఛత కోసం జన్ ఆందోళన్ చాలా అవసరం. ఇందులో పాల్గొనే ప్రజలు.. వ్యర్థాల నిర్వహణ కార్యకలాపాలకు సంబంధించిన ప్రాముఖ్యతను అర్థం చేసుకుంటారు. వ్యర్థాలను అత్యున్నత శక్తిగా మార్చడానికి సాంకేతిక పరిజ్ఞానాన్ని ఉపయోగించాలి’ అని అన్నారు. అమితాబ్ కాంత్ (Amitabh Kant) మాట్లాడుతూ.. ‘ఘన వ్యర్థాల సమర్ధవంతమైన నిర్వహణ.. వేగవంతమైన పట్టణీకరణ సాధిస్తున్న భారతదేశానికి ప్రధాన సవాలుగా ఉంటుంది. వ్యర్థాల నిర్వహణలో మూలాల విభజనను ప్రోత్సహించడంతో పాటు అవసరమైన నియమాలు, నిబంధనలతో పాటు సర్క్యులారిటీ ఆవశ్యకత అవసరం ఉంటుంది’ అని చెప్పారు. డాక్టర్‌ కె. రాజేశ్వరరావు (K Rajeswara Rao) మాట్లాడుతూ.. ‘దేశంలోని 28 నగరాల వ్యర్థాల నిర్వహణలో విశేషమైన పురోగతిని సాధించిన విజయగాథలను సంకలనం చేస్తూ ఈ పుస్తకం తీసుకొచ్చినట్టు చెప్పారు. ఇందులో చాలా విలువైన విషయాలు ఉన్నారు. దేశంలోని పట్టణ, స్థానిక సంస్థలు వ్యర్థ పదార్థాల నిర్వహణ సేవా గొలుసులోని వివిధ భాగాలకు సంబంధించిన వ్యూహాలను ప్రదర్శించే విజ్ఞాన వనరులకు ప్రాప్యత కలిగి ఉండాలి’ అని చెప్పారు. సునీతా నరైన్ మాట్లాడుతూ.. ‘సెప్టెంబర్ 1, 2021న ప్రారంభించబడిన స్వచ్ఛ్ భారత్ మిషన్ (SBM) 2.0.. ఇప్పుడు నగరాల్లో ఘన వ్యర్థ పదార్థాల నిర్వహణ కోసం ఒక స్పష్టమైన వ్యూహంపై ఆధారపడి ఉంది. ఇది మూలాన్ని కేంద్రీకరించే వ్యూహం. ఇందులో విభజన, మెటీరియల్ రీప్రాసెసింగ్ జీరో-ల్యాండ్‌ఫిల్‌లు ఉంటాయి. ఈ మార్పును గుర్తించి.. వ్యర్థాలు కలుషితం కాకుండా, ప్రజారోగ్యానికి ముప్పుగా మారకుండా ప్రచారం చేయాలి. వ్యర్థాలు తిరిగి వినియోగించుకునేలా, రీసైకిల్ చేయడానికి ఒక వనరుగా మారాలి’ అని తెలిపారు. ఇక, రాజేశ్వరరావుతో కలిసి సునీతా నరైన్ ఈ పరిశోధనను పర్యవేక్సించారు.

• Solid Waste Management and Circular Economy

Waste mgmt: Wrong data find place in NITI Aayog report

While it was a matter of pride for Thiruvananthapuram being featured by NITI Aay .. Thiruvananthapuram: While it was a matter of pride for the city being featured b .. Read more at: https://health.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/waste-mgmt-wrong-data-find-place-in-niti-aayog-report/88135321

• Solid Waste Management and Circular Economy

Niti Aayog and CSE release Waste-wise cities – a compendium of best practices in municipal solid waste management

The entire gamut of municipal solid waste management has been seen from a cross-section of 10 different aspects that explains a sustainable value chain. Niti Aayog and the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) today released “Waste-wise Cities: Best practices in municipal solid waste management,” a comprehensive knowledge repository of how Indian cities are managing their solid waste. India’s solid waste management sector has witnessed unparalleled growth in the last few years. The Swachh Bharat Mission Phase 2 is launched to further strengthen the efforts for a clean India. The report documents best practices from 28 cities in 15 states of India. The report is the result of a country-wide study and survey jointly conducted by the Aayog and CSE. The repository is the result of five months of extensive on-ground collective research that was initiated in July 2021. The entire gamut of municipal solid waste management has been seen from a cross-section of 10 different aspects that explains a sustainable value chain. The thematic aspects range from source segregation, material recovery, and technological innovations to the management of different kinds of wastes and systems such as biodegradables, plastics, e-waste, C&D waste, and landfills. Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar said, “Looking at the future of Indian development where urbanisation is going to be the key and cities will be the driving force of economic growth, implementing efficient waste management systems in cities is extremely important.” He emphasised “Jan Andolan for Swachhta is very essential, where everybody is involved and understands the importance of source segregation and overall waste management operations. He said with extensive mass communication for behavioural change, every city can and must aspire to become Indore. It is also important that these best practices are referred to and adapted by tier 2 and tier 3 cities. He highlighted that “Frontier technologies have to be used in for converting waste to the highest form of energy,” and added, “the key to achieving zero waste cities is to strengthen governance capabilities especially in the municipalities and other urban local bodies.” CSE Director General Sunita Narain said: “The Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) 2.0, launched on September 1, 2021, is now based on a clear strategy for solid waste management in cities – a strategy that focuses source segregation, material reprocessing, and zero-landfills.” “This change needs to be recognised and disseminated so that waste does not add to contamination and become a public health menace. Waste should become a resource to be reworked, reused, and upcycled,” she said.

• Solid Waste Management and Circular Economy

These 3 Indian cities have managed to solve the problem of landfills. Here’s how they did it

Garbage disposal sites have become a massive problem for most urban centres, but Ambikapur, Chandrapur and Taliparamba have adopted 'zero-landfill model', says NITI Aayog report. New Delhi: Three Indian cities, each located in a different state, have set a major benchmark for the rest of the country when it comes to ideal waste management practices, according to a new NITI Aayog report. At a time when garbage disposal sites have become a massive problem for most urban centres, Chhattisgarh’s Ambikapur, Maharashtra’s Chandrapur and Kerala’s Taliparamba have adopted a “zero-landfill model” of development, which seeks to phase out dependency on new landfills. This achievement has landed the three cities in a list of 28 with the best waste management practices, mentioned in the report released by NITI Aayog, in collaboration with the Centre for Science and Environment, Monday. The report was launched in the presence of NITI Aayog vice chairperson Dr Rajiv Kumar, CEO Amitabh Kant, special secretary Dr K Rajeswara Rao, and CSE director general Sunita Narain. “With rapid population growth in urban areas, capacities of local authorities often fall short of achieving the set goals of urban service delivery. Therefore, sector stakeholders must be equipped with adequate knowledge resources to plan efficient waste management systems,” said Kant at the launch. According to the report, a zero-landfill model “is based on resource recovery and principles of circular economy” that are socially, environmentally, and economically sound. It identifies a “zero-landfill city” as one that ensures maximum quantities of waste are subjected to scientific treatment and recycling, thus reducing the amount of residual solid waste and minimising the need to construct new landfills. VDO.AI “It is a holistic and multi-stakeholder approach that ensures that waste is segregated at the source itself, recyclables are extracted and channelized to the recycling industries for various gainful applications, and biodegradable waste is treated in a decentralised manner,” the report says. On Ambikapur, the report says that with the “intervention of the local administration and women self-help groups” and “inspired by the concept of the Garbage Clinic Model”, the city is now able to achieve 100 per cent segregation, collection and processing of waste. Titled ‘Waste-wise Cities: Best practices in municipal solid waste management’, the NITI Aayog report shortlists cities based on 10 parameters: source segregation, biodegradable waste management, material processing, plastic waste management, construction and demolition (C & D) waste management, sanitary waste management, landfill management, technological innovation and e-waste management. These aspects in particular were chosen because they are part of a “a sustainable value chain” and include practices that other cities can benefit from too. On source segregation, “a fundamental and non-negotiable condition for a sustainable waste management,” Allappuzha (Kerala), Indore (Madhya Pradesh) and Panaji (Goa) scored highest out of the 28 cities. The report calls Indore the “number one city in the waste management sector in India”, stating that it has “a robust communications strategy to bring about behavioural change at the mass level”. Its aim to motivate citizens to embrace segregation is backed up by “a robust monitoring system and enforcement through a series of by-laws”. Its success lies in a combination of “source segregation, participation of all stakeholders and good governance”, the report adds. When it comes to processing materials found in the waste, after it has been collected from the source, Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), Surat (Gujarat), Jamshedpur (Jharkhand) and Dhenkanal (Odisha) imbibed the best practices, according to the report. The cities to perform best in plastic waste management were Bicholim (Goa), Gangtok (Sikkim) and Kumbakonam (Tamil Nadu), while North Delhi (Delhi) and Gurugram (Haryana) performed best when dealing with C&D waste. Sanitary waste: ‘Breaking the taboo’ “Breaking the taboo” around sanitary waste, the city of Karad in Maharashtra has managed to achieve a “100 per cent collection rate” in this category. Sanitary waste management has been “the least explored and debated of all the streams of solid waste that is generated at the household level”, the report says. Explaining the modus operandi behind Karad’s success, the NITI Aayog report says that the city administration ensures that sanitary waste “is transported and processed separately in the local Common Biomedical Waste Treatment Facility (CBWTF)”. “All this was achieved through “minimal investment on infrastructure and higher accountability amongst citizens and city government through a combination of communication and enforcement strategy,” it adds. Pune too did well in this regard, with the administration currently “in the process of exploring a state-of-the-art technology to make value added products from their sanitary waste”. The cities of Bobbili (Andhra Pradesh), Mysuru (Karnataka) and Vengurla (Maharashtra) found mention for handling biodegradable waste. Zero waste plants in Mysuru, in particular, scripted its success. Using tech to solve the problem Leh (Ladakh) installed a 30 tonne solar waste segregation plant, earning its spot among the cities that use technology to solve waste management. Kakinada (Andhra Pradesh) and Bengaluru (Karnataka) also find place in the list for using ‘Radio Frequency Identification’ for garbage collection. Keonjhar (Odisha) and Vijaywada (Andhra Pradesh) are also among the cities to use tech in waste management, incorporating real time tracking systems, according to the report. On innovation and e-waste, the cities to perform best were Paradeep (Odisha), Panchgani (Maharashtra), Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) and Jamshedpur (Jharkhand).

• Down To Earth

Towards a Systems Approach to the Management of Grasslands in India

ntroduction Grasslands—or open regions dominated by grass and characterised by warm, dry climate—are one of the most widely distributed terrestrial biomes[a] globally.[1],[2] The proportion of the earth’s land area covered by grasslands varies between 20 and 40 percent.[3] Tropical and sub-tropical grassy ecosystems host a range of flora and fauna that have adapted to extreme weather conditions including droughts or wildfires. (For example, grasslands found in Africa, Australia, South America, and India, require seasonal droughts and wildfires to maintain biodiversity.)[4] As biodiversity hotspots, grassy ecosystems are home to a rich diversity of plant species, birds, and extant mammalian fauna.[5] They support vital ecosystem services such as water and climate regulation, forage for livestock production, biogeochemical cycling, and carbon storage, as well as cultural and recreational services. Tropical and sub-tropical grasslands store about 15 percent of the world’s carbon on land. Nearly 20 percent of the world’s population depends on tropical grasslands for their livelihoods. Being a source of fuel and food, grasslands are also prime grazing territory for many animals.[6] These grassy ecosystems, however, continue to remain under-appreciated in national and global policy discussions on Ecosystem Services.[7] Grasslands are highly degraded amidst manifold threats: excessive grazing by livestock; altered fire regimes; encroachment by invasive plant species; high rates of land clearance and increasing land-use intensity; encroachment by trees; and disruption of the disturbance regimes[b] that maintain ecosystem functions. Compounding their decline is lack of management and, often, complete abandonment.[8] In India, grassy ecosystems are spread across several biogeographic regions and occupy 24 percent of the overall geographical area.[9] Historically, these grasslands have been poorly understood and, consequently, undervalued.[10] Policymakers wrongly view them as ‘seasonally dry tropical forests’ or ‘degraded forests’,[11] or even ‘wastelands’. Such lack of understanding dates back to the British era, when the colonists’ policy treated grassy ecosystems as unproductive land with no economic value, classifying them as wastelands; forest and agricultural lands, meanwhile, were classified as productive lands because of the revenue they generated.[12] Consequently, communities that depended on these lands—nomadic pastoralists, artisans, and agro-pastoralists—became irrelevant in development policies.[13] Between 1880 and 2010, India lost some 20 million hectares (mha) (or 49.4 million acres) of grassland and shrub land, and 26 mha (64.2 million acres) of forests. The rate of loss was highest after the ‘green revolution’ of the 1960s that sought to ‘industrialise’ agriculture.[14] Absent a sound management plan for the development of pasture land and protection of existing grasslands, India lost 31 percent, or 5.65 mha (13.9 million acres) of grassland area in only the decade from 2005 to 2015. The total area under grasslands reduced to 12.3 mha (30.3 million acres) from 18 mha (44.4 million acres) between 2005 and 2015. The country also lost around 19 percent of its common lands[c] during the same period. The area under common lands decreased to 73.02 mha (180 million acres) from around 90.5 mha (223.5 million acres) between 2005 and 2015.[15] The declining common lands including grasslands have serious livelihoods implications for the large rural economy. For example, India has more than 500 million livestock and more than 50 percent of the fodder for this livestock comes from grasslands.[16] This brief aims to contribute to the existing global discussion on the importance of grasslands as highly productive, unique ecosystem supporting critical ecosystem services. It studies the case of the Amrit Mahal Kavals[d] in Challakere Taluk of Chitradurga District in Karnataka, where the livelihoods of local communities are deeply interlinked with the grasslands in the region. Like in other arid regions, Challakere, too, depends heavily on livestock-rearing to tide their families over long periods of drought and unpredictable rainfall. Considering the grassland area as ‘degraded’ land, the state government of Karnataka between 2009-2010 diverted nearly 10,000 acres of Challakere grassland (protected for centuries as Amrit Mahal Kavals) to construct what it calls a ‘Science City’—or a hub of military, scientific and commercial establishments. The land conversion is causing the destruction of not only the local socio-cultural institutions built on the principles of sustainability, resilience and integration, but also the ecosystem itself.[17] The ease with which these grasslands were converted to other uses, was made possible partly because of a crucial gap in the forestry policy of India. Current legislation does not accord any protection to savanna grasslands. Indeed, a report by the task force set up by the Planning Commission on Grasslands and Deserts (2006) noted that grasslands were the most neglected ecosystems by the Ministry of Environment and Forests.[18] More than a decade later, the Draft National Forest Policy 2018, while focusing on increasing forest and tree cover, still continues to undervalue the country’s grasslands.[19] Grasslands are integrated human-nature systems with interdependencies between the social and ecological components. This brief presents an appropriate framework to describe human-nature interactions in order to determine the drivers of change, causes of specific outcomes, and responses that can minimise the impact of change for sustaining grasslands. Taking the case of the Challakere grasslands, the brief illustrates the application of a Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework in structuring and organising relevant indicators needed for making decisions on the state of the system and the impact of the decisions made in the past or to be made in the future.[20] The aim is to help policymakers identify options for managing and protecting grasslands in India. Tropical Grassy Ecosystems, Ecosystem Services, and Management Challenges Tropical grasslands and savannas cover approximately 20 percent of the global land surface in the tropics.[21] Grasslands often lie between forests and deserts.[22] Many factors, including the physical and chemical properties of soil, the frequency of fires, water availability, and livestock grazing and browsing animals are some of the important determinants of grassland distributions and dynamics.[23] The amount and seasonality of rainfall are key determinants of the distribution and structure of grassy ecosystems.[24] Grasslands (including all forage systems used by grazing livestock) occupy large areas of the world’s 117 million sq.km of vegetated lands[25] or 52.54 million sq.km (40.5 percent) of global land area [26] and 69 percent of the world’s agricultural land area.[27] The ecosystem provides forage for over 1,800 million livestock units and wildlife populations, and also supports more than 800 million people, globally by producing food, fibre, fuel and medicines.[28] In addition to contributing to the production of goods and services that have direct economic value, grasslands also provide important non-physical services. Tropical and sub-tropical grasslands store approximately 15 percent of the world’s carbon on land, account for an estimated 30 percent of total global terrestrial net primary productivity, and have a significant role in global carbon and energy cycles.[29] Indeed, grasslands perform multiple roles in producing food and rehabilitating crop lands, in environmental management and cultural heritage.[30] Table 1 provides a detailed description of distinct ecosystem services provided by grasslands. Table 1: Ecosystem Services from Grasslands Source: Zhao et al (2020)[31]; Bengtsson et al (2019)[32] Grasslands also affect ecological processes at landscape (e.g., pollination), regional (e.g., water regulation, recreation), and global scales (e.g., climate regulation). There are misconceptions about the origins and ecology of these systems.[33] They have been neglected, misclassified and misunderstood, as a result.[34] Ironically, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) schemes that seek to reduce CO2 and protect biodiversity are extensively applied to grassy ecosystems. The CDM focuses on afforestation and reforestation, whereas REDD+ aims to prevent degradation and reduction in the extent of tropical forests. In response to both these programmes and following the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) vegetation classification system to define forests,[35] afforestation of grasslands has been put forward as a legitimate climate mitigation strategy.[36] These activities, however, continue to promote tree plantations in ecologically inappropriate sites and conditions. Considered either as a degraded form of forest created due to tree clearing, burning and grazing, or a subclimax or secondary successional stage—grassy ecosystems have been misclassified, causing them immense human-induced irreversible destruction. The disturbances are compounded by a policy focus on trees, rather than ground layer composition and function. A glaring example of human activity and institutional structures destroying tropical grassy ecosystems is the Brazilian cerrado—the second richest botanical savannah region on earth, which has been reduced to dysfunctional fragments over time.[37] In India, grasslands are the least protected ecosystems. Less than 1 percent of grasslands in the country lie in the protected area network. To secure legal protection, these areas have to be notified as Protected Areas under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 or notified as Protected or Reserve Forest under the Indian Forest Act,1927. As grasslands have spontaneous natural vegetative growth like forestland, their conversion must be restricted under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980.[38] However, there has been little effort on the part of the government to protect grasslands against conversions. The vast tracts of grasslands of Challakere, despite being declared as District Forests per Rule 33 of the Karnataka Forest Rules, 1969[39] have systematically been diverted for developmental projects. This has led to the degradation of this common grazing pasture and grassland ecosystem. Challakere Grasslands: History and Value The Challakere grasslands protected as Amrit Mahal Kavals are semi-arid grasslands in the Challakere Taluk of Chitradurga district in the Indian state of Karnataka (see Map 1).[40] Amrit Mahal Kavals are distributed across six districts and 62 places of Chikkamagaluru, Chitradurga, Hassan, Tumkur, Mandya and Davanagere of the state.[41] Kavals are common grazing pastures and grassland ecosystems that form a critical support system and habitat for the sustenance of livelihoods of agrarian and pastoral communities; they are also sites of rich biodiversity.[42] These kavals were originally set aside several centuries ago, during the Vijayanagara empire, and protected as grazing pastures for a strong, fast breed of indigenous cattle called Amrit Mahal that could tolerate harsh dry conditions and was once a military draft animal.[43],[44] This makes the Kaval area perhaps the only largest grassland in the world that is dedicated to the protection of a species of cattle.[45] The kaval grasslands have long provided ecological and livelihoods services to the local communities of this region. Apart from cattle and goats, sheep-rearing and allied activities of shearing, spinning and weaving woolen blankets and baskets from palm fronds are mainstays of the local economy. Because of dry conditions, groundnuts and millets are commonly grown which not only form a basis of an edible oil industry, but millets are also the staple diet of local communities. Over 250,000 people from about 70 villages who live around the Kaval sustain their livelihoods from these commons. The villagers collect fruits, greens, water, medicinal plants and firewood that are important for their food, nutritional and health security. The grasslands are also an integral part of local culture. People consider grasslands as sacred spaces and celebrate them through various festivals.[46] The Kavals form watersheds of irrigation tanks that capture surface water flow, and are also a source for groundwater recharge. Map 1: Challakere in Chitradurga District, Karnataka Source: http://164.100.238.9/images/hyr.jpg The Conversion of Challakere Amrit Mahal Kaval Post-Independence At the time of Independence, the state of Karnataka had about 400,000 acres of Amrit Mahal Kavals. After 1947, these kavals have been systematically diverted to different urban and industrial projects in addition to expansion of agriculture. Today only 60,000 acres of kaval land remain,[47] managed by the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science Departments of the state. Around 14,500 acres of protected grassland area, which also harbour vast biodiversity, were preserved over centuries for the Amrit Mahal cattle in Challakere in Chitradurga district. During 2007-2009, some 9,394 acres of this protected area were appropriated by the Union government and the state government of Karnataka for the ‘science city’ project, and another 21,976 acres were allotted to various institutions.[48] What remains now is a mere 30,000 acres of fragmented parcels across several districts of Karnataka. The following were the allocations of the kaval land: Defence Research Development Organisation/ Aeronautical Development Establishment (promoting a weaponised drone testing and manufacturing facility) – Land allocated: 4,290 acres Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (promoting a special materials and nuclear enrichment facility, for both civilian and defence purposes). A nuclear fuel enrichment and re-processing plant linked to India’s nuclear weapons and nuclear submarine project – Land Allocated: 1,810 acres Indian Institute of Science (promoting a Synchrotron and Advanced Aerospace Research Centre). Now used for a solar energy research centre and teacher training unit – Land Allocated: 1,500 acres Indian Space Research Organisation (setting up a centre for Spacecraft Technologies) – Land Allocated: 573 acres Karnataka Small Scale Industries Development Corporation (promoting various ancillary industrial units) – Land Allocated: 300 acres Sagitaur Ventures India Pvt. Ltd. (promoting a solar park along with Grid Connected 25MW solar PV power project) – Land Allocated: 1,250 acres. The appropriation did not involve any government body or even village panchayats whose consent is essential under the Panchyat Raj Act and revenue laws.[49] Moreover, issues concerning compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement were ignored. From common grazing lands to degraded parcels of grassland, this large-scale conversion of the Challakere grasslands was set mainly on the ground that these grasslands are unproductive wastelands which can have value with new plantations and construction of facilities of national importance. The plans ignored not only the ecological significance and constraints of a grassland ecosystem, but also the potential impacts of such activities. Indeed, over the years, the diversion of the grasslands has undermined the capacity of the ecosystem to deliver ecosystem services. After all, grasslands represent an integrated human-nature system where people live, work, and interact. Therefore, the management of such systems requires an understanding of the dynamics of an integrated human-nature system with reciprocal feedbacks and interdependencies. This lends such systems to analyses based on systems theory and complex systems science.[50] Frameworks that can explain and organise human-nature interactions are needed in order to determine the drivers of change, causes of specific outcomes, and responses that can minimise the impact of change.[51] In this context, a DPSIR framework can be considered as a way of structuring complex environmental problems by incorporating cause-and-effect relationships. The framework has proven to be vital in building a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between the state of the ecosystem and the drivers of threats leading to that state. It provides an organised method for analysing the causes, consequences, and responses to changes in the system. DPSIR: A Decision Support System for the Management of Grassland Ecosystems The nature of interactions between humans and their immediate environment is complex. This brief adopts a straightforward approach to organise and link the broad elements of the degradation of Challakere grassland in a Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) model. DPSIR is a systems-thinking approach that assumes a cause-and-effect relationship between interacting components of an integrated human-nature system.[52] The DPSIR framework presents a causal chain of the driving forces originating from the underlying needs of society, economy and development, which exert increasing pressure on the environment. This in turn results in environmental changes that have cascading impacts on human well-being and the ecosystem. These undesired impacts generate responses to reduce or contain the pressures and improve the condition of the changing environment. The framework has been adopted by several international organisations, such as US Environmental Protection Agency, UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and the European Union for structuring environmental information and developing interaction indicators. It brings together and summarises information in a standard, logical, and hierarchical way.[53] Advancement to the DPSIR framework has come from the ecosystem-based model of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which includes the ecosystem processes and functions along with ecosystem services supported by such processes and their impact on human well-being. Figure 1 offers an overview of an extended DPSIR framework that can be used to study the cause-and-effect relationship of disturbances to the ecosystem and their impact on the ecosystem itself and human well-being. Figure 1: An Extended DPSIR Framework for Studying the Cause-and-Effect Relationship of Disturbances to Grassland Ecosystem Note: Modified by the author Source: Zhao[54] The application of DPSIR illustrated here can contribute to the understanding of relationships between state and driver factors that can then facilitate the generation of indicators relevant for managing grassland ecosystems. The definitions in the framework’s information category are sufficiently general and subject to interpretation for them to be utilised in other contexts. A View of the Degradation of Challakere Using a DPSIR Framework The framework used in the present context of the Challakere grassland is presented in Figure 2. It is extended to include the connection between ecosystem services and human well-being, the recognition of which is crucial to the conservation of the ecosystem and sustenance of human life. The ecosystem services provided by grasslands are scale-dependent since the structure and function of grassland ecosystems, as well as human demands for ecosystem services, vary with spatial and temporal scales.[55] The impact of climate change on grassland modification is not considered, and the analysis is confined to local ecosystem scale. Figure 2: The DPSIR Framework in the Context of the Degradation of Challakere Grassland Source: Author’s own Adopting such a framework makes explanations more concrete and describes conceptual relationships that can be estimated. It is acknowledged that the actual relationship between two categories may be non-monotonic and indirect. Nevertheless, a description like this can serve as a basis for identifying relevant variables and models at a scale appropriate to the context of the study. The DPSIR categories are explained taking Challakere grassland as a case in point. The challenge is to understand better the multifunctionality of grasslands in order to enhance their conservation value in India. a. Driver category This category focuses on human activities that give rise to threats (pressure) on natural systems. Drivers can be categorised into “immediate drivers” (those proximate to Pressures) and “underlying drivers” that influence the level and nature of immediate threats. The underlying driver can be thought of as the “least protected ecosystem” status of grasslands in India. Immediate driver is identified as the search for location by the government of India to construct an establishment of national importance. b. Pressure category Pressures (or threats) connect drivers to environmental state. Ecological threats to grasslands can be defined as either proximate or ultimate. Ultimate threats are the vulnerability of grasslands to state change, the perception of grasslands as “wastelands or degraded forest land”, while proximate threats include climate change, land-use change, and invasive species that influence ecosystem structure and functioning. In the context of the Challakere grassland, pressures are defined by land-use change because of the unilateral decision of the Government of India to divert 9,394 acres of grassland area for the ‘science city’ project. The greatest threat to grasslands is the perception of grasslands as degraded landscapes or wastelands that require human intervention to acquire value. Such narratives and perceptions that lack scientific evidence, affect the way land-use and management decisions concerning this ecosystem are made. [56] c. State category This covers indicators against which the condition of the ecosystem that has undergone change in structure and functionality can be assessed. The information created under this category indicates the status at a given point in time, which refers both to the effects on the ecosystem and to stock of available resources. The diversion of the Challakere grassland has pushed the system toward critical thresholds. The grassland has been built over, replaced with plantations, or invaded by invasive species.[57] The adverse impacts of diversion of the Kavals have also affected highly threatened fauna. The populations of Black Bucks, the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard, and the Lesser Florican, for whom such grazed commons were a perfect habitat, have now nearly disappeared from the region. d. Impact category Impacts include both ecosystem and human well-being effects. The proposed projects are highly sensitive and hazardous, disrupting the watershed and the associated groundwater recharge and destroying the wildlife habitat and the self-sustained rural economic life of the region. Agriculture has declined as much of the area’s water has been diverted for the Science City. The development of a solar park has destroyed hundreds of check dams[e] built inside the grasslands by the village assemblies, resulting in the drying up of the lake in the area.[58] Polluting industries are widespread, such as stone crushers that provide construction material to the projects. Some of the groundwater sources are beginning to show contamination of toxic arsenic and fluorides.[59] With the establishment of military-nuclear-science-industrial complex, local communities have been denied physical access to commons by enclosing the grasslands with a 100-km-long security wall reinforced with barbed-wire fences. Locals are forced to migrate to cities in search of viable livelihoods as farming and related activities have become unfeasible with the deterioration of the commons.[60] With the destruction of the grassland, the population of Deccani sheep, whose wool is used to make blankets, for example, has also reduced drastically. This has deprived local artisans income-generating opportunity. e. Response category This includes the initiatives intended to reduce and mitigate at least one impact or contain the threats caused by the driving forces. The response may also be built around creating awareness about the social and ecological significance of grassy ecosystems and the need to sustainably protect this ecosystem. Challenged by civil society groups in the National Green Tribunal (South Zone), the initial response in 2013 was in the form of a stay order on the projects on grounds that the proposed projects have violated environmental and social justice norms. Later, in August 2014, the stay was lifted and the projects were accorded conditional clearance by the Ministry of Environment and Forests to proceed only after securing necessary environmental clearances. To be sure, the discussions on the diversion of kavals in the National Green Tribunal has helped draw attention to the extensive degradation of grassland ecosystem, and the recognition of the loss of traditional rights of access to kavals. In reality, however, the consequences of the diversion have been devastating for farming, pastoral and artisanal communities. The application of DPSIR presented here is a linear representation of complex real-world problems. Nevertheless, the strength of the DPSIR model is that it makes it easier to visualise and explain the interactions between changes in the biophysical environment and human systems. It is only when such interactions are captured, presented and explained, can a well-informed response be sought. Finally, the framework sets a basis for studying each component of the framework as a sub-system or a complete system with complex interlinkages. An exercise like this would then be closer to the processes on the ground. Policy Recommendations Globally, the fragmentation and degradation of grasslands is threatening progress towards multiple goals. These include the Biodiversity Targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) of 2020 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, specifically SDG 15 (protecting, restoring and promoting sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems) and SDG 13 (climate change mitigation). Arresting grassland degradation is also central to the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030) that stresses on the importance of adopting restoration strategies for degraded ecosystems.[61] The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification considers grassland degradation to be broadly associated with two underlying drivers: climate change and human activities.[62] The conversion of grasslands to other uses such as farmlands, built infrastructure, and forestry, contributes significantly to their degradation not only in India but in many other parts of the world. Moreover, the lack of a national policy on grassland management also hampers grassland conservation in India, along with poor land use planning, invasive species, and inadequate coverage of grassland habitats under a protected area network. At present, management practices outside protected areas are designed to supply fodder, with a focus on livestock.[63] India has the highest livestock population in the world with high levels of dependence on grassy ecosystems. Yet, despite this visible dependence, the country does not have a comprehensive policy on management and conservation of this ecosystem. Grasslands in India have been historically undervalued in national policies, and continue to be considered as unproductive wastelands, making them vulnerable to land conversion.[64] These fragmented and human-dominated landscapes which are also home to endangered and endemic wildlife require management approaches that can incorporate multiple human uses of natural resources along with wildlife conservation. [65] This brief offers the following recommendations for developing an effective management plan for grassland conservation in India. Acknowledge and value the benefits provided by grasslands to humans on a par with other ecosystems such as forests. These benefits are in the form of ecosystem services such as food production, water supply and regulation, carbon storage and climate mitigation, soil erosion control, and a variety of cultural services. Efforts are required in integrating ecosystem and biodiversity value in national and local planning and change perceptions of grasslands as waste spaces. Misplaced narratives that have led to this perception need to be replaced with science-based evidence that conveys the complexity of grassy ecosystems. Classify grassy ecosystems as a major land use type alongside forestlands and wetlands. This is important given their high ecological and conservation value. Review and update current laws and policies on conservation of grassy ecosystems in India to provide them adequate legal protection. Take periodic stock of the extent, condition, and the capacity of grasslands to provide goods and services in the future.[66] Depending on the context of investigation, natural and socioeconomic factors can both lead to degradation by driving loss in biodiversity, ecosystem functions or services. Similarly, degradation can be defined both in terms of ecological and socioeconomic indicators wherein tradeoffs among combinations of ecosystem services may be prioritised. A social-ecological perspective of degradation can be adopted, following which degradation can be assessed in terms of the gap between supply and demand in ecosystem services. Formulate standardised indicators of grassland condition to facilitate effective decision-making on strategies related to conservation, restoration and sustainable use of grasslands. The indicators must consider the local environmental conditions, global and local drivers of change, and their social and ecological impacts, as well as broad management and restoration objectives and the cost-effectiveness of such strategies. Create mechanisms for the sharing of scientific knowledge underpinning grassland management within different biogeographic regions of the country and across different parts of the world. This can help advance the ecological understanding of grasslands and place discussions around grassy ecosystems on national and global platforms. Devise a National Grassland Development and Grazing Policy that will complement the grassland management efforts focused on sustainable use of grasslands and biodiversity conservation. Create institutional capacity which is multidisciplinary in its approach in order to understand the threat dynamics in grassy ecosystems, and subsequently direct management responses towards improving the resilience of these ecosystems against the impacts of threats. Conclusion Grasslands have significant ecological value, including acting as a carbon sink which is imperative for climate action. However, there is inadequate operational ecological knowledge for decision-making concerning grasslands,[67] partly because they are diverse and difficult to define since apart from grasses, other forms of plant life contribute to their species richness and diversity.[68] This brief has shown how a succession of policymakers have adopted a simplified view of grassland conservation—one that considers only the tree layer and leaving out grassy ground layer from any conservation efforts and policy discourses. These systems therefore continue to be lost to human settlements, agriculture, excessive grazing by livestock, altered fire regimes, and even large-scale conversions for development purposes. Conceptual frameworks are needed to capture, organise, visualise, explain and draw attention to the complex links between humans and nature, and in particular, as they apply to grassy ecosystems. The DPSIR framework suggested in this brief is one such conceptual framework that can explain the ecological significance of grasslands, and how intricately they are tied to human lives and local economies. The development at Challakere in Karnataka, studied in this brief, reinforces the forestry-centric bias that has existed since the colonial era: protect forests for the timber they provide, and neglect grasslands that have no productive or economic value. Most traditional institutions ensuring sustainable management of grasslands in the past have since broken down. Legal protection must be accorded to grassy ecosystems, which from hereon must be included in sustainable development strategies. This in turn requires a systems perspective that will arrest the degradation of grasslands. [15] Kiran Pandey, “India Lost 31% of Grasslands in A Decade,” Down To Earth, September 10, 2019, https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/agriculture/india-lost-31-of-grasslands-in-a-decade-66643

• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

Ecostani | In NCR’s bleak winter, the SC must rise to fight bad air

Delhi’s environment minister, Gopal Rai, quoted a Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) study claiming that 60% of Delhi’s air pollution comes from outside the Capita Sources of air pollution aside, the Capital’s bad air is a reflection of an overall governance failure. People in the NCR are looking to the SC for some relief On December 2, Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana suggested that the Supreme Court (SC) appoint an administrator for Delhi to handle the national Capital’s toxic air. He directed his exasperation at the political class, which has shown little interest to take “harsh” decisions to ensure better air for residents.