Bad
News
The
sight
of
a
lake
in
Bengaluru
on
fire,
with
a
massive
plume
of
smoke
that
could
be
seen
from
afar,
is
a
warning
sign
that
urban
environments
are
crashing
under
the
weight
of
official
indifference.
If
wetlands
are
the
kidneys
of
the
cities,
as
scientists
like
to
describe
them,
Karnataka’s
capital
city
has
entered
a
phase
of
chronic
failure.
No
longer
the
city
of
lakes
and
famed
gardens,
it
has
lost
an
estimated
0.79
of
water
bodies
and
0.8
of
its
tree
cover
from
the
baseline
year
of
1973
Successive
governments
in
the
State
have
ignored
the
rampant
encroachment
of
lake
beds
and
catchment
areas
for
commercial
exploitation,
and
the
pollution
caused
by
sewage,
industrial
effluents
and
garbage,
which
contributed
to
the
blaze
on
Bellandur
lake.
The
neglect
is
deliberate,
since
some
of
the
finest
urban
ecologists
in
the
city
have
been
warning
that
government
inaction
is
turning
Bengaluru
into
an
unliveable
mess.
It
is
time
the
State
government
took
note
of
the
several
expert
recommendations
that
have
been
made,
including
those
of
the
Centre
for
Ecological
Sciences
of
the
Indian
Institute
of
Science.
The
priority,
clearly,
is
to
end
pollution
outfalls
into
the
water
bodies,
which
will
help
revive
them
to
an
acceptable
state
of
health.
Identifying
all
surviving
wetlands
and
demarcating
them
using
digital
and
physical
mapping
will
help
communities
monitor
encroachments,
while
removal
of
land-grabbers
and
restoration
of
interconnecting
channels
is
crucial
to
avoid
future
flooding
events.
Loss
of
natural
wetlands
is
an
ongoing
catastrophe
in
India.
A
decade
ago,
when
the
Salim
Ali
Centre
for
Ornithology
and
Natural
History
released
a
conservation
atlas
for
all
States
using
space
applications,
it
reported
the
tragic
fact
that
0.38
of
wetlands
had
already
been
lost
nationally;
and
shockingly,
in
some
districts
only
0.12
survived.
The
Centre
has
since
issued
rules
for
conservation
and
management,
and
chosen
115
water
bodies
in
24
States
for
protection
support,
but
this
is
obviously
too
little.
Moreover,
research
studies
show
that
the
concentration
of
heavy
metals
in
such
sites
is
leading
to
bioaccumulation,
thus
entering
the
plants
and
animals
that
ultimately
form
part
of
people’s
food.
It
should
worry
not
just
Bengaluru’s
residents,
for
instance,
that
soil
scientists
have
found
higher
levels
of
cadmium
in
green
vegetables
grown
using
water
from
Bellandur.
More
broadly,
the
collapse
of
environmental
management
because
of
multiple,
disjointed
agencies
achieving
little
collectively
and
legal
protections
remaining
unimplemented
pose
a
serious
threat
to
public
health.
Every
city
needs
a
single
lake
protection
authority.
India’s
worsening
air
quality
is
now
well
documented,
and
most
of
its
wetlands
are
severely
polluted.
Citizens
must
assert
themselves
to
stop
this
perilous
course.
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