4

Land

Introduction

The total land gifted to us by nature is limited, and cannot be manufactured or grown further. It is, therefore, imperative that people make use of this resource with due consideration for biodiversity, ecosystem functions and needs of the human society. South Asia must make the most efficient use of its land resource because it has to provide food, clothing and shelter to an enormous population. Unfortunately, land resources are not efficiently used in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, the region’s largest nations. Until zero population growth is achieved, the pressure on land for competing uses will continue.

The current phase of rapid expansion in manufacturing facilities, irrigation and energy projects, mining and quarrying, all due to trade liberalization, is exerting heavy pressure on limited land resources. Adding to the pressure on ecosystems are government policies for creating special economic zones (SEZs), coastal-area development and special-incentive zones for industries with the required infrastructure (roads and basic services like power supply, healthcare, sanitation and water). Relocation of major manufacturing industries to South Asia is increasing the environmental load as well. Rules and regulations for environment protection are not applicable in these areas, which will further exacerbate pressure on land.

Lands acquired under the antiquated acquisition laws framed during the colonial period pose immense problems not only for the people, who lose their lands and livelihoods, but also amount to criminal waste. There is not one example of acquired lands having been used with due consideration for ecosystem services or people’s larger interests.

Extension of farmlands and construction of houses at the expense of forests, wetlands and natural drainage is going on unchecked. Encroachments are frequently regularized. Rural infrastructure development is also putting pressure on available farmlands and forests. Legal provisions for land-use change have been diluted with the unintended effect that villages are transforming into semi-urban areas, without any planning or suitable infrastructure: a trend that is responsible for rural-land degradation.

In rural areas, many absentee landlords have left their lands fallow, effectively out of the economy and environmental services, increasing the pressure on remaining farmlands and forests. To add to the environmental stress, the laws governing land use, sale, purchase and inheritance are so complex, and frequently mired in contradictory provisions, that land use is governed more by the law of the jungle.

Deforestation has accentuated the impact of floods, droughts and erosion. Global warming is impacting weather patterns that are affecting land productivity. Mindless militarization in the region is harming some of the most sensitive ecosystems.

Responses from different communities, the civil society and the governments are varied. Governments have sought to use their traditional authority to regulate the framework within which lands must be utilized, but the system itself is under pressure from powerful economic interests. The civil society initiatives are fragmented and lack focus and direction; frequently, they remain mere voices, unable to translate concerns into policy changes or even more effective regulatory system. Communities are unable to respond to shrinking land, partly because of their own inability to manage household size, but more due to lack of information on optimization of land use. However, excellent examples of innovative use of land resource and restoration of degraded lands to peak health can be found all over South Asia. These models need to be scaled up.

Pressure

Population

Whilst the growth rate is declining, the population is increasing in absolute terms. The highest contribution to the growth in population is from India (66 per cent), followed by Pakistan and Bangladesh. The net availability of agricultural land for South Asia is 1 acre for 5.88 persons, which implies that the region is food-insecure and there will be pressure for bringing more land under cultivation.

Urbanization

Rate of urbanization will increase from 28.58 per cent in 2005 to about 42 per cent in 2030. Over 18 million persons would be added to the cities every year till 2030 and South Asia will have to build new cities, or expand existing ones. This will eat up more farmland, forests and damage ecosystems (see Table 1.1).

Urbanization directly takes lands away from its ecological and food-production functions. The process of urbanization has speeded up with the availability of cheap energy, and cheap energy will not be available in the near future. Prime agriculture lands and ecosystems are being expropriated for urban expansion, resulting in destruction of local ecosystems (For instance, the city of Mumbai, built on small rivers and streams that drained rainwater into the sea, virtually sank under water causing loss of life and property during the deluge of July 2005).

In the next 21 years to 2030, an additional 424 million persons would be living in the cities, an addition of roughly 18 million per year. Assuming four persons to a household, it implies 4.6 million households would be added every year. Further, assuming that each household is allotted 50 m² of land for a basic dwelling unit, 23,000 ha of land or 230 km² would be required every year just for providing accommodation.

Farming

The total available agriculture land in 2005 was 260 mha, which means that from each hectare 5.71 persons were fed and clothed. Given the trend in population growth, each hectare will have to feed and clothe 7.79 persons in 2030; an increase of 40 per cent. Since there is no scope for further expansion in agricultural lands, it implies that farmland productivity will have to increase by at least 40 per cent by 2030 by sustainable methods. The increase will have to come within a scenario of greater urbanization, industrial expansion and degradation of existing agriculture land due to over-exploitation and destruction of the ecosystem.

Industrialization

It is normally assumed that industries create modern jobs and are indicators of ‘development’. There are, however, other views. Attempts to become the machine shop of the world is a way of misallocating lands for goods and services for consumers around the world and keeping the adverse impacts here. Industries like aluminum, iron and steel, cement, fertilizer and thermal energy would extract a heavy price from present and future generations. Inward investments, fuelled by cheap labour and a lax EP regime, are making South Asia a manufacturing base for low and intermediate technology-based items. Pressure would be created at four levels: (a) reduction in land available for food, (b) contamination and degradation of land, (c) water pollution, and (d) loss of forest cover and biodiversity because majority of mining activities and process industries are located in regions that had/have dense-green cover.

Over 500 SEZs are planned in India alone. Essentially, SEZ is stealing lands from farmers; it has no other purpose (see Box 4.1).

 

Prime lands have been acquired for SEZs all over India with area varying from 1,000 to 14,000 ha. These are being promoted by large industrial houses attracted by tax sops that alone will cost Rs 1,700 billion to the exchequer, which could have been used to finance the transition to low-energy economy. If the Government of India knows that 4 per cent growth rate in agriculture is not possible, there appears to be no reason to acquire these lands for speculative purposes. Only 35 per cent of SEZ lands will be put to production, 65 per cent can be used for real-estate speculation.

Enormous land area has been acquired for irrigation and hydroelectric projects in South Asia, driving millions of rural people to destitution. In the ecologically sensitive Himalayan region, hundreds of energy projects have been installed, and hundreds are in the process of being installed that are devastating river basins, mountains that act as water tables, and destroying the ecosystems including the livelihoods of mountain people. The smaller hydel projects located on rivulets divert irrigation and drinking water source to the turbine, in turn destroying the local ecosystems as well.

Militarization

South Asia is one of the most militarized regions of the world. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka all have considerable land allocated for the armed forces. Land is used for facilities like training, weapons production, housing, and basic services like hospitals, schools and recreation areas. Because of threat perceptions, large swathes of land are frequently occupied by security forces, causing loss of livelihoods and ecosystem destruction. A major example is militarization of the Siachen glacier in the Himalayas that is slowly being destroyed.

Contaminated Land

These are pieces of land allocated for setting up nuclear industry, nuclear waste disposal sites and lands requisitioned for disposal of industrial wastes that are toxic and hence impounded. Some of the most toxic industries are uranium mining and processing, bauxite mining and alumina production (the second most toxic industry), disposal of fly ash from thermal power plants, and contamination of land and water bodies from untreated industrial effluents.

Wastage of Land

Through arbitrary and frequent misuse of forced acquisition, prime agriculture lands and forests, including park areas, have been acquired invariably in excess of the actual needs of development projects (industry, irrigation, energy projects, etc.). Once acquired, the lands have never been restored, or returned to original owners, but remain in the hands of the PA even after the project life cycle is over. For instance, spent opencast mines have neither been restored nor is there any instance of lands returned to original owners. Secondly, there are thousands of instances of prime lands having been acquired but the projects never came up. Thus lands are taken out of agriculture or forests but are not utilized for any purpose. Sometimes these lands are sold at huge profit by governments or even the PAs themselves. While this sort of wastage of land results in pauperization of rural population, eventually placing pressure on urban areas, the process is speeding up with horrific social and environmental consequences.

The second source of wastage of land is because of absentee landlords (owners). For instance, in Hamirpur and Kangra districts of Himachal Pradesh, a group of NGOs have estimated that about 30 per cent of agricultural lands are lying fallow. When landowners in rural areas relocate to urban areas, they do not want to rent their lands to landless peasants. Frequently, the land holdings are too small (below 2 ha) to support full-time staff to tend to the lands. Because they are usually not resident, they do not make investments in forestry or food production that would add environmental or economic value to their lands, which places greater pressure on existing lands under productive use.

The third source of wastage is when lands are acquired for basic services like schools, hospitals, government offices and rural warehouses, but the facilities are created in such a shoddy manner that they are of no, or only partial, use. For instance, construction of primary-school buildings depends upon allocation of funds to the department of education, and often funds are spread thin across the state forcing the authorities to construct only a part of the school. When next budgetary allocation comes, few more rooms are added but separate from the older structure. Eventually, a school that could be built on, say, 5,000 square feet consumes double or triple the land required. Similarly, hospitals and dispensaries have been constructed in rural areas that are either in disuse or used only occasionally. Many government buildings are lying in a state of disrepair or are declared‘condemned’. Yet, the lands have not been restored and remain out of economic or environmental use. Effective use is defined as 100 per cent utilization of lands for the purpose they were acquired.

Deforestation

Although FAO data, which is based on government data, indicates that forest cover has gone up from 15.5 per cent in 1980 to 16.8 per cent in 2005, this data has been challenged by the South Asian civil society. All the sources of pressure listed above are directly impacting forested areas and ecosystems. Particularly, the hydro-electric and irrigation projects in the Himalayas are causing concerns that have propelled local communities to oppose these projects. Deforestation in the Himalayas will seriously jeopardize agriculture in Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh, as is evidenced from the lower carrying capacity of rivers. The situation is so grim that many streams have become seasonal.

 

Table 4.1 Areas Affected by Water Erosion and Wind Erosion (1,000 ha)

	% of Land Affected by Wind Erosion	% of Land Affected by Water Erosion
Afghanistan	5%	29%
Bangladesh	0%	15%
Bhutan	0%	10%
India	6%	18%
Nepal	0%	34%
Pakistan	42%	28%
Sri Lanka	0%	46%

 

It should be noted that many governments simply list the human activities in rural areas as the chief cause of deforestation. These activities are: timber harvesting in excess of sustainable threshold, fuel wood collection, overgrazing, extension of farming to marginal lands like steep slopes or into forest areas, and use of agricultural chemicals. While there is some truth in these assertions, these pressures should be seen within a context of policy-led poverty; a state of desperation of rural poor that pushes them to unsustainable strategies for survival. Moreover, it should be viewed within the context of inadequate training given to the poor: For every 100 units of trees felled for timber, only 39 per cent is effectively utilized against the world average of 75 per cent. All this is exacerbating the areas affected by water and wind erosion (see Table 4.1).

State

Population Growth Trend

The population of South Asia will grow from 1.53 billion (2007) to 2.02 billion in 2030. Rural population would increase by about five million per year. This will put immense pressure on natural resources like forests and ecosystems, water, energy and all primary building materials (topsoil, stone, sand and biomass) (see Table 1.1).

Land-use Trends

Although the lands under forest cover is claimed to have increased, this could be misleading: While all countries show decline in forest cover, India and Bhutan show increase. The Indian data has been subjected to searching criticism from the civil society for misinterpreting satellite data where horticulture plantations are also included as forest.

Farming

Conventional farming methods, the so-called Green Revolution technologies, have not only degraded agro-ecosystems and exposed already vulnerable farmers to increased environmental risks, but also led to the loss of agro-biodiversity that ensured livelihood security of small and marginal farmers and local environmental sustainability. Dependence of farmers on HYV seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and diesel oil for extraction of groundwater are known to have caused nutrient depletion, erosion of soil, biodiversity loss and excessive dependence on fossil fuels. This method cannot be sustained.

To add to the woes of South Asia, genetically engineered seeds (GE seeds) are being promoted that will destroy its biodiversity through biological pollution, in perpetuity. In India alone, 159 types of food and feed crops are undergoing open-field trials at over 1,500 locations; more are in the pipeline. It is well known that GM seeds contaminate non-GM farmlands and, through horizontal transfer of genes, contaminate other living species and yet the bio-safety assessment, including reports of allergenicity and toxicity tests, have not been placed in the public domain either by the regulatory bodies or by firms promoting these untested technologies. It has been scientifically established that animals grazing on Bt cotton fields after harvesting died of toxicity, although this has been denied by the Indian government. More damaging would be genetically engineered forests because trees have longer life; these Franken forests may destroy the natural habitat forever. And the latest trend in production of biofuel would cause allocation of more lands to support the West than to produce food to feed South Asians.

Farming is closely associated by cattle rearing in rural South Asia. Households keep draught animals, cows/buffaloes, goat, pig, ponies and horses. The density of cattle (LU per km²) is highest in Bangladesh (94.1) followed by India (31.2), Nepal (24.5) and Pakistan (15.4) against the ideal density of five LU per km².¹ Although goat population is declining, there is trend of increasing LU per km² in all South Asian countries. This figure for Bangladesh is 26.5 LU/ km², for India it is 4 LU/ km² and for Nepal it is 4.7 LU/ km².² It implies that there will be greater grazing pressure in the future. If stall feeding is adopted on a large scale, it would imply allocation of lands for fodder and transportation to clusters of habitation, both unsustainable options.

 

Land Degradation

Land degradation has been brought about by (a) displacement of soil material and (b) by in-situ degradation. Top-soil loss and terrain deformation through water and wind erosion are examples of (a) and chemical degradation involving loss of nutrients and/or organic matter, salinization and pollution, and physical degradation in the form of water logging, mass movement, landslides, compaction, crusting and sealing, of (b). Millions of hectare of land is now degraded. According to some sources, India has lost about 30 mha of land due to water erosion and about 10 mha of land due to wind erosion. The situation is not good for Pakistan either, with its loss of about 5 mha of land to water erosion and 10 mha of land to wind erosion. There is tradition of placing responsibility for land degradation on common people rather than objectively assessing the extent of land degradation due to government policy.

For example, if industrialization is causing land degradation, firms are not held accountable; rather demand for goods and services from the people is held responsible. Similarly, promoters of large energy projects are never explicitly held accountable for land degradation but fuel-wood collectors are. This anomaly needs to be corrected in South Asia. The adverse economic impacts of land degradation will increase.

Response

What is Required?

Reclamation of degraded land in South Asia should be the top priority. Combating further land degradation and investing in conservation of land for the future generations to be taken up on watershed basis will involve a paradigm shift from the present department-driven technical-management system to one that enhances the stake of all stakeholders, particularly local communities in rural and urban areas. This strategy will have to be combined with complete ban on GMOs until effective bio-safety protocols are in place. We cannot risk the destruction of our biodiversity in any way. South Asia will also have to adopt mountain-specific land, forest and water resource management policies that give primacy to conservation and greater stake to local communities. Mountain regions include the Himalayas, the Hindukush Range, the lesser Himalayas, the central Indian highlands and the Deccan Plateau, the Eastern and Western Ghats and the mountains of Sri Lanka. Starting from the top end of each mountain system, South Asia will have to restore, watershed by watershed, every inch of land down to the river basins and coastal regions.

Existing Response

Watershed Management   Watershed management programmes have been taken up extensively in the recent past. In India the Soil and Water Conservation Division in the Ministry of Agriculture has a plan to cover 86 mha. Twenty-six mha (27 river valley catchments and eight in flood prone rivers) are classified as highly critical and have been given a priority under 35 Central government-sponsored projects. Over 30,000 ha of shifting and semi-stable sand dunes have been treated with shelter belts and strip cropping as claimed by the Indian government but a concerted effort on greening of desert is missing. Even micro-watershed protection programmes have been implemented with poor results because user groups were not involved in implementation.

Mapping Degradation Process   South Asian governments have initiated the preparation of soil erosion maps of different regions using the components of Universal Soil Loss Equation. A similar assessment needs to be carried out for other degradational processes. In many countries, departments engaged in soil and land-use survey are generating spatial and non-spatial information on the soils and preparing thematic maps like land capability classification, hydrological soil grouping, irrigab ility classification, etc., which can be aggregated to produce a composite picture for South Asia. Such protocols need to be followed by states, districts and communities living within a watershed. It should be noted that the usefulness of canal irrigation is limited. These built systems cause more environmental damage, than help farmers. Yet, despite availability of data, irrigated lands is going up. Reports show that in Bangladesh, the percentage of irrigated land out of the total cultivable area has gone up from about 40 per cent in the mid-nineties to more than 50 per cent in the first decade of the twentieth century. Similar trend applies to India (a little over 25 per cent in mid-nineties to over 30 per cent in this decade), Pakistan (from nearly 60 per cent in mid-nineties to over 70 per cent in this decade), Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. However, despite this trend, better solution of local rainwater harvesting structure has been ignored.

Farming   In general, in South Asia the percentage of arable land out of total land is now stable. In Afghanistan, this has stayed stable at about 10 per cent, from the mid-nineties to the middle of the first decade of this century. For the same period, the figure has stayed somewhat stable for Bangladesh (about 60 per cent), Bhutan (about 5 per cent), India (about 55 per cent), Maldives (about 10 per cent), Nepal (about 15 per cent), Pakistan (about 25 per cent) and Sri Lanka (about 10 per cent). In so far as the government agricultural scientists are concerned, they continue to promotechemical farming that is directly responsible for land degradation. They have never promoted natural farming methods that sustain soil health. In India, the Horticul-ture Development Board has recently announced subsidy for genetically engineered horticulture but there is no sop for organic or chemical-free horticulture. Thus on the one hand one department keeps condemning farming methods causing degradation, another department in the same country keeps promoting methods that would cause degradation. Scientists in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal are actively involved in promoting genetically engineered seeds and Green Revolution technologies when it is well known that they can neither enhance yield nor protect biodiversity. This sort of contradictory response is destroying South Asia.

Industrialization and Urbanization   Despite all governments officially ruminating the loss of lands through industrialization and urbanization, there is no coherent policy on land-use change. Instead, as noted earlier, best lands are being allocated for SEZ, industries and urban expansion.

Containment of Contamination   There is no clear policy on this as evidenced from use of land for disposal of industrial waste. If land is required for disposal, permission for the same is normally granted without exercising due diligence to the fact that why waste cannot be treated and made inert, thereby eliminating land pollution. Contamination will be exacerbated by nuclear and other toxic industries as planned by India and Pakistan.

Policy Gaps and Weaknesses in Implementation

Thus far land management in South Asia has been unsystematic, arbitrary and, by no means, sustainable. So far the region has not implemented a well-defined integrated land-use policy. This policy gap has largely been responsible for the extent of land degradation.

Lands are acquired for projects but there is no clarity as to what happens if (a) the projects fail and (b) the project completes its life cycle. Degraded lands are left without restoring them to pre-project condition by project authorities. There are no penal provisions, no pressure on project authorities to perform.

Although there is a pollution control board in every country, a broader policy restricting land pollution is yet to be firmly implemented. There are instances of government-owned undertakings, including the military, being greatest polluters, yet no action is taken. Taking the cue, even private firms keep pollution abatement equipment in disuse, only to be run when inspections are going on. This has caused huge land, water and air pollution throughout South Asia. It appears as if there is a nexus between private interests and the government at the expense of people’s welfare.

To make things worse, there is no rural fuel wood as well as grazing and fodder policy at the national level with the result, that grazing is far beyond the carrying capacity and extraction of fuel and fodder from forests is also far beyond the sustainable limits, creating enormous negative impacts on the forests and land.

Future Response

Future policy should be built on the assumption that maximum lands are required for ecosystem services and biodiversity, food production, human habitation, industries, and urban area. Given the fact that energy sources are finite, land-use policy must allocate land for competing purposes that progressively minimize dependence on fossil fuels and also minimize overall energy use.

At Government Level

Governments in South Asia must ensure security of land rights and land tenure. This alone will encourage efficient use of lands. To this end, consolidation of land holding, restoration of rights to commons, computerization of land records and a uniform land law throughout South Asia will go a long way. Laws relating to forced sequestration of lands must be repealed immediately.

Since food security is emerging as a major concern, the main focus should be to secure land tenure for as many small and marginal landholders as possible. Further, since it has been demonstrated by many radical farmers that each hectare of land, if nursed to peak health, can produce 35 to 50 metric tonnes of food plus equal quantity of biomass, which can be put back to enhance soil organic matter, such models should be scaled up and incorporated as standard practice. When this happens, more lands will be voluntarily allocated by individual landowners for ecosystem services and forestry than for mere food production. Most importantly, people will learn to evolve the symbiotic system of land, water, forest and ecosystem management.

To ensure that land is put under right kind of use, and guarding against any deleterious effects, it is imperative that its use is consistent with present capability. To this end, some have suggested Land Capability Classification or similar protocol with modifications to suit South Asian conditions. These can be developed along with scientifically sound land management practices that would address land degradation problems and maintain land quality for sustainable use. Land-use policy should include rural fuel wood, herbs collection, grazing and fodder policies to guide management of land and forest scientifically and sustainably but not without extensive consultations with user groups. This is of particular importance in the Himalayan region.

Land management in conjunction with water management needs to be the core of any agenda for national development as the two resources are interdependent and cannot be dealt with separately. Land must be managed on a natural watershed basis as it represents the most logical basis for scientific use of land and water resources with possibility for minimizing the hazards posed by human activities.

Increasing the utilization of irrigation potential, promoting water conservation and efficient water management along with expansion of irrigation facilities, especially in drought-prone areas, need urgent attention to enhance production without harming land and soil. To ensure sustainability of production in rain fed areas, in-situ soil and moisture conservation on mini-watershed basis, irrespective of whether they belong to forest department, private bodies or local communities, should be a major thrust area for increasing productivity levels.

A correct assessment of the nature and extent of the existing degraded land through remote sensing techniques and GIS needs to be carried out as early as possible with scientifically sound criteria and indicators. This sort of data should be readily made available to village councils throughout South Asia.

At Departmental Level

A revamped Ag-extension system is required for South Asia: more efficient, ecofriendly, with thorough grounding in sustainable natural resource management regime and free from the pressures of promoting spurious science of conventional farming. Perhaps, arrangements for multidisciplinary technical information, viable land-use options and suitable alternatives for various agro-ecological and socioeconomic specificities and suitable crop combinations and crop rotations can be extended to land users.

There should be a national as well as regional policy on soil nutrient enhancement mechanism, if necessary, for re-mineralization of soils throughout South Asia cutting across national boundaries. Consistent with re-mineralization policy, there is a need to monitor soil mineral and nutrient balance, consistent with the needs for natural management of farmlands and forests. There is a need to define the threshold values for each class of soil nutrients. South Asian Land Use Commission (SALUC) should oversee these activities.

At Societal Level

A SALUC with representation from the regional and national governments, non-governmental organizations, and local authorities, including user groups to continuously oversee land management and evolve a cross-sectoral method for optimizing land use at habitation level, rural or urban is required.

Policy issues in sustainable land management may include coordination of land laws and ownership laws including title, methods for changing and restoring land use, economic policy, conservation policy, and population policy. Therefore, national strategies for sustainable use of land resources need to be thoroughly harmonized and adapted to the emerging contingency.

To harmonize all developmental activities and make them compatible with land use and guard against any form of land degradation, South Asia Environment Quality Management (SAEQM) strategy needs to be adopted.

Education, training, research and technology development should empower local communities and focus on analysing and adapting conditions and principles for sustainable land use as well as resource conservation technologies and practices. Research institutes should look for ways of working closely with land users and communities. At the moment this is not happening.

Conclusion

Implementation of land-related policies is a complex and sensitive task. It would require government as well as non-governmental organizations such as communities, private bodies and firms to share a common platform. Mechanisms and institutional structures for policy implementation need to be drafted along with a detailed action plan clearly designating responsibilities and taking into consideration the intrinsic character of land, the concerns of user groups and future energy crisis. An increase in industrialization, urbanization, mining and infrastructure development is taking away considerable areas of land from agriculture, forestry, grassland, pasture, etc., resulting in environmental disturbances that will severely impact survival options when fossil-fuel availability declines.