A joint submission by nine organisations from Karnataka has renewed pressure on the Union Environment Ministry and the State government to finalise the seventh draft notification for the Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA). Its significance extends beyond the immediate demand for a notification: the submission highlights how prolonged regulatory delay, disputed boundaries, weak enforcement and limited public access to information can shape the safety and ecological future of settlements across the region.
The Western Ghats ESA process began in August 2011. According to the report submitted by the organisations, six draft notifications have since lapsed without producing a final notification. The seventh draft is now being presented as an opportunity to correct earlier shortcomings and respond to what the organisations describe as worsening ecological conditions. Their submission calls for stronger safeguards, corrected boundaries, more effective monitoring and enforcement, and official translations in local languages.
The organisations involved include Bangalore Environment Forum, Fridays for Future and Mapping Malnad from Bengaluru; Green Lives and Jana Sangrama Parishad from Shivamogga; Paryavarani Foundation from Belagavi; Sangatya from Karkala; United Conservation Movement from Udupi; and Human Rights Foundation from Udupi. They have submitted their recommendations to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and the Karnataka government.
The central institutional problem is not simply that a notification has been delayed. It is that every lapse leaves the regulatory framework unsettled while development pressures continue. The report says that regional and local pressures have contributed to the loss and degradation of natural forests, increased stress on biodiversity and freshwater systems, and greater exposure to extreme rainfall and landslides. The submission therefore frames finalisation as an administrative and ecological priority rather than merely another stage in a consultation process.
The organisations also seek to address a recurring public concern about what an ESA notification would mean for people living in the proposed area. The report states that the draft notification does not displace people, remove land ownership, prohibit agriculture or plantations, restrict existing homes, or interfere with the ordinary lives of residents within the ESA. This clarification is important because regulatory proposals affecting rural and ecologically sensitive areas often generate uncertainty over property rights, livelihoods and existing settlements.
At the same time, the submission asks for stronger controls over activities that can produce region-wide impacts. It proposes prohibiting large hydropower and pumped-storage projects and major linear infrastructure within the ESA. It also calls for large renewable-energy projects to undergo environmental assessment, for steep and landslide-vulnerable slopes to receive protection from large construction, and for cumulative impact assessments and public consultations to be strengthened.
These proposals point to a gap between project-by-project approval and the way environmental risks accumulate across a landscape. A single project may be assessed within its own boundary, but roads, power infrastructure, construction, hydropower facilities and other interventions can interact with forest loss, slope instability and the disruption of water systems. The report’s demand for cumulative assessment indicates that the organisations believe the seventh draft should evaluate those combined pressures rather than treat each proposal as an isolated administrative file.
The mapping dispute makes the issue more concrete. Mapping Malnad’s preliminary geographic information system analysis, cited in the submission, finds a difference of about 863 square kilometres between the mapped ESA area and the area stated in the draft. The analysis also identifies errors in village names. It further says that some steep, landslide-prone slopes and important headwater streams remain outside the proposed ESA and should be included.
A difference of that scale is not a minor cartographic correction. ESA boundaries determine which villages, slopes, streams and development proposals fall within the regulatory framework. If the mapped boundary does not match the stated area, residents, local administrations and project authorities may not have a consistent understanding of where restrictions or assessment requirements apply. The report therefore asks for an authoritative and publicly accessible GIS database to form the basis for correcting and finalising the boundaries.
This demand also reveals the governance dimension of environmental regulation. A notification can establish rules, but its practical effect depends on reliable maps, clear jurisdiction, accessible records and institutions capable of monitoring compliance. Where village names are incorrect or ecologically important features are excluded, enforcement can become difficult even before a project is considered. Publicly accessible spatial information would allow residents, local officials and other stakeholders to examine the proposed boundary against conditions on the ground.
The submission’s emphasis on local-language access raises a parallel question about meaningful participation. The organisations say they have provided a professionally translated and notarised Kannada version of the report, while stressing that this does not remove the State government’s responsibility to provide an official Kannada translation. The demand is not only linguistic. It concerns whether people affected by a regulatory decision can understand the document, assess its consequences and participate in the process on equal terms.
The report also calls for stronger monitoring and enforcement mechanisms. The supplied account does not specify the institutional design, staffing or funding that would be required for such a system. That absence is itself relevant to the implementation challenge: finalising a notification would settle the legal framework, but enforcement would still depend on how responsibilities are divided between the Union government, the State government and other authorities involved in approvals and local administration.
The long history of the process makes implementation particularly important. Six drafts have lapsed since 2011, and the organisations argue that ecological conditions have worsened during the intervening 15 years. The delay has therefore created a moving regulatory target. A boundary or safeguard considered adequate at an earlier stage may not address current risks if forests, headwater streams, slopes and settlement patterns have changed. The seventh draft is being asked to account for those changes before it is finalised.
The report’s proposed restrictions also place infrastructure decisions at the centre of the ESA debate. Large hydropower, pumped-storage projects and linear infrastructure can have consequences beyond the construction site, particularly where slopes, forests and streams are connected. The submission does not claim that all infrastructure is prohibited. Instead, it calls for specific categories of major projects to be restricted or subjected to stronger assessment within the ecologically sensitive area.
That distinction matters for urban and regional planning. Bengaluru and other growing settlements depend on infrastructure networks that extend beyond municipal boundaries, while the Western Ghats support water systems and landscapes that are affected by decisions made in multiple districts. The report’s focus on cumulative impacts, headwater streams and transport or utility corridors shows why environmental regulation cannot be separated from infrastructure planning. The location and design of a project can influence risks far beyond the parcel recorded in an approval document.
The available evidence establishes the demands made in the joint submission, the reported mapping discrepancies and the history of six lapsed drafts. It does not establish whether the Ministry or the Karnataka government has accepted the recommendations, whether the 863-square-kilometre difference will be independently confirmed, or when the seventh notification will be finalised. Those are the next factual questions in the process.
What the submission makes clear is that finalising the Western Ghats ESA notification will involve more than publishing a boundary. It will require the authorities to reconcile maps, clarify protections and exclusions, provide accessible translations, assess cumulative impacts and create mechanisms capable of monitoring development over time. Until those elements are resolved, the regulatory uncertainty identified by the organisations will remain part of the region’s environmental and infrastructure governance problem.
