SoE-South Asia 2001: A Cover Story

Charu Jain

South Asia is a realm of one of the oldest civilisations in the world, where people from all races and religions have co-existed, displaying a multitude of cultures. The independent countries of the South Asia: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka share regional cultures and boundaries. South Asia’s location at almost the southern extremity of the Eurasian continent is a factor for its racial/ ethnic mixture.

The region covers an area of approximately 41,26,800 sq Km i.e. 2.77 per cent of the world area and supports a dense population of about 1.3 billion people. The entire coastline runs to about 10,000 Kilometers.

Economically, all countries of South Asia are grouped in the developing category i.e. they are still on their way to industrialisation. A significant portion of the income generated is from agriculture. Urban population is growing both in numbers and as percentage of total population. Pakistan continues to remain the most urbanised and Bhutan the least one. Gross National Product (GNP) per capita is the most important indicator of economic level of a country. Maldives has the highest GNP, Sri Lanka the second highest and Nepal the lowest. Infant mortality has consistently declined in all South Asian countries-primarily the effect of introduction of modern medicine, better sanitation, improved knowledge of child care and widespread public health systems. Sri Lanka is the most literate country of South Asia with the least difference between male and female literacy.

At present, the region’s state of environment depicts excessive land degradation, desertification and habitat fragmentation. Increasing habitat fragmentation has depleted the wide variety of forest produce that used to be an important source of food, medicine and income for indigenous people. Water supply is a serious problem and freshwater will be the major limiting factor to producing more food in the future, especially in populous and arid areas. Energy demand is rising faster than in any other part of the world. The proportion of people living in urban centres is rising rapidly, and is focused on a few urban centres. Asia’s particular style of urbanisation - towards megacities - is likely to increase environmental and social stresses. Widespread concern over pollution and natural resources has led the legislation to curb emissions and conserve natural resources. There is a keen interest in ISO 14000 standards for manufacturing and ecolabelling. However, education and awareness levels amongst the public are often low, and environment information base in the region is weak.

This report aims at providing guidance for international environmental action planning, policy setting and resource allocation for the coming decades based on a sound analysis of the state and trends in the region’s environment. It elaborates the priorities and key issues from the array of environmental concerns facing the region. The report is split into three parts. Part one gives an overview that explains the biophysical profile, socio - economic and cultural patterns, political and governance structures and the financial base of the region. Part two addresses the five key environmental issues of South Asian countries - Livelihood security (for food, water, energy and income); Environmental disasters (trends of occurrence, impact on biodiversity, loss incurred); Industrialisation (growth, distribution, waste generation); Urbanisation (growth of cities, migration, population, economic growth); and Biodiversity (floral/ faunal diversity, trends and changes). Part three presents an overall conclusion highlighting emerging environmental trends/ priorities that require strengthened international/ regional action and research for policy action.

One of the greatest challenges is to promote liberal trade yet maintain and strengthen the protection of the environment and natural resources. The region today has to strike a balance between development and environment.

To achieve this, one has to take the path of sustainable development. One of the priorities in sustainable development strategy is to have a sound understanding of the state of environment and this can best be understood from the framework of Pressure-State-Impact-Response. Pressure ‘P’ is the human activity or cause, State ‘S’ is the analysis of the past trends or projection for future, Impact ‘I’ is on people/land - vulnerable, pristine land and Response ‘R’ is the current or proposed societal views.

This framework has been adopted as an analytical tool in the prioritisation of the key environmental issues and preparation of this report. The P-S-I-R analytical framework has been used as the base, but other methodologies have also been added to enrich the process/ contents. Since the pressure, state and impact of each environment issue are interrelated they have not been explained under separate subheads. The response part has been dealt separately under a separate sub head to highlight the solutions being undertaken or need to be undertaken for each of the five key environmental issues.

The concept of livelihood is a valuable means of understanding the factors that influence people’s lives and well-being, particularly those of the South Asian countries. The whole concept of livelihood is based around the dynamics of the means through which people secure a ‘living‘: that is, the goods and services that allow them to survive. These include aspects of food, water, energy and income, which are covered in this chapter of livelihood security.

Food security is of prime importance and is not the result of one single factor, instead is a consequence of the combined effect of many factors elaborated below. Water is one of the precious resources which, due to growing population and diversifying needs, is fast becoming scarce. Energy is a crucial determinant of development. The hand-glove relationship between energy use and economic development means that developing countries will find an access to energy to be a key ingredient of their future economic and environmental development. Income security, the last but not theleast, is one of the most important indicators of economic development.

The proportion of undernourished population doubled from 6.0 per cent in 1995-97 to 12 per cent in 1999 thereby, increasing infant mortality and number of anaemic mothers. Employment and income losses, savings and capital flight well into 1999 as well as civil unrest means that chronic food insecurity will increase in the foreseeable future. The recovery will take time, as suggested by the Gross Development Product (GDP) growth rate forecasts of 2 and 4per cent for 1998 and 1999 respectively after a contraction of 13.2 per cent in 1997. Information on food scarcity assesses that besides the fall in rice production, estimates pointed to reduced household expenditures and thus lower consumption of protein and micro nutrient-rich foods.

Estimates show that Asia and Pacific region was home to two-thirds of the developing world’s 792 million undernourished people in 1996. In order to halve this number by the year 2015, the region will have to reduce the ranks of the undernourished by an average of 13 million per year over a period of twenty years starting in 1996.

Water is one of the most precious and vitally important resources for development and day-to day living. Our growing population and rapidly diversifying and expanding needs make water an increasingly scarce resource. This is a challenging situation and calls for conservation in the best possible way. Awareness of one and all to the fact that the manner in which the water is used today will determine to a large extent, its availability for future.

In many countries in the region there exist large and extensive groundwater resources and this is because one of the world’s largest river networks is present in this region. In Bangladesh, most of the water needs are met by groundwater resources. Whereas in an island country like Maldives, the groundwater is found in fresh water lenses underlying the atolls floating on top of the saline water. Heavy abstraction of this water resource for drinking has depleted the freshwater lenses, especially in the capital city of Male, causing salt water intrusion. Groundwater is recharged by rainfall, but becomes contaminated while percolating through the soil that is generally polluted with organic human and industrial wastes.

Energy is one of the crucial determinants of development. Of all human activities, the production and use of energy has perhaps the largest impact on the environment. The increased utilisation of energy by burning fossil fuels is the major conributor to environmental degradation at local, regional, national and trans-national scales. Extraction disrupts terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and conversion and combustion is the principal source of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants. At the household level, indoor air pollution from the use of traditional fuels is a major health hazard.

Thus the need to use energy, while minimising the adverse environmental effects, is a major challenge that faces countries at all levels of development. During the mid-1970s to mid-1980s, the concerns about energy were related to its availability, resulting in significant increase in prices but, at present the concern has shifted to consideration of the environmental impacts of energy production and use. There are quite revealing variations in the installed capacities of power utilities in South Asia as per their natural endowments.

The use of thermal power dominates in Bangladesh (92 per cent), India (73 per cent) and Pakistan (69 per cent). All these are proving to be highly cost ineffective. India and Bangladesh use substantial amounts of energy derived from biomass and other renewable resources, putting great presuure on the forest and agricultural ecosystems that supply those fuels.

The hydropower has been the most vital source of total installed capacity in Bhutan (100 per cent) and Sri Lanka (69 per cent). In India and Pakistan the share of hydropower in the total installed capacity has gone down, however the total hydropower generation has increased. In Nepal, 78 per cent of total fuel consumption is from fuelwood derived from forests. In Maldives, the source of energy is fuelwood and diesel generated electricity.

Overall, the use of commercial energy in the South Asian region is expected to double during the 20-year period between 1990-2010. Power generation and transport being the fastest growing energy using sector; growth in the power sector will lead to increase in coal consumption, and the growth of the transport sector will cause increase in the consumption of oil. Use of natural gas nuclear and hydro-power is also expected to increase substantially in the coming years.

The vulnerability to natural disasters is also growing due to population increase and inadequately planned urbanisation. The number and density of people living in cities within earthquake and tropical cyclone zones have risen dramatically in the past two decades. Throughout most of the developing region, the rapid growth of urban population has been haphazard and uncontrolled.

The unplanned and rapid expansion of physical infrastructure is a common feature, and has generally hindered sustainable construction practises and safe building standards, particularly from the standpoint of mitigating events such as floods and earthquakes.

Planning and preparedness is essential for both mitigation and management of natural disasters. Many natural hazards can be forecasted with reasonable accuracy using state of-art techniques, such as those that exist in weather forecasting and seismic monitoring. However, in most developing countries of the region, even when adequate forecasting is available, conditions are such that the warning of an event is of little practical use.

Overcrowding, lack of basic infrastructure and communication means very little can be achieved by way of evacuating or preparing the population at risk. Moreover, in order to effectively mitigate and manage disasters and their relief, detailed planning is required and information about the measures to be taken before and after the event needs to be disseminated and practised. Such systems are not presently in place in most of the developing countries of the region.

The industrial sector is one of the most dynamic sectors of the economy and plays an essential role in economic development and the alleviation of poverty. If environmental considerations are not effectively integrated into the design of industrial processes, severe problems can result. Industry consumes 37 per cent of world’s energy and emits 50 per cent of world’s CO2 , 90 per cent of world’s SO2 and nearly all of the toxic chemicals. Recently, however, the severity of some of the local impacts of industry and the high cost of remedial measures in industry is becoming increasingly sensitive.

There has been a region-wide structural shift towards increased industrialisation; industry has increased its share of total output from 21 to 26 per cent in South Asia-and this structural shift is expected to continue into the future. The CO2 emission (GHG) in South Asia by industrialisation is estimated to have crossed 437 million tons by the year 2000 end and is estimated to increase by another 85 per cent by the year 2010.

The Small-Scale Industry (SSI) sector plays an important role in the industrial development of the nation and Asia. This sector contributes nearly 40 percent of the total industrial output, besides having a 35 per cent share in direct exports and plays an important role in generation of gainful employment opportunities.

The South Asian region as a whole is experiencing rapid urban growth, but is still predominantly rural. The urban growth rate remained high throughout the 1970-90 period. During the 1980’s, urban population in the developing countries of the region grew at the rate of 3.0 to 6.5 per cent per annum, the second fastest urban growth rate in the world after Africa. about 28 per cent of South Asian population lives in urban areas. The annual growth rate being 2.92 per cent in a span of 5 years.

Migration from rural to urban areas is one of the important factors leading to growth of cities. In South Asian region, migration has contributed around 40 per cent urban population growth during 1970-1990.

The challenge for all cities is to seek new management approaches that provide both for the needs of urban residents and protect environmental resources on which human life depends. A narrow focus on sustainable cities, can lead to the idea that cities should draw on natural resources from within immediate region, which seems increasingly at odds with the globalisation of the world economy.

South Asia is home to spectacular natural beauty and biological wealth. The region’s geographical expanse and topography includes several diverse ecosystems — Sunderbans - largest contiguous mangrove swamp in the world exist in India and Bangladesh; magnificent coral reefs and atolls in the Laccadive-Maldives chain of islands; Thar Desert and arid areas in North west India and Southern Pakistan; high altitude cold deserts in the upper Himalayas, Deosai Plains in Kashmir and two rich biodiversity hotspots in the Eastern Himalayas (Nepal, North Eastern India, and Bhutan) and the Western and Eastern Ghats of India and Sri Lanka; the dense and virtually undisturbed and untouched virgin forests of Bhutan and Sinharaja - the ancient relict forest in Sri Lanka.

The diversity in the latitude, altitude, climate, topography and the monsoon rainfall pattern, which is unique to this region, plays an important role in determining the vegetation of the area. South Asia is representative of a wide range of natural habitats — forests, grasslands, mangroves, wetlands, deserts, mountain, coastal and marine ecosystems that harbour a rich diversity in floral and faunal species.

The monsoon rainfall pattern principally distinguishes the forests in this region into - Evergreen forests (2500 mm rainfall per annum), Deciduous monsoon forests (1000-2000 mm), Dry forests and scrubland (500-2000 mm), Desert and semi-desert vegetation (less than 500 mm). Forests cover an area of approximately 77,137,000 ha (Source: WRI, 2000) of the total land area (412,297,000 ha ) of the region i.e. 18.6 per cent of the land area of South Asia is under forests which accounts for approximately 2.93 per cent of the world’s forest cover.

Within the region three areas — Western Ghats in India and Sri Lanka and the Eastern Himalayas (India, Bhutan, Nepal) have been identified as 3 of the "18 biodiversity hotspots" (Myers 1988) — areas with high species diversity and high levels of endemism and where the species are subject to exceptional levels of threat in the world. Additionally, India is also designated as one of the 12 Megadiversity countries (McNeely 1990, Mittermeier 1998, Mittermeier and Werner 1990). These twelve megadiversity countries in the world alone are estimated to hold upto 70% of the world’s species diversity.

After having discussed the environmental problems faced by the region, there lie certain gaps and challenges that need to be highlighted, discussed and coped with. The various challenges that are addressed include - building large scale awareness and capacity building, operationalising participatory governance and decision making, promoting regional and global co-operation, strengthening techno-logical capacity and securing the economic base. q