Reflections on 2023

TfW with collaborators in Mhadei, January 2023.

2023 was definitely a very unusual year at TfW. The year began in full steam- with workshops, conferences and lots of field work with travel. We were then suddenly presented with a situation nobody anticipated- finding ourselves without Shashank Srinivasan, our Founder-Director. While it was a year of irreplaceable loss, it came with its own learning and growth. This blog is a reflection of what it has been like navigating this change over the last few months.

When faced with this situation of suddenly being without our team leader, I found myself in a new position of leadership. The very first thing was to see if the organisation-really the people, a small team – remained motivated to keep going. Without hesitation, the entire team was sure of wanting to continue work and see projects through. It was a relief that we all felt this way, and I understood what it meant to be a mission-aligned organisation. We believed in the work we were doing, were motivated by it and unwilling to let it go. It strengthened my own belief in the work we did, that nobody needed any convincing to stay in a period of uncertainty.

Core-team, June 2023.

Team in discussion, July 2023.

The projects of course meant little without the team behind them. I cannot adequately describe the incredible resilience, understanding and grit of the team I’m so lucky to be a part of. Each and every person showed determination and growth, both technically and personally. They met commitments and created high quality work while showing endless patience and adaptability with me and changing circumstances. Aditi and Sravanthi upskilled significantly and grew more independent in their tasks. Nancy and Shivangini took on additional responsibilities and workload. These are the things that kept us going in the months since.

Unexpectedly, it felt like the team also grew- we began working with Sandhya Srinivasan as our Director, and our accountant Nikhila Ballal. As the Director, Sandhya Auntie, continued to provide the structural support the organisation needed to keep running as well as immense understanding, and kindness that helped us retain the character and culture of the organisation. Nikhila, our accountant was always a part of our set up but someone I hadn’t previously interacted with. I valued her presence more than ever as provided patient explanations and guidance while making sure our work could continue smoothly.

TfW in Mhadei viewing forest fire scars, May 2023.

Without planning for it, it also suddenly became a team composed entirely of women- managing everything from field work and GIS to communication and accounts. It was an unexpected but special and empowering experience for me. To be working in an environment where each colleague was a competent, empathetic and motivated woman was a support and inspiration I never anticipated I would experience, let alone this year. I know this is a rare phenomenon in any field, and it has significantly helped ease some of the difficulties in this transitionary period.

TfW in Odisha surveying olive ridleys, March 2023.

What also made it possible for us to keep working was the stable support and patience from our donors. To have continued belief in our work and ability was immensely reassuring and gave me the confidence I needed to keep going. It also gave us the ability to focus our energies on the work we were doing, rather than anything else.

The conservation community, especially that in Goa, further felt like a safe and valuable ecosystem to be a part of where our worth was acknowledged, and support extended. Trust, built over years was tangibly felt and helped us to continue to feel a part of the community in which we work. 

Professionally, for me the year was of learning to manage and adapt continuously. It was a journey of understanding personal and collective capacity- of knowing when and to whom to ask for help and finding the sparks that keep us motivated. Most of all, in everything, as I deliberated and thought- ‘What would Shashank do?’ I realised just how much difference a single person can make. Like him, every single person in the team has created so much wonderful work and change. This has provided me with inspiration and helpful reminders of what we are capable of.

With this as we begin the new year, more changes are to come and we hope we can continue to create positive change and share this journey with you all!

The team sharing a light moment while waiting to board a flight, March 2023.

The Guardian of Mangar Bani

One of the wonderful opportunities we have at TfW is our collaboration with Sanctuary Asia on their Mud on Boots project. We speak to grantees to explain TfW’s mission, and if our work can build on their projects in any way, we find ways to collaborate. We have connected with amazing practitioners through this program - one such grantee is Sunil Harsana. While on a visit to Delhi for work, we were able to visit his field site and meet him in person in November 2021 so we could better understand his work.

I was eager to see the sacred grove in Mangar Bani. It’s not often that I get to visit new places close to where I grew up. Even so, I didn’t expect to be as surprised as I was. While I had been to Mangar before, I hadn’t visited the sacred grove, which was just 40 minutes from my house. The taxi driver and I were both in for a surprise. Neither of us could believe where we ended up this short drive later. 

Sunil Harsana in Mangar Bani.

The next few hours were a beautiful lesson on Mangar Bani, as Sunil unravelled the landscape with as much ease as the maps he was carrying. We stood staring at the rolling Aravallis in every direction, and I couldn’t believe the scale of what I was seeing. As we walked along, I heard Sunil’s descriptions of the species we saw, and of how unique and precious the ecosystem was. He went on to explain the cultural significance of the grove, the historical temples in juxtaposition to the current land pressures in the area. The scientific, cultural and political contexts were laid out for me to better understand the land with which I was being acquainted.

Layered  in this narrative was Sunil’s own story. Of how his life is deeply rooted here, from his ancestry and childhood to his future. His family, his work, his aspirations - everything is intertwined with Mangar Bani, much like the root systems of the Dhok trees that it supports. The majority of this dry, deciduous forest is made up of Dhok (Anogeissus pendula) trees. Dhok is a slow-growing tree taking up to 10 years to reach a height of 5ft. It begins its life cycle by clinging to the rocky slope, acting as a substrate for groundwater recharge. This craggy hillside of Haryana Aravallis is covered with Dhok in various stages of its life cycle, from grass-like substrate form to very tall trees. The tree with its tiny leaves and crooked trunk yields extremely hard timber that is used for making tool handles.

Sunlight filtering through the foliage.

In the face of immense land pressure and legal loopholes, Sunil is dedicated to the long-term protection of this vulnerable landscape. He is gathering data and evidence about the biodiversity of the area and increasing the appreciation for its ecological value amongst both urban and rural youth. The area is  a High-Biodiversity Zone with over 30 native tree species  and  100 native shrubs and herbs which provide shelter to the wildlife, rare birds and part of the Northern Aravalli leopard corridor. Mangar Bani and its surroundings also form a water catchment and groundwater recharge zone, while sequestering carbon and releasing oxygen to the National Capital Region (NCR). Sunil’s vision is to demonstrate the value of the ecosystem and secure legal protection for it in order to ensure its long term preservation. 

Sunil with maps of the region.

Sunil is unwavering in his efforts to raise awareness about the sacred grove. He began campaigning for the protection of Mangar Bani over a decade ago, and founded the Mangar Eco Club in 2015. At the Eco Club, community youth work to increase awareness about Mangar Bani and its potential among local and urban children. The members spend the monsoon months planting seeds of native species in the degraded areas, from those collected in the grove in summer. They also go birdwatching, build check dams, participate in clearing the grove and litter, and document the biodiversity of the hills.

The discovery of Palaeolithic cave-paintings in May 2021 revived calls for the forest to be protected. Activists and environmentalists like Chetan Agarwal, who have studied the forests and flora of Mangar Bani extensively have demanded that the Government should designate it as a sanctuary or national park for permanent conservation. 

Sunil has rare clarity about his vision of Mangar and his work. This made collaborating with him really straightforward. He knew the gaps in his work and we figured out what was possible for us to do to help him address these gaps. One of the challenges he was facing was with data collection - he wanted a way to document evidence of wildlife presence when they were conducting routine walks, even when formal wildlife surveys were not taking place. We worked with him to adapt his existing flora and fauna surveys into Open Data Kit (ODK) surveys. This should also make data entry and storage more efficient. Additional information about this  can be found in a previous blogpost by my colleague.

Dhok trees thriving in the Haryana Aravallis.

It was satisfying to play a small part in Sunil’s vision for Mangar. It was a privilege to get a peek into his world, and receive a glass of fresh chhach (buttermilk) from his mother. We intend to continue visiting and collaborating to build a  future where I hope the Aravallis are replete with Dhok, owls, children and leopards.

Sunil is part of the Coexistence Fellows 2022- Cohort, working with Nitesh Kaushik on understanding leopard ecology and enhancing human-leopard coexistence in the Aravallis of south Haryana.

Using PARIVESH for effective conservation advocacy

The following article authored by Pakhi Das, Shashank Srinivasan, Nancy Alice, Ashwathy Satheesan, Nandini Mehrotra and Anand Srinivasan was first published as ‘The PARIVESH Portal: Pros, Cons And How To Use’ by Sanctuary Asia on 03rd August, 2022.

Until July 15, 2014, the process for any development project to obtain a green clearance in India involved several stages - the circulation of physical project files between different officials at multiple stages of approval. File access was limited to the government, the applicants seeking green clearances, and the authorities granting approvals. Moreover, the complex nature of clearance processes and the lack of accountability created a lack of trust in the process.

To remedy this and to ensure better transparency and efficiency in the clearance process, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has established the PARIVESH website.

PARIVESH stands for Pro-Active Responsive facilitation by Interactive and Virtuous Environmental Single-window Hub. It is a web-based, workflow application that has digitised the entire process of submission and monitoring of Environment, Forest, Wildlife, and Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Clearance proposals submitted by proponents to the Central, State, and District Level authorities. The portal allows project proponents to register themselves and submit applications for various green clearances in digital formats. Although seemingly designed for project proponents, PARIVESH has become a valuable resource of collated information that is open for viewing by the general public.

There are currently more than 10,000 land-use proposals submitted for clearance at the MoEFCC in India, ranging from the construction of multi-state national highways to the establishment of small-scale cottage industries. Various government officers and committees are assessing the potential impact of these proposed projects before granting approval.

The Benefits

The PARIVESH website hosts an enormous amount of information about all old and new projects seeking green clearances, organised by state, year, category and stage of approval. The information comprises spatial data regarding the outlines of the project site location and alignment, the area of forest land being diverted, site inspection, and biodiversity assessment reports. Such information is of immense value for conservation and is freely available on the portal.

Using the appropriate search functions, project information concerning any given project is available for viewing or, in some cases, even downloading. The portal also hosts details of discussions of various expert committees through the agenda and meeting minutes, allowing people from outside the system to view and analyse the processes that ultimately affect India’s wildlife and environment. All the relevant information is presented as an application package with downloadable file attachments, which could prove beneficial for conservation research and advocacy. The quantity and variety of information on the portal make it a treasure trove for anyone and everyone interested in the green clearance space of India.

Information that can be found on the PARIVESH website about any development project in India:

1. Area sought for clearance
2. Project cost
3. Spatial information about project location in KML (Keyhole Markup Language) format, details of the land required for clearance such as forest division names, area of forest and non-forest land, village and district wise breakup of the total proposed land, etc.
4. Details of Project Proponent/User Agency
5. Cost Benefit Analysis undertaken
6. Status/links to associated environmental or wildlife clearance (if any)
7. Project plan/ feasibility reports/ site inspection reports

Non-user Friendly Interface

While introducing PARIVESH for digitising the green clearance process in India helps to bring about transparency and accountability in the system, the portal is not user-friendly and is cumbersome to navigate.

The system should be able to streamline important projects and allow easy access to relevant information however, most of the files are not appropriately tagged, making the search options unreliable. To be able to ‘find’ specific projects within a timeframe, the user must know specific project details such as the exact name of the project, project file number, and the clearance level.

Additionally, green clearances are complex processes and involve multiple levels of reviews and recommendations from various government departments. These processes are broadly divided into three clearance verticals, namely Environmental Clearance, Forests Clearance, and Wildlife Clearance. Each of these verticals has its own set of processes and organisation hierarchies that the project file must circulate through at the level of first the state and then the centre. In the instance that a user is able to trace the details of a particular project on the platform, comprehending what stage of approval that project could be at and what that stage of approval entails is a task in itself.

Problems with the PARIVESH website

1. Low Discoverability: Navigating through the PARIVESH portal is complicated as information is not organised uniformly across types/categories and sometimes even regarding regions.
2. Decision Fatigue: Because of the structure of the portal, too many steps are involved in obtaining a particular project’s information
3. Inappropriate Project Tagging: Proposals, projects or additional attached documents are not appropriately tagged, which makes finding them using the search function cumbersome.
4. Complexities of the Clearance Processes: The complexities of the clearance processes and organisational hierarchies make access to information additionally difficult. The portal does not describe the various stages of approval under different clearances.

How Can This Be Improved?

For effective conservation advocacy, knowledge of potential areas of intervention is crucial, which makes a clear understanding of what happens at each level of approval imperative.

Simple features, such as an option to view projects cumulatively across the clearance types, or to view projects on a spatial platform, would increase the efficiency of the portal manifold. The dashboards for different types/verticals of clearances use abbreviations for the stages of approval with no description of what those abbreviations stand for nor what each of those stages entails, thus creating a limitation in the understanding of the clearance procedures altogether. Furthermore, there is a lack of features that would allow users interested in specific projects to subscribe or receive notifications for any updates on the approvals.

PARIVESH, although perhaps designed for project proponents seeking clearances, has been a useful portal for other stakeholders. The inclusion of features such as these would revolutionise accessing vast amounts of publicly available data for all stakeholders and will allow them to be more involved.

To truly achieve the goal of increased transparency and efficiency in the green clearance process in India, providing better access to information is key. India has a growing population of aware citizens from an array of backgrounds and a better system would greatly empower them to play an active role in determining the future of the environment, forests, and wildlife of the country.

Flowchart illustrating an user agency’s process in PARIVESH.

How to Use PARIVESH: A step-by-step guide with tips

PARIVESH hosts a large volume of project information, which is of immense use for awareness, campaigning or advocacy. However, navigating the portal to get to relevant information often involves many steps. It is important to narrow down search to the farthest extent possible by applying relevant filters. One might also have to scan through multiple project forms and verify information from other media articles and web reports. However, if a project is cleared, it is mandatory for it to have gone through PARIVESH, and information about it must be available on the portal. Here's how to access this information.

Step 1: Make a list of all the known information about the project one is seeking information on

For example, let us do so for the Etalin Hydropower Project.

Critical known information about Etalin hydropower project
- State name: Arunachal Pradesh
- Area: Dibang Valley
- Project Proponent: Jindal Power Ltd.
- Category of Project: Hydroelectric/hydel
- Date proposed: Before 2016 (although not crucial, it is often helpful to review other existing information/media reports about the project of interest. Information such as the timeline of the project helps in narrowing down search)

Step 2: Explore PARIVESH Portal

Note: All projects proposed on PARIVESH are organised according to the type of clearance sought into three categories -- environment, forest and wildlife clearance.

To find information, each of these types can be explored independently. The following sections provide a step by step guide to navigating the portal.

For Forest Clearance
1. Open https://parivesh.nic.in/ homepage, scroll down and select ‘Forest Clearance’.

2. To view all forest clearance projects, select ‘Dashboard’ option on the header.

3. Once clicked dashboard, apply filters to narrow down search filters such as state, category and hit search.

Note: Projects under forest clearance on PARIVESH are organised in two categories - Stage I and Stage II. If the status of clearance of the project is known, lead search by that status. However, if this information is not known, explore both stages.

4. To view all Stage 1 projects, click on the ‘Form A part II, Under Stage I’ button on the dashboard. As seen below, there are a total of 12 hydel projects proposed in Arunachal Pradesh, which are currently under stage 1.

5. Click on ‘ACCEPTED’ (these are all the relevant projects according to the applied filters).

6. A dataset of all projects as per the chosen category will be displayed with unique project IDs, and other relevant information, which should allow one to review and identify the project of interest.

Things to note while trying to identify project of interest:
(i) Is the project proponent the same as known information? Eg. Jindal Power Ltd.
(ii) Is the forest division/area the same as known information? Eg. Dibang Valley.
(iii) Is the project proposed in the known timeline? Eg. 2015.

(Screen grab of all hydel projects in Arunachal as on May 5, 2022)

7. Each project has a corresponding form, which hosts information about the project.
To view this information and to recognise project of interest, click on magnifying glass icon under column titled ‘View Report on Allocation of Fresh Forest Land (Form-A) Part-I’

8. The Form A part I includes information such as the forest division details, area for clearance, spatial data, additional documents, etc. all in downloadable formats.

9. All the documents and the form itself can be downloaded as PDFs. It is important to note that until the project is granted final clearance, the proponents can make edits, add or delete files on the portal.

Note: The precedent blogpost on decoding and navigating PARIVESH can be read here.