The first Indian Census was carried out in 1871 and it had recorded 5.5 million fewer women and girls than men and boys. A century and two decades later, in 1992, Amartya Sen talked about an estimated deficit of 37 million of them drawing attention to the ‘missing women’ of South Asia.It is now affirmed that it is sex-selective abortions that is leading to shortage of baby girls in India.
An increasingly masculinising population has thus been a continuing historical reality in India. The first censuses by the British administration in colonial India had noted the unusually male-heavy character of the Indian population.
However, in the absence of reliable statistics, it took decades for scholars to make sense of this oddity and to establish that the inflated sex ratios observed in many parts of India since the 19th century was more than an artificial artefact.
One of the contemporary demographic concerns is that of progressively declining number of girls in relation to boys in the age-group of 0-6. This is commonly known as child sex ratio. The last two decades, however, have seen a new era of sex discrimination that differs from the ancient custom of infanticide and neglect of girl children.
The elimination of girls from being born is now driven by prenatal sex-determination tests. It is symptomatic of how the ‘modern’ concept of having fewer children – a smaller family – juxtaposes with ‘traditional’ idea of having sons, the social and geographical spread of which is far wider beyond the traditionally known pockets of adverse child sex ratios.
It was the 1991 decadal census when the disturbing feature of India’s demography, the declining number of girls vis-à-vis boys in the age-group 0-6, the child sex ratio had once again caught the attention of scholars, activists and policy makers across the country. The Census in that year had published the population figures for the age under 7 for the first time.
The child sex ratio has since been declining even more sharply. In 1991, for the country as a whole, there were 945 girls to 1000 boys, five points short of generally accepted child sex ratio of 950 girls per 1000 boys. The latest 2011 Census (with the child sex ratio of 919) did not bring any relief except that the rate of declining sex ratios had slowed down and the previously dismal sex ratios had ‘improved’ in some parts. For example, some of the worst-hit states in 2001 such as Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat have now gained in terms of number of girls.
However, this ‘gain’ has its underbelly for even with the improvement, Haryana and Punjab continue to have the CSR of 830 and 846 respectively, which are below the critical 850 mark. More importantly, the 2011 Census shows rapid spread of districts/states with the low CSRs – i.e., Maharashtra (883) and Uttar Pradesh (899).
In general tribal communities are known to be more gender-egalitarian. The 2011 CSR figures seem to defy this. Some of the districts with high tribal population such as Rajouri (Jammu and Kashmir), Karauli (Himachal Pradesh) and Surat in Gujarat do have low CSRs in 2011. Jalgaon and Ahmadnagar in Maharashtra are also no exceptions.
In short, there is a stark regional differentiation in CSR whereby the states located in the southern part of India do not share the abysmally skewed CSR (in favour of baby boys) as compared to the north in general and the north-west in particular.
A note of caution is in order here: the overall pattern may exhibit fewer girls than boys in several areas. However, the processes leading to the regional picture are quite different. The intensity of sex-selective abortions amongst the urban affluent classes in the southern neighbourhoods of New Delhi or Mumbai is nowhere to be matched by the long-term neglect and preferential treatment of sons over daughters in the rural settings of Madhya Pradesh or Rajasthan.
In contrast, Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh may resort to sex-selective abortions. Also, not all daughters are unwanted; sex ratios become increasingly skewed in favour of boys with the numbers of birth – although ironically enough more so for educated mothers.
Most countries around the world have a small imbalance in their juvenile sex ratios for natural reasons i.e., there is a biological tendency for more male than female babies to be born to compensate for the slightly higher risk of mortality among newborn boys. Thus, fewer abortions and retention of male foetuses with improved reproductive health-care facilities; selective undercount of girls and mortality differentials have conventionally been cited as the reasons for fewer numbers of girls as compared to boys in the Indian population. Not only these propositions have been questioned, scholars point out that the recent decline in the number of girls as compared to boys is too sharp to be accounted for by these measures. After much negation, debates and discussions, it has now been affirmed that it is the sex-selective abortions that is leading to shortage of baby girls in India.
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- Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund.
- LEAF is supported by transnational corporations (TNCs) like Unilever plc, Amazon.com, Inc, Nestle, Airbnb, Inc as well as Emergent, a US-based non-profit.
- The world lost more than 10 million hectares of primary tropical forest cover last year, an area roughly the size of Switzerland.
- Ending tropical and subtropical forest loss by 2030 is a crucial part of meeting global climate, biodiversity and sustainable development goals. Protecting tropical forests offers one of the biggest opportunities for climate action in the coming decade.
- Tropical forests are massive carbon sinks and by investing in their protection, public and private players are likely to stock up on their carbon credits.
- The LEAF coalition initiative is a step towards concretising the aims and objectives of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism.
- REDD+ was created by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It monetised the value of carbon locked up in the tropical forests of most developing countries, thereby propelling these countries to help mitigate climate change.
- It is a unique initiative as it seeks to help developing countries in battling the double-edged sword of development versus ecological commitment.
- The initiative comes at a crucial time. The tropics have lost close to 12.2 million hectares (mha) of tree cover last year according to global estimates released by Global Forest Watch.
- Of this, a loss of 4.2 mha occurred within humid tropical primary forests alone. It should come as no surprise that most of these lost forests were located in the developing countries of Latin America, Africa and South Asia.
- Brazil has fared dismally on the parameter of ‘annual primary forest loss’ among all countries. It has lost 1.7 mha of primary forests that are rich storehouse of carbon. India’s estimated loss in 2020 stands at 20.8 kilo hectares.
- Between 2002-2020, Brazil’s total area of humid primary forest reduced by 7.7 per cent while India’s reduced by 3.4 per cent.
- Although the loss in India is not as drastic as in Brazil, its position is nevertheless precarious. For India, this loss is equivalent to 951 metric tonnes worth carbon dioxide emissions released in the atmosphere.
- It is important to draw comparisons between Brazil and India as both countries have adopted a rather lackadaisical attitude towards deforestation-induced climate change. The Brazilian government hardly did anything to control the massive fires that gutted the Amazon rainforest in 2019.
- It is mostly around May that forest fires peak in India. However, this year India, witnessed massive forest fires in early March in states like Odisha, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram among others.
- The European Union’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service claimed that 0.2 metric tonnes of carbon was emitted in the Uttarakhand forest fires.
- Implementation of the LEAF Coalition plan will help pump in fresh rigour among developing countries like India, that are reluctant to recognise the contributions of their forest dwelling populations in mitigating climate change.
- With the deadline for proposal submission fast approaching, India needs to act swiftly on a revised strategy.
- Although India has pledged to carry out its REDD+ commitments, it is impossible to do so without seeking knowledge from its forest dwelling population.
Context:-
At the recently concluded Leaders’ Summit on Climate in April 2021, Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund plan that shall be offered to countries committed to arrest the decline of their tropical forests by 2030.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]What is LEAF Coalition?
Why LEAF Coalition?
Brazil & India
According to the UN-REDD programme, after the energy sector, deforestation accounts for massive carbon emissions — close to 11 per cent — in the atmosphere. Rapid urbanisation and commercialisation of forest produce are the main causes behind rampant deforestation across tropical forests.
Tribes, Forests and Government
Disregarding climate change as a valid excuse for the fires, Indian government officials were quick to lay the blame for deforestation on activities of forest dwellers and even labelled them “mischievous elements” and “unwanted elements”.
Policy makers around the world have emphasised the role of indigenous tribes and local communities in checking deforestation. These communities depend on forests for their survival as well as livelihood. Hence, they understand the need to protect forests. However, by posing legitimate environmental concerns as obstacles to real development, governments of developing countries swiftly avoid protection of forests and rights of forest dwellers.
For instance, the Government of India has not been forthcoming in recognising the socio-economic, civil, political or even cultural rights of forest dwellers. According to data from the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs in December, 2020 over 55 per cent of this population has still not been granted either individual or community ownership of their lands.
To make matters worse, the government has undertaken systematic and sustained measures to render the landmark Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 ineffective in its implementation. The Act had sought to legitimise claims of forest dwellers on occupied forest land.
Various government decisions have seriously undermined the position of indigenous people within India. These include proposing amendments to the obsolete Indian Forest Act, 1927 that give forest officials the power to take away forest dwellers’ rights and to even use firearms with impunity.
There is also the Supreme Court’s order of February, 2019 directing state governments to evict illegal encroachers of forest land or millions of forest dwellers inhabiting forests since generations as a measure to conserve wildlife. Finally, there is the lack of data on novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) deaths among the forest dwelling population;
Tardy administration, insufficient supervision, apathetic attitude and a lack of political intent defeat the cause of forest dwelling populations in India, thereby directly affecting efforts at arresting deforestation.
Way Forward
Tuntiak Katan, a global indigenous leader from Ecuador and general coordinator of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, aptly indicated the next steps at the Climate Summit:
“The first step is recognition of land rights. The second step is the recognition of the contributions of local communities and indigenous communities, meaning the contributions of indigenous peoples.We also need recognition of traditional knowledge practices in order to fight climate change”
Perhaps India can begin by taking the first step.