Thinking Environment Contextually: Manipur's case
Amar Yumnam *
In the latest budget of the union presented the other day, we do not find much new initiative and new thinking. But, in a very subtle way, there is reference to the crisis of global warming. India, despite the overt defiance to comply with pressures from the global powers, has now somehow come round to the need for addressing the threats posed by this process.
Environment Concerns vis-à-vis Global Warming: We do not say that the government of India has not so far been blind to the issues surrounding the degradation of environment. Indeed, it has been. But after the Stern Report and the latest Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the issue has taken an altogether new dimension.
Whereas we have been talking in Environmental Economics of the various approaches to value the environment in a purely indirect way assuming the absence of a market for the environment, the new understanding along global warming is taking us fast into a scenario where environment becomes a directly marketable product. The pure public goods nature of absence of a price is now being replaced by a scenario where this public good is to be priced and rewarded. A peculiar characteristic of environment is its manifesting globally the impact of local interventions.
The Context: There are two backgrounds relevant to the thinking of environment in the context of Manipur. One is the mention on global warming in the latest budget of the union. Second we have the 13th Finance Commission now in place. These two are absolutely convenient timing for thinking contextually for our environment in a way so that we can capitalize on that. I emphasize the need for contextual thinking for one of the greatest drawbacks of government of Manipur is the inability of its bureaucracy to think contextually having been slaved for so long to work along dotted lines and think only in a way to tail along the so-called national approaches; many of them consider their experience as the ultimate knowledge itself rather than as a means to evolve new knowledge. As I said before, the thinking right now in the world is increasingly towards appreciation of the heterogeneity, which implies understanding the contextual realities. Besides, environmental interventions are necessarily to be done contextually though the impacts are felt globally.
What We Have: Now what we need to appreciate is the wealth we have in our environment. We know that we now have a very bad dusty atmosphere in and around Imphal at least while at the same time our richness in the environment is under serious threat.
In this context, we need at least a two-pronged strategy. First, we must in right earnest initiate a drive to market our environment. We have to start a move for marketing our environment. Our environment should be taken as a marketable global public good. This way, the very people dependent on exploiting the environment would switch over to a habit of nourishing the environment while at the same time not compromising their livelihood qualities.
The second strategy relates to taking advantage of the formation of the new Finance Commission. On the scores of size of territory and population, our share is definitely low. But we can definitely argue that our global public good in terms of our environment is better than many other States, and we should be accordingly rewarded appropriately. Since the mechanization route of industrialization would be uneconomical for us, and since a good environment is now globally valued, our environment should be appropriately valued. We should get a share of the Central coffers for the quality of our environment in the same way a State gets a share on the basis of tax mobilization, size of territory or population.
The Implications: Once we start understanding our environment as a marketable global public good, the implications for policy are many and all in the positive way. The biggest implication would be for the industrial and tourism policies. Of these two, the economic implication for tourism is much more significant. We have examples galore globally to think of strategies relevant for contextual application.
The Challenge: Ultimately, the challenge now facing the State is to enhance the capability of the bureaucracy to apply their mind contextually and free them from their cocoons of omnipotence.
* Amar Yumnam writes regularly for The Sangai Express. The writer can be contacted at yumnam1(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk. This article was webcasted on March 04, 2008.
* Comments posted by users in this discussion thread and other parts of this site are opinions of the individuals posting them (whose user ID is displayed alongside) and not the views of e-pao.net. We strongly recommend that users exercise responsibility, sensitivity and caution over language while writing your opinions which will be seen and read by other users. Please read a complete Guideline on using comments on this website.