The Karnataka State Wildlife Board (SWB) will meet on September 5 to discuss its earlier decision to reject a proposal to declare the Hesaraghatta grasslands as a conservation reserve. The meeting is consequent to the High Court setting aside the SWB’s decision last year and directing the board to reconsider the matter. The Chief Conservator of Forests (CCF) had submitted a proposal that the Hesaraghatta lakebed and grasslands should be declared as a conservation reserve area as they are important reservoirs of biodiversity and a refuge for endangered species of birds, mammals and butterflies. The petitioners who approached the court had submitted that the board had rejected that proposal under duress and without any discussion. It is a matter of record that Yelahanka MLA S R Vishwanath, whose constituency encompasses Hesaraghatta, had barged into the board’s meeting on January 19, 2021 and vociferously demanded that the CCF’s proposal be rejected as it would impact commercial activity in the area. B S Yediyurappa, the then Chief Minister and thus Chairman of the SWB, had meekly submitted to the demand. A few board members subsequently wrote to the government opposing the decision, while two environmentalists approached the High Court.
The court held that the SWB had passed the order rejecting the CCF’s proposal in a cryptic and cavalier manner, ignoring provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and set it aside saying it suffered from the vice of non-application of mind. It must be hoped that the SWB, now headed by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, has felt suitably chastised by the court. Politicians have had an eye on the grasslands for long, given their proximity to Bengaluru and their high real estate value. Successive governments have had plans to set up a film city at Hesaraghatta. In 2021, the BJP government came up with a new proposal to set up a theme park and to make the grasslands a weekend holiday destination for children. There is another proposal to convert a portion of the 5,000-acre area into a cow shelter.
While forests are usually the focus of conservation activities, the government has ignored the importance of dry grasslands in the ecosystem and their role in supporting various life forms. No commercial activity should be allowed in the Hesaraghatta grasslands as that would eventually lead to the formation of layouts and other commercial activities and destroy the grasslands. They should be considered as a lung space of the city. Protecting the grasslands will not affect the mobility of neighbouring villagers or their livelihoods. The government should lay its hands off Hesaraghatta and declare the entire grasslands a conservation reserve, just as Silent Valley was declared as a reserve forest in the 1980s.