Opposition of Karnataka to Western Ghats ESA Draft

Gist On September 22 , the Karnataka Legislature unanimously passed a resolution rejecting the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change's MoEFCC seventh draft notification to declare parts of the Western Ghats as an Ecologically Sensitive Area ESA . The State firmly opposed the boundaries demarcated by the K. Kasturirangan Committee , arguing that the panel's reliance on satellite data unjustly restricts agricultural and residential lands without ground verification. This persistent standoff stalls a decade-long conservation mandate for a UNESCO World Heritage site, highlighting the enduring governance friction between top-down ecological conservation and local livelihoods. Background The Western Ghats is a globally recognized biodiversity hotspot crucial to India's monsoon systems. In 2011 , the Madhav Gadgil-led Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel WGEEP recommended declaring the entire region as an ESA with stringent, tiered restrictions. Facing severe political backlash from state governments, the Centre constituted the High Level Working Group HLWG under space scientist K. Kasturirangan in 2012 to review the WGEEP report. The Kasturirangan panel adopted a more lenient approach, dividing the region into 'natural' and 'cultural' landscapes, recommending that…