om e 's Ali a - Land ss De elo en - Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, India Office

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Women’s Alienation
of forest resources and making it
easier for them to overlook several
constitutional and legal provisions
to ensure local participation.
Forces displacing local communities
adopt a plethora of tools to
gain control. Divisions of local
communities in the name of the
religion, caste, political, economic
and other social groupings are subtle
measures to undermine collective
capabilities.
Ecological Damage
Among various industries, mining
causes the most ecological damage.
Table 16 shows that a large area of
forest land has been transferred for
mining since the enactment of the
Forest Conservation Act in 1980. In
the absence of any clear statement
of priorities of the country on
the exploitation of resources,
corporations are devising new ways
to grab the wealth of the nation for
small short-term gains. The rapidity
with which the global interests want
to usurp these resources is reflected
in the stock markets today. It is
with the same rapidity that mining
is devouring land and livelihood of
many communities.
Table 16: Land Transferred for
Mining Purposes
Year Land transferred (in ha.)
1983-84 2.2
1984-85 2.0
1988-89 1547.0
1989-90 4089.0
1990-91 208.7
1999-2000 2455.0
2000-01 58.8
Total 8362.7
The exploitation of minerals in
Uttarakhand has come at a price.
The ecological damage caused by
mining of minerals can be best
illustrated by impact of limestone
quarrying in Doon Valley. Quarrying
has disturbed the ecological balance
of the valley, which is geologically
unstable due to the existence of
a tectonically active zone and a
geological thrust
The extraction of minerals disturbs
the land-soil-vegetation system
as it removes vegetation and the
top soil, for surface quarrying. The
precipitous slopes and high rainfall
accentuate this locally, which add to
the land’s instability.