Media, Politics and Environment: Analyzing Experiences from Europe and Asia 3031312511, 9783031312519

Table of contents :
Foreword: Why Do People (not) Organise Themselves to Assert Environmental Interests?
Initial Thesis: As the Collective Action Theory Claims, There Is no Way to Organise Public Interest
Antithesis: Public Interest Groups Organise Themselves More Successfully than Ever, Especially Regarding Environmental Matters
Reasoning Thesis: The Reasons for Shifts in Favour of Public Interest Groups in Environmental Politics Are the Change in Value...
Distinguishing Thesis: Up Until Now, Public Interest Can Be Especially Well Organised in Industrialised Countries that Have an...
Concluding Thesis: There Are Signs that the Global Effect of the Consequences of Climate Change Creates Worldwide Organisation...
References
Foreword: How Can Communication Change Attitudes and Behaviour? Twelve Rules for Successful Political Campaigns
Introduction
Twelve rules
References
Contents
Introduction
Multiple Modernities and the Emergence of Environmental Policies
The Environment in Politics and Media: The German and Indian Examples
The Environment in the Media and as a Common Good
References
Part I: Media and the Environment
The Hybrid Media System as Battlefield for Climate Politics: Media and Politics in Transformation
References
Enquiring Framing in India´s Mainstream Newspapers: Interpreting Frames of the Climate Change News in India During COP-26
Introduction
Framing and Its Importance
Methodology
Content Analysis
Critical Discourse Analysis and Frame Analysis
India and the World on Climate Change Debate
Media and the Climate Change
Climate Change Policies in India
Interpreting Frames
Enquiring Frames in the Four Newspapers
Conclusion
References
Food and Nutrition Scandals in Germany Since the 1950s: Social Value Change and Scandalisation as Catalysts for Environmental ...
Introduction
Change in Values and in the Media
A Brief History of Food and Dietary Scandals
The First Food Scandals
Dietary Scandals and Consumer Panics
The Scandal in Permanence and Negative Nutrition
Summary
References
Social Media and the Environmental Discourse in Vietnam
Introduction
Social Media Usage in Vietnam
The Environmental Discourse on Social Media: Case Study
Role of Social Media
Conclusion
References
Media, Politics, and Environment from a Federal Politics Perspective in India
Introduction
Media in India: A Brief History
Federal Politics and the Complexity in India
Environmental Legislation and Issues in India
The Case for Civil Society and Media Engagement on Environmental Issues
Civil Society, Social Media, and Environmental Issues
Conclusion
Media and Environmental Destruction in Indonesia
Introduction
Environmental Problems in Indonesia
Media and Environment in Indonesia: Ownership
Media and Environment in Indonesia: Risks for Journalists
Media and Environment in Indonesia: How to Build More Security for Journalists Reporting About Environmental Issues?
Summary and Conclusion
References
On the Missing Links in Climate Change Communication in Two States of India: Problems, Politics, and Solutions
Climate Change and Risks in India
Tamil Nadu and West Bengal: Verge of Climate Change and Risks
Tamil Nadu
West Bengal
Climate Change Communication in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal: Missing Links
The Solutions? Discussions on Climate Change Communication Theories
Agenda-Setting Theory
Cultivation Theory
Local Media Initiative: Some Recent Trends
Reinforcing Media Effects Locally
References
Mediated Politics and the Environment: A Case study of Odd-Even Scheme to Curb Air Pollution in Delhi
References
Part II: Environmental Politics, Mobilisations and Media
State´s Commitment to Environmental Governance in India: Struggle Between Developmental Pressure and Sustainability Challenges
Introduction
Environment in Pre-colonial India
Colonial State and Environmental Governance in India
Post-colonial Environmental Framing and Environmental Governance
Environment in the National Political Agenda: Constitutional Amendments, Legislations and Judicial Interventions
Institutional Environmentalism and Planning
Environmental Decision Making in India: An Appraisal
Challenges and Opportunities of Environmental Governance in India
Conclusion: New Agenda of Environmental Governance
References
Environmental Resistance in India: Special Reference to Northeast India
The Objective of the Study
Methodology
Resource Appropriation and Environmental Movements in India
Special Reference to Northeast India
Popular Resistance to Mega Dams
Conclusion
References
Perspectives and Orientations of the Communist Party of Vietnam on Environmental Protection
Introduction
Key Points in the Communist Party of Vietnam´s Perspectives and Orientations of Environmental Protection over the Past 30 Years
Assessment of the Communist Party of Vietnam on Environmental Protection in Vietnam for the Period 2016-2021
Vision, Goal Orientation, and Solutions to Protect the Environment in the Period 2021-2030
Conclusion
References
Environmental Concerns in Sri Lanka: A Political Perspective
Introduction
Key Environmental Issues
Environmental Governance
Environment and Politics
Recent Tragedy
Conclusion
References
Environmental Policy in Indonesia from the Post-New Order Era to the Present: Positive Adjustments and Limitations
Introduction
Background of Environmental Policy Adjustment Since the End of the New Order Regime
Positive Environmental Policy Adjustments
Enhancing the Role of People and Local Authorities in Environmental Management
Intensifying Procedures and Systematizing Processes for Environmental Management
Supplementing Regulations on Minimum Administrative and Criminal Penalties While Increasing Fines for Environmental Violations
Policy Towards the Goal of Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Limitations in Indonesia´s Current Environmental Policy
Potential Deficiencies in Natural Resources Management and Lack of Integration in Customary Law
Law No. 11/2020 on Job Creation and the Risks of Exacerbating Environmental Degradation
Discussion
Conclusion and Recommendations
References
Aspects of Civil Engagement, Media, and Environmental Issues in Japan
Chapter: Civic Movement in Japan. History, Trends-Apathy?
Chapter: COVID-19 and Fukushima: Significance for Civil Society Engagement and Media Culture on the Basis of Environmental Iss...
The Example of Hangorin no Kai: Combining Olympics and Environmental Protests
Waters Back into the Ocean?
Chapter: Social Media as Potential Platforms for Civic Networking
Final Remarks
References
Part III: Media, Environment, and the Commons
Environmental Policy and the Tragedy of the Commons: A German´s Impressions of India
Saving the Environment in Germany
Governing the Commons in India
Challenges
Size, Homogeneity, Stability
Final Word from a German
References
Expanding Urban, Shrinking Rural: Land and Common Grabs and Environmental Degradation in Peri-Urban Kolkata, India
Introduction
Data and Methodology
Rural to Urban: Understanding the Transitions and Political Economy of Expropriation of Land and Dispossession in Rajarhat
Expanding Urban, Receding Rural: Land and Commons Grab and the Neoliberal City-Making
Land Grab, Neoliberal City-Making and Resource Degradation in Rajarhat
From Local to National and Transnational: Contemporary Land Grabs and the Media
Conclusion
References
The Hungry Tide: The Problem of the Commons in the Sundarbans of Bangladesh
Introduction
The Fate of the Sundarbans Is Tied Up: The Tragedy of the Commons!
The Sundarbans: A Reality Check
The Tragedy of the Commons and the Belongingness of the Resources: State, People, or the Planet?
The Loss of Traditional Knowledge
The Result of the Human-Environment Interaction and the Poverty-Environment Nexus
The Development-Progress-Environment Nexus
The Urban-Local Disconnect and the Urban Imagination of the Sundarbans
Concluding Observations
References
Summary
Detlef Briesen and Sarada Prasanna Das
Media and the Environment
Environmental Politics, Mobilisations and Media
Media, the Environment and the Commons
Executive Summary and Further Perspectives for Research

Citation preview

Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication

Detlef Briesen Sarada Prasanna Das   Editors

Media, Politics and Environment Analyzing Experiences from Europe and Asia

Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication Series Editors Stylianos Papathanassopoulos, Department of Communication and Media Studies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece Susana Salgado, Instituto de Ciencias Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

This book series offers an outlet for cutting-edge research on all areas at the nexus of politics, the media, and political communication. Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication (SSMPC) welcomes theoretically sound and empirically robust monographs, edited volumes and handbooks from various disciplines and approaches on topics such as the role and function of communication in the realm of politics including campaigns and elections, media, and political institutions; the relations between political actors, citizens, and the media; as well as research investigating the influence of media coverage on political behavior or attitudes, party communication strategies, political campaigns, agenda-setting, and political journalism. All books in this series are peer-reviewed.

Detlef Briesen • Sarada Prasanna Das Editors

Media, Politics and Environment Analyzing Experiences from Europe and Asia

Editors Detlef Briesen History and Cultural Studies Justus Liebig University Gießen Gießen, Hessen, Germany

Sarada Prasanna Das Initiative on Climate Energy and Environment (ICEE) Centre for Policy Research New Delhi, India

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ISSN 2731-4081 ISSN 2731-409X (electronic) Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication ISBN 978-3-031-31251-9 ISBN 978-3-031-31252-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31252-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Foreword: Why Do People (not) Organise Themselves to Assert Environmental Interests?1

Initial Thesis: As the Collective Action Theory Claims, There Is no Way to Organise Public Interest The term public interest is in many ways a fuzzy one. Many scientific disciplines, especially the social and economic sciences, deal with the question of how this term can possibly be measured and linked to the academic discourse. It would go beyond the scope of this presentation to go into detail on the many different definitions and implications. Therefore, let me only mention two qualities that characterise public goods such as the climate and the environment: they are non-excludable, meaning that nobody can be deprived of their consumption. And they are non-competitive, meaning that one individual’s consumption of the good will not put another individual at a disadvantage. Closely connected to the term is the question why people should actually commit themselves to a certain cause if they might as well profit from its outcome without contributing to it at all. Some essential input in this discussion goes back to Mancur Olson. He describes this paradox as free rider problem. People prefer to benefit from the revenues of large groups without taking action themselves. That is the central reason for why public interest is impossible to organise. To make it anyway and in order to preserve the group, belonging to a group must be accompanied by certain material benefits, i.e. private goods. These private goods have to be independent of the public goods that are to be generated.

1 Transcription of the speech delivered in the international conference on Media, Politics and Environment at Pondicherry.

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Antithesis: Public Interest Groups Organise Themselves More Successfully than Ever, Especially Regarding Environmental Matters Contrary to Olson’s assumption, public interest groups have multiplied over the last decades and have virtually exploded. Civil and human rights organisations (Amnesty International), good governance groups (Transparency International) and especially the environmental movement (WWF, Greenpeace) are organised both globally and regionally. During this process, they have formed member groups and built up cadre organisations (Greenpeace, Amnesty, Transparency). In addition to that, informal organisational forms have established themselves, Fridays for Future being the most prominent example in recent times. New terms have emerged for this form of organisation: new social movements, third sector, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society. Public interest is the prime focus of all these movements. By contrast, the organisation and mobilisation data of classic associations is declining. That holds true for union memberships as much as it does for employer organisations—interestingly enough two of the groups that are, according to Olson, self-competent in dealing with both organisation and conflict. Other large organisations in the Western world, such as the Churches in particular, also witness a diminishing number of members. How can that be explained?

Reasoning Thesis: The Reasons for Shifts in Favour of Public Interest Groups in Environmental Politics Are the Change in Values, the Globalisation and the Development of the Media Landscape With increasing prosperity, material values—like income, social security and quality of life—turn relative. Once the basic needs of one’s existence are satisfied, one can focus on new goals. That is the core thesis of Ronald Inglehart’s theory of changing values which is based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Post-materialists will turn towards the new values of self-realisation, self-determination, participation as well as civil and human rights. They will show solidarity with the global south. That is not wrong, but neither does it reflect the full picture. Because in reality, the upper middle class is happy to put a Greenpeace sticker on their Porsche, eats vegan only and bans plastic from their households, but also travels by plane to their holiday destination on the Maldives. Therefore, the fundamental, underlying attitude actually remains unchanged. Putnam’s theory on social capital also fails to provide clarification since it focuses too much on formal organisations. These are losing members on a massive

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scale. However, the informal movements are growing constantly, a development only insufficiently explained by the social capital theory. Globalisation, on the other hand, offers many explanations for the new situation: climate knows no borders. In the past, the focus was limited to noxious emissions from chimneys, wastewater and waste pits. This has changed. The effect can be felt globally. Environmental issues are also increasingly dealt with globally: climate change conferences, for example, are no longer dominated by governments but by social movements, scientists and experts. That is a change in paradigm. Finally, the changing media landscape is also pertinent. We will hear more about this in some of the upcoming presentations. Global media in the form of social media is a new phenomenon. Not even authoritarian states such as China or Russia can seal themselves off from that. That is new, that is important and that will change the world. Because social media will carry the implementations of global environmental problems into the world.

Distinguishing Thesis: Up Until Now, Public Interest Can Be Especially Well Organised in Industrialised Countries that Have an Established Knowledge Society with a High Standard of Living Transnational comparisons are always problematic. However, it is possible to identify certain patterns when it comes to the ways in which public interest can be organised. The World Values Survey wants to illustrate precisely these patterns. It registers the change in values and their effect on the political system. Societies are positioned on a two-dimensional scale and are compared with each other regarding the shape of their value system. The first-dimension ranges from traditional to secular, rational values. The second dimension indicates the weight societies attribute to mere survival or self-realisation. The chart (see slide 7) shows that value systems are governed by a certain dynamic in the long run. The results underline: people only attend their need for self-realisation once their elementary basic needs are satisfied. The same applies to such high ideals as democracy. The satisfaction of basic needs and an improved standard of living go hand in hand with the process of modernisation. Once several succeeding generations experience wealth and physical security, the establishment of post-materialist value systems becomes more and more probable. An essential part of that value system is characterised by commitment to environmental protection.

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Concluding Thesis: There Are Signs that the Global Effect of the Consequences of Climate Change Creates Worldwide Organisational Abilities in Public Interest The number of environmental disasters is on the rise worldwide, and so is the number of those affected and sometimes considerably harmed by them. Where damage is done and people suffer, media attention is often close-by. This way, the effects of climate change are more and more put in the public eye. Admittedly, some activities may be motivated by the attempt to make a name for oneself, especially where there is great media coverage. But nonetheless: the change in attitudes leads to activities from which the environmental movement benefits. Extensive and global studies such as the Environmental Performance Index show that the efforts to protect both climate and environment are already accomplishing results. At the same time, the international community still has a lot of work to do in order to comply with their high aims. An essential problem becomes obvious at this point: environmental health, like the supply with clean water and the reduction of air pollution, is on the rise where wealth is also increasing, but as such it is at the same time in conflict with the vitality of ecosystems. The central task of international climate politics over the years to come will therefore be the design of a trade-off between these two components, with ideal results for the environment. Let’s step into the future together! (professor emeritus), Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf, Germany

Ulrich von Alemann

References von Alemann, U. (1978). Organisierte Interessen in der Bundesrepublik. Leske + Budrich. Brinkmann, H. U. (1984). Public Interest Groups im politischen System der USA. Leske Verlag und Budrich GmbH. Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective action. Public goods and the theory of groups. Harvard University Press. Ostrom, E., & Ahn, T. K. (2003). Foundations of social capital. Edward Elgar Publishing Limited. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling Alone. The collapse and revival of American community. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks. Tambovtsev, V. (2016). Public Goods and Public Interest: Is there a Connection? Voprosy ėkonomiki. 46(2) 3-18 Van Deth, J. W., Maraffi, M., Newton, K., & Whiteley, P. F. (Hrsg.). (1999). Social Capital and European Democracy. Routledge. World Values Survey Association (Hrsg.). (2008). World Values Research. Stockholm.

Foreword: How Can Communication Change Attitudes and Behaviour? Twelve Rules for Successful Political Campaigns2

Introduction Currently, in India a governmental campaign aimed to clean up the streets and eradicate open defecation through toilets is running (Government of India, n.d.). There are some other examples for top-down campaigns in India, like Green Good Deeds—a campaign focusing on small deeds, which each individual may adopt and thus join the cause of preserving the environment (Business Standard, 2019). And there are some recent interesting examples for bottom-up campaigns in India: Clean Air India Movement (CLAIM) (The Hans India, 2015). Or: Help Delhi Breath—a campaign launched by Purpose Climate Lab, a group of concerned citizens (Purpose, n.d.). Or: Rally for Rivers—the campaign aimed to raise awareness about the dire situation (Isha Foundation, n.d.). In the future, such communication campaigns will be more important for India and Indian government, too, because the Indian population or parts of the population have to be convinced of environmental goals. In our country, many political campaigns are running, for example top-down campaigns, like a governmental campaign to reduce plastic waste—looking for a way out of the throwaway society. Or bottom-up campaigns: In 2018, Greta Thunberg started protesting by herself every Friday outside the Swedish parliament to push for climate action. Since then, Fridays for Future has become a global movement, inspiring students around the world to fight for climate action. There are political campaigns everywhere all the time. Moreover, there are uncountable image campaigns by companies or promotional campaigns for products. This speech will focus on political campaigns—communication campaigns with a political goal. With campaigns governments, parties and other political actors fight for public opinion. Campaigns are the centre of strategic communication. Communication aims at changing people’s opinion and ultimately also their behaviour. People should quit smoking or participate in voting or take action against landmines. With a campaign 2

See footnote 1. ix

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you can set topics, thus influence what people talk about, for example that one should move more. You can distribute information, for example about effects of plastic waste. You can convey attitudes, thus influence how people perceive topics like immigration, for example. You can initiate action, thus influence what people do, for example for what they donate money. You can reach such goals with a campaign in an efficient manner. As little effort as possible, as much benefit as possible. It is helpful to learn from experience. Rules are compressed experience. Rules should be followed—but always be checked and updated. The most important experiences can be summarised in twelve rules.

Twelve rules Rule 1: Plan your campaign from desired end to start, but check your planning from start to end! Any plan is better than no plan! A successful communication campaign needs to be established strategically and planned with an eye on the future. Planning is action on trial. This manifests itself in a plan, which you should always revise. You should keep an eye on the entire campaign all the time and react to changing circumstances, for example the sudden appearance of new opponents or toppling funding. You also need to plan for communication during crises, for example a natural disaster or a political scandal. You can never anticipate when such a crisis might occur and what exactly it is, but you can practice for such situations and be prepared: Design a website for the emergency, write a handbook for the crisis, build an alarm chain, etc. You can recognise professional crisis communication by measuring how fast and appropriate the reaction during a crisis is—due to being well prepared. Rule 2: Set Realistic Goals for Your Campaign! Goals are the pivotal point of a campaign: What do you want to achieve with your campaign? Much depends on this. Do you want to change opinions? Do you want to promote action? What are your long-term goals and what are your medium- and short-term goals? Define milestones, which give you a clue about how close you have come to reaching your goals. The goals should be realistic, they should be reachable under given circumstances with given resources especially within the given timeframe. Phrase your goals precisely. Do not say: Everyone older than 50 has to go to cancer screening. Better: The percentage of women going to breast cancer screening should be increased by 10% in one year. Rule 3: Get Familiar with the Conditions! Without a map you get lost! You should know the terrain you are battling in. It is not sufficient to have a rough map. You must know the terrain well, preferably from your own experience. Do not take map literally: In a campaign, conditions do not primarily refer to territorial facts, but to legal norms, to political situation, economic resources, and cultural context.

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For a political campaign, for example, you need to know exactly who is legally in charge to change something. Rule 4: Determine Your Target Group! If you try to reach everyone, you will reach no one! Determine your target group precisely to reduce losses. You should address this specific group directly. Define and describe your target group exactly in order to take over their point of view. Only he who can be won with reasonable effort can be part of your target group. You cannot win those who are hostile to you and your idea, though you might limit their influence. Do not put too much effort in winning your opponents and do not waste your resources there. Concentrate on those you have reasonable chances of winning over. Differentiate within your target group between the centre, people you have to win in order to be successful, and the margin, groups that are not as important. Invest your resources accordingly. Take note of oppositions that develop in your target group if you try to put too much influence on them. Use their feedback, for example suggestions or the willingness to partake in the campaign. Keep an eye on changes of your target group, for example during a long-term campaign: Have younger age groups arisen? How much do they differ from previous ones? Seek your success in your very target group, the people you want to convince. Do not be guided by your hidden addressees, for example other public agencies or other experts. They do not have to like you. The main point is that you are successful. Rule 5: Convince Yourself and Your Team of Your Idea! If you are not completely convinced yourself, you cannot convince anybody else. You yourself have to be for your cause, and your team needs to have the will to win the campaign. You need to understand the problem you want to address thoroughly. For that, your team has to speak with one voice. You might fight about the right way in private, but to the public you must appear as one. Rule 6: Win Allies! Get multipliers on board, especially opinion leaders your target group trusts in because: “More than anything else people can move other people” (Lazarsfeld, Berelson & Gaudet, 1944, p. 158). Win proponents with as much independence from you as possible. This increases your credibility. However, you cannot win allies until they benefit from the cooperation. Consider what you have to offer in return. And remember: “There is no free lunch!” He who advocates your idea will at some point ask for your support— probably at some point in time you do not need it. Therefore, try to pay back your debts proactively. This generates trust and peace. Rule 7: Study Your Opponents and Your Rivals! You never campaign on your own. Differentiate between opponents and rivals. Generally, you can identify your opponents clearly. They are not only sceptical but also hostile because they have opposing interests. You are pro and they are contra something. You support a smoking ban, they are against a smoking ban. You both fight for the public opinion. At best, you know your opponents better than they do themselves. Nevertheless: Not

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always during a campaign do you have to fight your opponents, often you have more interests in common than can be seen at first glance. Rivals are not opponents. Rivals do not fight you. However, you compete for the same resources, for example public attention or donations. Be better than your rival but do not try to intercede because for such actions you need energy and they always come back to roost. See if you can make allies out of rivals, maybe only for a period or for a single task. Rule 8: Keep It Short and Simple! KISS! You have to nail down the contents of your campaign to plain core messages. The core messages of your campaign have taken up the cognitive schemes, the thought patterns of your target group. You need to plant your seeds in fertile grounds, or otherwise they will not grow. Do not plant wheat where only rye grows. Even with top-down campaigns you have to consider what people want to hear. Be guided by those you want to move. If they want to hear stories, tell them stories—but not fairy tales! The mirror neurons are your most important communication tool: Be part of your target group. Mirror neurons are the neurons in our heads, which allows us to see the world through other people’s eyes. Moreover, give your campaign a face. This way you can generate credibility. Combine in your messages logical arguments that go to the brain and examples that go to the heart: a mother fighting for her child, or a drunkard who is able to get away from alcohol. Such examples should be authentic. Be careful: your opponents will validate your examples. If something is wrong, you can finish your campaign. Rule 9: Use the Media Your Target Group Uses! The fish has to like the worm, not the fisher. Put your message in a form your target group likes. Use their preferred media because they are used to it and trust it. This concerns which language of your campaign, which pictures, which technical channels of communication, which mass media, which networks you use. It does not matter what you are familiar with and what you prefer. Crucial are those people you want to reach. Each medium has its own logic, its own pace and its own rules for content. A tweet used to have only 140 characters, now it has no more than 280. Your message has to fit into that construct. Deadline of a daily newspaper is 6 pm, and every news handed in later is generally disregarded and you have to wait for a day to have it published. It takes much experience to handle particular logics of different media. Combine different media. You reach some people better via icons, others better via texts. Use the possibilities to spread your message with other sensors, for example to have young people experience themselves growing old without moving enough. Rule 10: Establish Trust in the Long Term! If your target group does not trust you, you cannot reach your goals. It takes years to establish trust but only seconds to lose it. You do not need to say everything but you should never lie, for it will certainly reappear and then you lose whatever trust you have gained so far. He who lies once will not be believed in again. Especially in the age of the internet, nothing stays a secret. You are always and everywhere under supervision. Take your time and patience to nurse the trust. People

Foreword: How Can Communication Change Attitudes and Behaviour?. . .

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trust their government only if the government trusts its people. This implies that the government allows for rights of freedom and trusts its people that they do not misuse these rights. Rule 11: Carefully Manage Your Resources: Time, Data, Staff! The scarcest resource is time. You have to be tight with it. Especially your target group’s time is very precious. The attentions span is short, and it is getting shorter because there are uncountable offers. People tend to look at a poster for just a few moments; use these moments. The second scarcest resource is data. Carefully collect and evaluate data about your target group. Much can result from that. Who reacted how to your campaign? The third scarcest resource is good staff—professional, loyal, flexible. Try to win volunteers. You have to mobilise and motivate them, which takes time. But in the end it takes off pressure and you might find talents. Rule 12: Learn from Campaigns! Having finished one campaign means having the next one ahead. If you want to have a better campaign, you have to analyse your last campaign carefully: What did go well and what might be improved in your next campaign? Thanks to the internet, you have even better possibilities at hand for the analysis because you can measure your campaign’s success exactly: Who listened to you when? Who looked up your messages on the internet? Learn from other campaigns, too, even from those of your opponents, it is very educational. It is likewise educational to look over the edge of the plate and see how others do it. Additionally, have your campaigns observed and analysed from outside–from experts, non-professionals, allies. This is it for the twelve rules. The internet offers many possibilities to improve your campaigns. It is much easier to follow all the rules, thus making your campaigns more efficient: more benefit, less efforts! The internet is, for example, very useful to get to know your opponents better. You can easily collect more data about how others think. However, this also holds true for others, and for your opponents. They, too, use the internet. Moreover, they get to know you better, thus being able to react faster. There is a competition for this new resource, the data out of the internet. This, too, changes campaigns. But these twelve rules are not only valid today, they are good in the long term. Certainly, following the rules takes effort, time and nerves. But in the end it is worth it because you use your resources more efficiently. However: You do not win a battle if you are only efficient. You also need to be creative, and for being creative you need the freedom to break the rules. Ultimately, do not forget: there is always a rule number 13, which is “Murphy’s Law”: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong—at the worst time possible! (professor emeritus), Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf, Germany

Gerhard Vowe

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References Business Standard. (2019, December 9). 'Green Good Deeds' initiative to promote environmental awareness: Environment ministry. Business Standard. Retrieved from https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/green-good-deeds-ini tiative-to-promote-environmental-awareness-environment-ministry-119120 901248_1.html Government of India. (n.d.). Swachh Bharat Mission. Retrieved from https:// swachhbharatmission.gov.in/sbmcms/index.htm Isha Foundation. (n.d.). Rally for Rivers. Retrieved from https://isha.sadhguru.org/ rally-for-rivers/ Lazarsfeld, P.F., Berelson, B. & Gaudet, H. (1944). The People's Choice. How the Voter Makes Up his Mind in a Presidential Campaign. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce. Purpose. (n.d.). Help Delhi Breathe. Retrieved from https://www.purpose.com/case_ studies/help-delhi-breathe/ The Hans India. (2015, May 16). Blueair invites Delhi urbanites to their Share to Plant initiative. The Hans India. Retrieved from https://www.thehansindia.com/ posts/index/Environment/2015-05-16/Blueair-invites-Delhi-urbanites-to-theirShare-to-Plant-initiative/151380?infinitescroll=1

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Detlef Briesen and Sarada Prasanna Das Part I

1

Media and the Environment

The Hybrid Media System as Battlefield for Climate Politics: Media and Politics in Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christiane Eilders

13

Enquiring Framing in India’s Mainstream Newspapers: Interpreting Frames of the Climate Change News in India During COP-26 . . . . . . . . Manish Tiwari

23

Food and Nutrition Scandals in Germany Since the 1950s: Social Value Change and Scandalisation as Catalysts for Environmental Policy . . . . . Detlef Briesen

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Social Media and the Environmental Discourse in Vietnam . . . . . . . . . . Nguyen Thi Thuy Hang Media, Politics, and Environment from a Federal Politics Perspective in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N. K. Kumaresan Raja Media and Environmental Destruction in Indonesia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ririn Sefsani and Patrick Ziegenhain On the Missing Links in Climate Change Communication in Two States of India: Problems, Politics, and Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . Devendraraj Madhanagopal and Lisha Samuel

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Contents

Mediated Politics and the Environment: A Case study of Odd-Even Scheme to Curb Air Pollution in Delhi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Arvind Das Part II

Environmental Politics, Mobilisations and Media

State’s Commitment to Environmental Governance in India: Struggle Between Developmental Pressure and Sustainability Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Sarada Prasanna Das Environmental Resistance in India: Special Reference to Northeast India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Arun Kumar Nayak Perspectives and Orientations of the Communist Party of Vietnam on Environmental Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Nguyen Tuan Anh and Dao Duc Thuan Environmental Concerns in Sri Lanka: A Political Perspective . . . . . . . 177 M. A. M. Fowsar Environmental Policy in Indonesia from the Post-New Order Era to the Present: Positive Adjustments and Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Thanh T. Ho and Abdul Fikri Angga Reksa Aspects of Civil Engagement, Media, and Environmental Issues in Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Timo Mohr Part III

Media, Environment, and the Commons

Environmental Policy and the Tragedy of the Commons: A German’s Impressions of India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Michael Baurmann Expanding Urban, Shrinking Rural: Land and Common Grabs and Environmental Degradation in Peri-Urban Kolkata, India . . . . . . . 245 Animesh Roy The Hungry Tide: The Problem of the Commons in the Sundarbans of Bangladesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Lailufar Yasmin Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 Detlef Briesen and Sarada Prasanna Das

Introduction Detlef Briesen and Sarada Prasanna Das

Our volume documents the progress of an international working group that came together in the Corona period around a complex topic: the question of how environmental issues are taken up by the mass media in international comparison and what effects this has on the respective environmental policies or measures. The relevance of this research question is only too obvious: How else than through the mass media can environmental issues become a socially significant political issue? And how other than through mass media can environmental problems be publicly identified, and solutions discussed and communicated? That the environment urgently needs such a discourse, and not only in view of the predicted global warming, is also sadly all too apparent. Initially, this scientific approach was supported by a long-standing Indo-German network and a conference was held in the spring of 2020 in Pondicherry, South India, at the Central Federal University of the same name. The conference was generously supported by the German Research Association (DFG) and its scientific approach was based on examining two quite strongly divergent cases in the field of environmental policy, Germany, and India. In the course of further research work, however, it became apparent that it would be useful to make this highly pointed research approach more multi-faceted and, in particular, to solicit further contributions. Therefore, in addition to German and Indian authors, contributions about Bangladesh, Indonesia, Japan, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam are now also included here. We have thus selected a broader spectrum of countries with very different models of political participation and degrees of press freedom. D. Briesen (✉) History and Cultural Studies, Justus Liebig University Gießen, Gießen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] S. P. Das Initiative on Climate Energy and Environment (ICEE), Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Briesen, S. P. Das (eds.), Media, Politics and Environment, Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31252-6_1

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An important basis of our research initiative is that up to now, in many countries of the world, the connection between mass media, politics, and environmental problems has by no means been well researched, as one might assume. This is especially due to the fact that in a significant number of cases there is no real media research or that it is only just emerging, as in our example in India and Vietnam. By exploring the relationship between mass media, politics, and environmental issues, we are therefore attempting to fill initial research gaps for many of the countries selected here. Thus, based on our own findings, and also encouraged by the very positive feedback from the DFG and the Springer Verlag on our initiatives, we have expanded our approach and are now presenting this volume. Here in the introduction, however, it is first important to present the original starting points for our research, and these were basically three: • Firstly, a macro-sociological perspective or insight oriented toward international comparison. • Secondly, a historical perspective, here in the introduction illustrated by the perception and results of environmental policy in Germany and India to date. • Thirdly, classical media theories, in particular describable as agenda-setting, framing, and scandalisation, and questions of how the environment is treated as a common good in political contexts. We briefly present these starting points again here.

Multiple Modernities and the Emergence of Environmental Policies On our first underlying idea: There is an essential result of macro-sociologically oriented globalisation research of the last few years, the theory of “multiple modernities”. Just to summarise the findings briefly, in the cultural and social sciences, theories that had predicted a globally convergent development have recently lost importance again. In fact, neither the striking differences between social value systems (Briesen et al., 2015) have abated, nor have political systems everywhere developed in the direction of Western democracy (Briesen et al., 2017). Thus, the theory of “multiple modernities” seems to be proving true (Aizenshṭadṭ, 2018). The notion of “multiple modernities” is an innovative way of looking at the contemporary world and at the same time aims at the history and essential features of so-called modernity. It stands in considerable contrast to the long-prevailing models of modernity that had been influential since the classics of sociological thought. “Multiple modernities” means that those ideas about the basic principles of the modern world and the increasing convergence of industrial societies that can be traced back to Marx and Durckheim have proved to be largely in need of revision – especially in their more pointed version, those modernisation theories that have prevailed since the 1950s. All these theories assumed, at least implicitly, that the

Introduction

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fundamental, cultural programme of that “modernity” which had been developed in Europe would eventually prevail in comprehensive social modernisation processes all over the world. In contrast, historical research in particular has shown that modernising approaches also emerged independently of Europe in other parts of the world (Bayly, 2006; Osterhammel, 2010). China’s specific “modernity” also unmistakably has some roots and characteristics that clearly contradict this apparently Euro-centric world view (Bell, 2006). As a consequence, this means that there is by no means a tendency towards a globally convergent thematization of environmental politics and environmental policy measures in the context of our study. One outcome for us is that societies/states each react differently to central problem situations; this is clearly evident in a rather crucial area, the question of how they have responded politically to the environmental problem over the last decades. While it is often addressed as a global problem (especially with regard to global warming), concrete environmental policy is still a national matter. Moreover, the perception of environmental problems is unequally distributed, even in industrialised countries, as here in comparison between Japan and Germany on the one hand but also on the other hand between Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, or Vietnam. The differences are reflected in the level of scientific knowledge on the situation and history of the environment in all these countries and in the way environmental issues have been addressed in the media and politically in each case. Our basic idea was thus that we did not expect much convergence in how the societies we studied deal with the issues of mass media, politics, and environmental policies in detail.

The Environment in Politics and Media: The German and Indian Examples Now to our second starting point, a more precise historical classification way of how diverse countries have dealt with the environmental problem so far. Let us have a look briefly again at our originally chosen German–Indian comparison as an example. It is a common misconception that so-called pre-modern societies did not have environmental problems or did not implement measures to minimise them. On the contrary, since the eighteenth century, this form of environmental policy even developed into large-scale projects to transform and “tame” nature, in a country like Germany under the auspices of internal colonisation, in India especially since the nineteenth century through the deep interventions of a European colonial power. However, the previous environmental problems took on new forms and dimensions as a result of the industrialisation that began in the German-speaking world in the late eighteenth century, in India basically only after independence from the British Empire in 1947.

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In Germany, as in other industrialised countries, the first approaches to systematic protection of the environment date back to the late nineteenth century, especially with regard to exhaust emissions (Brüggemeier, 2014). Legal regulations against air and water pollution were introduced but an integrated environmental policy took shape in the Federal Republic not before the 1970s. Since then, it has been influenced by the respective objectives of the party coalitions supporting the federal governments, by economic changes, and by the caesura of reunification (Hünemörder, 2004). Phases of accelerated environmental policy or steps backwards for this can be identified, such as: • Enhanced policy at the beginning of 1970, the emergence of a new type of environmental movement since the end of the decade, and after the election of 1998, repeated initiatives by the federal government (Sustainability Strategy 2000, Nature Conservation Act 2002, Renewable Energies Acts and ecological modernisation of industry). • Setbacks for the early ambitious goals already due to the effects of the oil crises in 1973 and 1979, with reunification in 1990, renewed prioritisation of economic over environmental targets. In the long period of Merkel governments from 2005 to 2021, it is hardly possible to speak of more deeply effective environmental policy. Even if one only looks at the political targets of the federal government itself, the balance for important indicators is critical, especially regarding climate protection goals. Since the outbreak of the Ukraine war, the new government coalition of Social Democrats, Green Party, and Liberals has been facing a serious energy crisis. At the moment it is not at all foreseeable whether the government will succeed in mastering the crisis and whether Germany is not facing a comprehensive process of de-industrialisation. Perhaps German environmental policy will take place under significantly different framework conditions in the future. The very ambivalent balance sheet of German environmental policy may come as a surprise because a related discourse can be observed since the 1960s: • In the 1960s, a reform discourse began that addressed environmental problems at the local or regional level. The decisive politicisation of the issue was carried out by the Brandt government through the “Immediate Environmental Protection Programme” (1970). This laid the foundation for a new policy field. • This reform discourse was followed until the mid-1980s by a polarised environmental policy debate between environmentalists and pragmatists. It was driven by grievances and disaster scenarios (Club of Rome report, fish and forest dieback, food scandals, Harrisburg and Chernobyl accidents). • Since the Chernobyl accident at the latest, environmental issues have established themselves as a mainstream discourse, which has since been influenced at times by “economic necessities” and new kinds of socio-ecological distribution struggles. The issue has constantly held a top position in the media and politics. Further catastrophes (e.g., Fukushima) have consolidated its institutionalisation.

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Today, environmental protection is integrated as a goal into almost all fields of social action – political-institutional, social, economic, and educational. The environmental discourse is now so well established that there could even be a danger of putting rhetoric far above pragmatic goals such as securing energy supplies. As mentioned earlier, industrialisation in India started on a massive scale only after 1947. A corresponding environmental policy was shaped over several decades by the attempts of India’s long-standing prime ministers Nehru (1947–1964) and Indira Gandhi (1966–1977, 1980–1984) to cope with the severe burden of colonial rule which the young nation was facing after independence: • The social crisis was aggravated by rapid population growth; the rural population was affected by famine and tried to ensure their survival in any way possible; slums were formed as a result of partition and rural exodus; air and water pollution increased; large areas of forest were cleared (Urdal, 2005). • An economic-as-national-power policy set in, which focused on building key industries to gain military strength and pursued economic-as-autarky policies (Chandrappa & Ravi, 2009). • A reform of agricultural production called the “Green Revolution” began in the early 1960s (use of high-yielding seeds, tractors, irrigation systems, pesticides, and fertilisers; Bohle already critically commented on this in 1981). By the 1970s, the situation deteriorated drastically without any significant environmental policy measures being taken. These first came in 1974, with the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act of 1974. After the Indian state amended its constitution with Articles 48(A) and 51A(g), a series of control laws were enacted, such as the Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980 and the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act of 1981. These were followed, after the Bhopal disaster, by the Environment (Protection) Act of 1986. A new department was established with the Ministry of Environment and Forests. These measures have so far not prevented the further aggravation of environmental problems, as the pollution of surface and groundwater and air and the waste disposal problems are exorbitant. However, all the environmental problems mentioned should not obscure the fact that the social situation of broad social strata in India has improved significantly, especially in the new millennium: Millions of people have been lifted out of absolute poverty and a new middle class has emerged. It is all the more striking, however, that environmental issues seem to play only a subordinate role for these groups, a fact that has so far been borne out by the country’s mass media. Environmental problems are only insufficiently taken up by the country’s media and thus have insufficient political visibility. The environmental mobilisation of the Indian society is low (apart from major development projects that directly affect the interests of local residents and the urban upper-middle classes) (see Thomas, 2006). Among other factors, this is due to the structure of the mass media, which are segmented along the 21 official languages and over 100 other languages of India. On the other hand, the ownership structure has changed since around 1990. Predominantly state-run media have since been largely replaced by private companies. They now control the market for film, television, magazines, newspapers, and

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Internet-based media. Their profit orientation often leads to self-censorship of the media because of economic interests or political priorities of the owners. This is equally true for research on environmental policy and its shortcomings, and especially for its foundation, media research, which is only recently beginning to establish itself as a discipline at universities or independent research institutes in India (Ilavarasan, 2018). Few studies have systematically investigated the reasons for the specific perception and policy regarding environmental issues in India as an important country in the Global South (Chapmann et al., 1997). Significant impulses for research or the studies themselves often come from outside India (see Fortun, 2001; Acharya & Noronha, 2010; Blewitt, 2010; Nambiar, 2014; Batabyal, 2014; most recently Yadav & Malik, 2019).

The Environment in the Media and as a Common Good The fact that modernity emerges on very different development paths and the quite noticeable variations in the perception of environmental problems, for example, in India and Germany, but also, as will be shown, in the other national sample studies in this anthology, does not explain the striking differences. Both point out the divergencies and challenge research to find out the reasons. If one tries to answer this question, one encounters a considerable research gap. There is a lack of scientific studies that understand the emergence and implementation of environmental policy as the results of historical-political processes and analyse them in an internationally comparative manner. With regard to research on Bangladesh, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam question horizons can be derived from these considerations. They are significant for political processes in general and thus also for the environmental policy of all countries under investigation. To put it simply: politics is created by the media, the reporting of which builds on general values, changes them under certain circumstances and initiates political mobilisation. Our theoretical framework includes important concepts such as agenda-setting, framing, scandalisation, changing values and possibilities of political mobilisation, which we believe are crucial for the connection between media, politics, and the environment. This has led to our research questions for this anthology, on the one hand, with regard to the content conveyed by the mass media, and on the other hand, with respect to their function for political mobilisation in favour of the environment and for the latter as a common good. First, a few remarks on the mass media themselves and what and how of their reporting, which is summarised in the following text in the subchapter Media and Environment, with the corresponding articles by Christiane Eilders (Germany), Manish Tiwari (India), Detlef Briesen (Germany), Nguyen Thi Thuy Hang (Vietnam), Kumaresan Raja (India), Patrick Ziegenhain and Ririn Sefsani (Indonesia), Devendraraj Madhanagopal and Lisha Samuel (India), and Arvind Das (India):

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• According to the prevailing opinion, political processes are initiated by the mass media or their agenda-setting function (see Lippmann, 1922; McCombs & Shaw, 1972; Sarcinelli, 1998; Beck, 2015; Bonfadelli & Friemel, 2015). Therefore, environmental policy also begins with the thematization of environmental issues by the mass media. This is because the mass media shape public opinion and thus create the space that environmental policy, however conceived, requires. But how has agenda-setting in the context of the quite different countries taken place in the environmental field so far, and what are the respective origins of environmental debates in the respective countries? • Mass media does not only set agendas, but they also mediate between the political decision-making level and the population regardless of the respective political system (Rucht, 1994; Bennett, 1990). They report top-down to the audience about the preferences, negotiation processes, and decisions in the political system. Conversely, the media bring citizens’ perceptions of problems and proposals for solutions to the political actors in a bottom-up manner. How views and preferences differ in this network of relationships between politics, media, movements, and citizens, and who can win whom over for their own perspective in public discourse, particularly in deliberative ones, is an empirical question that becomes tangible through the framing concept. Frames are selective interpretations between issue level and opinion level, which suggest a concrete policy preference but do not yet determine it (Eilders, 2004). They include problem diagnoses, attributions of causes and responsibility, as well as problem solutions and evaluations (Porten-Cheé & Eilders, 2015). It is therefore necessary to ask how differently framing has proceeded in our countries under investigation. • If we take the German example, scandalisation of conditions perceived as untenable has played a major role in agenda-setting or framing – starting with Silent Spring up to Dieselgate (Brüggemeier, 2014; Hahn & Reith, 2001; Hermann, 2016; Radkau, 2000; Schenk, 2009; Siemann & Freytag, 2003; Winiwarter & Knoll, 2007; Briesen, 2010 on food scandals; Briesen 2018 on US warfare in Vietnam as an environmental scandal). Scandalisations allow conclusions to be drawn about social value attitudes and their change, as they put values up for public discussion (Inglehart, 1990). The analysis of scandals thus provides initial insights into that change in values that are inevitably associated with the politicisation of environmental problems through the mass media. Second, this book takes turn from the media and its framing on environment to the environmental politics, governance, and mobilisation issues in different countries in Europe and Asia. Media has played an important role in environmental politics and mobilisation, and it has created conditions for environmental governance. Therefore, the second section “Environmental Politics, Mobilisations and Media” consists of the papers which are focuses on environmental politics, governance, and mobilisation. The papers written on this topic by Ulrich von Alemann (Germany), Sarada Prasanna Das (India), Arun Kumar Nayak (India), Nguyen Tuan Anh (Vietnam), Mohamed Fowsar (Sri Lanka), Ha Thi Thanh and Abdul Fikri

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Angga Reksa (Indonesia), Gerhard Vowe (Germany), and Timo Mohr (Japan) will be presented in the subchapter: • People are engaged in asserting environmental interests – or not. Since Mancur Olson, it has been true in the West that only interests that are backed by tangible material interests are capable of organisation – according to the rational choice paradigm. Offe and Wiesenthal (1980) propagated “two logics of collective action”. Interests must be capable of organisation and conflict if they relate to private goods. Indivisible public goods are hardly capable of this; therefore, the weak interests of consumers can hardly be subject to organisation. The 1980s showed that this assumption was wrong: women, peace movements, and environmental activists did organise, and not in short supply. There are some results in research on the representation of weak interests (von Winter & Willems, 2007). It is therefore very instructive to examine the extent to which weak interests can also be organised in countries like Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam under the very different political framework conditions in each case or whether environmental engagement there is not rather due to strong (material) interests (of the minorities, marginalised). • An important assumption for us could be that there is feedback between the degree of mobilisation of interests and the successful public communication of environmental policy goals. Raising environmental awareness, so is our assumption, is perhaps for political communication as important as the respective issue itself, that is, the knowledge of the relevance of environmental problems and the possibilities of solving them. Environment-related ideas and attitudes are of great importance, in the population but especially among key groups (journalists, teachers, or politicians). Such attitudes related can be influenced through communication; this can be much more efficient than attempts of steering through commandments, prohibitions, or monetary incentives. Persuasive communication has a long tradition; especially for environmental campaigns and not only in the Western world, there is a wide range of experience (Vowe et al., 2011). Successful campaigns are based on the comprehensible presentation of core messages or on campaign budgeting. Such findings provide indications on how campaigns should be designed and implemented. Thus, our research group has asked under which conditions environmental campaigns have been successful or not so far in some of the countries under investigation. Thirdly, in the context of mass media, politics, and the environment that we are interested in, values and their change are decisive. Especially scandalisations by the media refer to one of the most fundamental issues in the context of environmental problems, to the character of the environment as a (violated or threatened) public good, a local, national, and global common. The articles on this question by Michael Baumann (Germany), Animesh Roy (India), and Lailufar Yasmin (Bangladesh) are contained in the subchapter Environment, and the Commons. We start from the following considerations:

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• Threats to or destruction of the environment usually do not affect private but common property, such as the quality of soil, water, air, land not yet available for settlement or use, or the global climate in general. On the one hand, this characteristic of the environment contributes to an overexploitation of natural resources because there are no incentives for individual users to engage in sustainable environmental behaviour; on the other hand, it makes environmental protection measures more difficult because there are no direct incentives to actively participate in environmental protection and to bear the costs incurred. The “Tragedy of the Commons” (Elinor Ostrom) is highlighted in several articles focusing on the situation in Bangladesh and India. So much for the preliminary considerations that led to our anthology. The most important results and desiderata for future research are presented in the summary.

References Acharya, K., & Noronha, F. (2010). The green pen. Environmental Journalism in India and South Asia. Aizenshṭadṭ, S. N. (2018). Die Vielfalt der Moderne. Batabyal, S. (ed.) (2014). Environment, politics and activism. The role of media. Bayly, C. A. (2006). Die Geburt der modernen Welt. Eine Globalgeschichte 1780–1914. Beck, K. (2015). Kommunikationswissenschaft. Bell, D. A. (2006). Beyond liberal democracy: Political thinking for an east Asian context. Bennett, W. L. (1990). Toward a theory of press-state relations. Journal of Communication, 40(2), 103–125. Blewitt, J. (2010). Media, ecology and conservation. Using the media to protect the World’s wildlife and ecosystems. Bohle, H-G (1981). Die grüne Revolution in Indien–Sieg im Kampf gegen den Hunger? Bonfadelli, H., & Friemel, T. N. (2015). Medienwirkungsforschung. Briesen, D. (2010). Das gesunde Leben. Ernährung und Gesundheit seit dem 18. Jahrhundert. Briesen, D., Baringhorst, S., & Das, A. D. (eds.) (2015). Religion, politics, and media–German and Indian perspectives. Briesen, D., von Alemann, U., & Khanh, L. Q. (eds.) (2017). The state of law. International Perspectives. Brüggemeier, F-J (2014). Schranken der Natur. Umwelt, Gesellschaft, Experimente, 1750 bis heute. Chandrappa, R., & Ravi, D. R (2009): Environmental issues, law and technology–An Indian perspective. Chapmann, G., et al. (1997). Environmentalism and the mass media. The North-South divide. Eilders, C. (2004). Von Links bis Rechts–Deutung und Meinung in Pressekommentaren. In C. Eilders, F. Neidhardt, & B. Pfetsch (Eds.), Die Stimme der Medien. Pressekommentare und politische Öffentlichkeit in der Bundesrepublik (pp. 129–166). Fortun, K. (2001). Advocacy after Bhopal. Environmentalism, disaster, new global orders. Hahn, S., & Reith, R. R. (2001). Umwelt-Geschichte. Arbeitsfelder, Forschungsansätze, Perspektiven. Hermann, B. (2016). Umweltgeschichte. Eine Einführung in Grundbegriffe. Hünemörder, K. F. (2004). Die Frühgeschichte der globalen Umweltkrise und die Formierung der deutschen Umweltpolitik.

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Ilavarasan, P. V. (2018). Social Media Research in and of India: A Snapshot. In Y. K. Dwivedi (Ed.), Emerging markets from a multidisciplinary perspective. Advances in Theory and Practice of Emerging Markets (pp. 135–148). Inglehart, R. (1990) Culture shift in advanced industrial society. Lippmann, W. (1922). Public opinion. McCombs, M. E., & Shaw, D. L. (1972). The agenda-setting function of mass media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36, 176–187. Nambiar, P. (2014). Media construction of environment and sustainability in India. Offe, C., & Wiesenthal, H. (1980). Two logics of collective action: Theoretical notes on social class and organizational form. Political Power and Social Theory, 1, 67–115. Osterhammel, J. (2010). Die Verwandlung der Welt. Eine Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Porten-Cheé, P., & Eilders, C. (2015). Spiral of silence online: How online communication affects opinion climate perception and opinion expression regarding the climate change debate. Studies in Communication Science, 15(1), 143–150. Radkau, J. (2000). Natur und Macht: eine Weltgeschichte der Umwelt. Rucht, D. (1994). Öffentlichkeit als Mobilisierungsfaktor für soziale Bewegungen. In F. Neidhardt (Ed.), Öffentlichkeit, öffentliche Meinung, soziale Bewegungen. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie (pp. 337–358). Sarcinelli, U. (1998). Politikvermittlung und Demokratie in der Mediengesellschaft. Schenk, G. J. (2009). Katastrophen. Vom Untergang Pompejis bis zum Klimawandel. Siemann, W., & Freytag, N. (Hrsg.) (2003). Umweltgeschichte. Themen und Perspektiven. Thomas, R. G. C. (2006). Media. In Encyclopaedia of India (Vol. 3, pp. 105–107). Urdal, H. (2005). People vs. Malthus: Population pressure, environmental degradation, and armed conflict revisited. Journal of Peace Research, 42(4), 417–434. Vowe, G., Emmer, M., & Wolling, J. (2011). Bürger online. Die Entwicklung der politischen Online-Kommunikation in Deutschland. Winiwarter, V., & Knoll, M. (2007). Umweltgeschichte. Eine Einführung. von Winter, T., & Willems, U. (2007). Interessenverbände in Deutschland. Yadav, R. A., & Malik, K. K. (2019). Covering Green Belt: Environmental journalism in India. In S. Rao (Ed.), Indian journalism in a new era. Changes, challenges, and perspectives.

Detlef Briesen is a German historian and political scientist. He completed his doctorate at the University of Cologne and his habiliation at the University of Giessen. Since 2009 he is professor at the JLU Gießen. His fields of research include the spatial organisation of modern societies, the political history of consumer society and, in recent years, increasingly development policy in Asia. Detlef Briesen has been a guest researcher in the USA, India, Sweden, and other countries and has been serving as DAAD University Advisor for Southeast Asia since 2010. Sarada Prasanna Das is an Associate Fellow at Centre for Policy Research’s Initiative on Climate Energy and Environment (ICEE). He holds PhD, MPhil, and MA degrees in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Part I

Media and the Environment

The Hybrid Media System as Battlefield for Climate Politics: Media and Politics in Transformation Christiane Eilders

Environmental issues—and climate change–related protest and decision making in particular—have become a heavily contested field of politics, but also of political communication. Climate change affects the population directly, because they feel the consequences (through environmental damage or even just through higher taxes on fossil fuels). At the same time, the measures against it are very controversial because they do not have an immediate and visible effect and because they demand great efforts from the population. Hence, an extensive and conflicting discourse between politics, media, and citizens has developed. This familiar triangle obscures the fact that—at least in the realm of environmental issues and climate change—the ensemble of actors has become much more differentiated. It now includes established political actors and new social movements, mass media and social media, and citizens in two roles, audiences and communicators. Because of the complex nature of the conflict and the composition of the participants, this discourse is particularly well suited for tracing the changes in political communication. This chapter aims at investigating the changes in political communication and at discussing implications for public discourse on climate change and the political consequences necessary to mitigate global warming. Studies in political communication used to deal with the relations between journalists and political actors (in front of an audience, but a passive audience). It now deals with the relation between journalists and political actors—and people formerly known as “the audience” who now actively take part in political discourse. This marks a major transformation in political communication (Habermas, 2021) that came along with the innovation in media technology. To understand the severity of the disruption that took place, we go back to the era when mass media still dominated public discourse. Even then, political communication had faced serious

C. Eilders (✉) University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Briesen, S. P. Das (eds.), Media, Politics and Environment, Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31252-6_2

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challenges due to changes in media communication and society. I will start with those challenges in the perspective of the north-western part of the world, US, and Europe in the case of the challenges and Germany in the case of empirical research before I turn to an international or comparative perspective on political communication with the inclusion of India. The relation between media and politics have long been a frequent topic in political communication. One of the most respected scholars in this strand of research is Jay Blumler. In 1995, he and Michael Gurevitch identified a “crisis of civic communication” (Blumler & Gurevitch, 1995, p. 1), which has soon become a well-known concept in the field. In numerous essays and books, he has analyzed media-related developments that impede a well-functioning democracy. In comparative research on media systems (Blum, 2014; Hallin, 2015) the relation between politics and media plays a crucial role not only in identifying similarities and differences between countries, but also for assessing democratic performance of national media systems. It is often described along three aspects: First how the role definitions of politicians and media actors relate to those of citizens or the public, second how the norms and structures of political organizations and media organizations regulate the relations between their members, and third how the political culture of a country determines the behavior of politicians and the media. In 1995, as well as later with different colleagues, Blumler elaborated on these aspects when he traced the decline of civic communication, but he added a highlight on the citizens. The citizens are—in his perspective mainly as audiences and not as actors, together with political actors and the mass media—an integral part of the political public sphere. Together, these three pillars constitute the political public sphere. Ideally, the media convey issues, needs, and opinions of citizens bottom-up to the political actors, who in turn (top-down) make their plans and decisions known to the citizens via the media. Evidently, the journalists and political actors need each other—the journalists depend on the politicians because they need them as a source of information, and the politicians depend on the journalists because they are indispensable to them for transporting their intentions, ideas, and decisions. The political process has become a thoroughly communicative one. Many observers have labelled this relation a symbiosis, even though the partners have to act as if they were opponents because media manipulation by politicians and a lack of distance toward politicians by the media are considered undemocratic, and even though the mass media are often described as the fourth power in a democracy (Precht & Welzer, 2022). Considering the mass media’s other important function of articulating the claims of citizens and communicating them to the political-administrative system and their function of conveying political decisions top-down, the mass media are regarded as institutions without whose functioning a democratic social system cannot exist. So far for the ideal of a democratic media infrastructure. How about reality now? Blumler identifies at least three ages of political communication and describes all of them in detail (Blumler & Kavanagh, 1999; Blumler, 2016). Rather than starting with the first age and working our way through all the ages, I will focus on the fairly recent third age of political communication, which can be located right before the

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advent of social media. Blumler (2016) described it as “one of communication ‘abundance, ubiquity, reach and celerity’ (especially abundance), due chiefly to the conversion of limited-channel to multi-channel television” (p. 24). He claimed that the third-age political communication was being re-shaped by five main trends: intensified professionalizing pressures; increased competitive pressures; anti-elitist populism; centrifugal diversification; and changes in how people receive politics. With these few observations, it is obvious that not everything was good before the prevalence of online communication. However, there were far more problems coming along with online communication. Blumler (2016) saw a fourth age of political communication where digitization has further transformed this relation. He discusses four main features, some of which are a spill-over from the third age: 1. There is more communication abundance than anything that could have been imagined several years ago—“in mainstream media, throughout the Internet, plus the scads of devices—at home, at work, on the road and in hand—over which people can receive communications now” (Blumler, 2016, p. 24). No doubt, this is a challenge for both political communicators and for the audience. 2. There is mediatization, a concept saying that politicians adopt the media logic in terms of news value and other routines of news selection. Blumler asks how the relationship between politicians and journalists is changing due to the availability of Internet-based communication possibilities. It could be that politicians need to communicate in a less mediatized way if the new means of communication allow them to convey their messages without journalists. As a result, they may even be able to communicate according to political logic. But it could also be that politicians continue to communicate in a mediatized way—with the aim that their messages are picked up by the mainstream media. 3. There is even more “centrifugal diversification” (Blumler, 2016, p. 25). The number and range of non-party but civic-minded bodies that are now on the political scene has mushroomed and it has become easy to mobilize support and coordinate action and communicate with the own peer group. 4. “[W]hat we used to call interpersonal communication in politics—which mainly took place in the family, among friends and with workmates—has been completely transformed” (Blumler, 2016, p. 26). It enlarged opportunities for linkage between dispersed social actors in the way that place and time are no longer constraints for connecting people. Interpersonal communication has become mediated. But what seems even more important is the enlarged opportunity for linkage between established mass media and social media. Two actors that also benefit from each other—if not depend on each other. The mass media take up content that has gained popularity in social media. They might for instance publish a large piece on a hashtag campaign such as #ClimateStrike. On the other hand, increasingly, mass media items find their way to audiences via networks of friends, for instance via Facebook or Instagram or twitter. Mass and interpersonal communication have converged in many forms of social media and this has far-reaching implications: If

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a news item reaches people via a trusted person, attention and trust and possibly persuasive power will be completely different from news items that come directly from the mass media (Eilders et al., 2022). The linkage between social media and mass media is a key element of what Chadwick (2013) describes as hybrid media system. Key elements are further that there is no clear divide anymore between journalists and audience and the central role of selection of news has become dissolved. Yet, a hybrid media system can also exist as composite of established mass media on the one side and social media on the other side. To the degree, however, the audience members use both sources of information, the different infrastructures are linked together to form one hybrid infrastructure with elements that are used for different purposes. To connect with friends or unknown fellow audience members people turn to social media, and to find reliable and trustworthy information they turn to quality papers or to public service broadcasting. In the light of the features of a hybrid media system, or in the perspective of political communication in the light of the characteristics of the fourth age of political communication, the initial question can be addressed as to how all this affects the relationship between media and politics. Obviously, the audience, which has served as either a passive receiver (top-down) or as a voiceless stakeholder (bottom-up) in the triangle media-politics-citizens, now develops into a player. Formerly passive audiences are now participating in public discourse and influence public opinion formation and collective decisions. While former audiences gain power, journalists lose power due to an often-stated crisis of trust in media institutions. However, the crisis—at least in Germany with its quality papers and public service broadcasting—is mainly a polarization of trust rather than a diminution of trust in the overall population. A recent study from Germany shows that some segments of the audience declined in trust while others increased (Jackob et al., 2018). Nevertheless, trust is a problem in this triangle. Of course, these ideas rest on German or maybe European observations, experiences, and empirical research. Many of them do not apply to India. However, according to popular classifications of media and political systems, Germany and India share some commonalities. They both are majoritarian democracies with a federalist structure and both have a strong newspaper industry. Further, not only newspapers but mass media in general still play an important role in news consumption. Nevertheless, the economic and social conditions are very different and it may be assumed that media-politics relations at least reflect the fundamental divides by class and religion. Especially with regard to wealth and education of the potential audiences, there are big differences between Germany and India and that is likely to shape not only the level of knowledge, material resources, and audience engagement in social media but also the preferences in environmental policies in general and the willingness to commit to climate protection in particular. A comparative approach between Germany or Europe and India hardly makes sense because the differences are too plenty and too big to learn something about the fourth age of political communication. Nevertheless, analyzing the German case should at least lead to the right questions in India and should sensitize an Indian audience to the things to

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come. Therefore, I will present some results that we collected in the context of our research group on political online communication under the leadership of Gerhard Vowe (Vowe & Henn, 2019). These results are intended to illustrate to which extent the concrete German situation reflects the more general features of the fourth age of political communication put forward by Blumler. Our German research group has, against the background of what we saw as a new structural transformation in the public sphere, conducted a research project in which we investigated the change in German political communication and politics through digitization. In Germany, online media show a dynamic development which can best be described following a brief account of the findings by Vowe and Henn (2019): As the spectrum of media outlets and platforms broadens, it is developing a potential for innovation that, among other things, is being put to political use. This is putting pressure on the traditional channels of political communication, particularly media providers, parties, and governments. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have become significantly more important in German political communication. They have shown the potential to influence the arena, agenda, and pace of public communication, stimulating intense debate as to whether this benefits or harms democracy (Vowe & Henn, 2019). The changes in political communication, and the political consequences this has were analyzed on the basis of interviews, surveys, content analyses, and experiments. Our findings showed that the driver of change in communication is digitization, which enables to transmit, store, and process information to a previously unimaginable extent. This is accompanied by an increase in efficiency, in other words a dramatic reduction in the costs of information processing coupled with an increase in quality, for example, accuracy, reliability or speed. Online media are used more and more—especially by those who will shape the political communication of the future: younger generations, better educated individuals, and those with a greater interest in politics. Political organizations, which need to reach these very groups, must respond to this trend if they are to be politically successful. This is changing political communication as a whole, and with it, the public sphere in all its facets. From a social perspective, political communication is becoming more plural, more diverse, and less cohesive. More people are participating in political discussion than ever before, and they differ more markedly from one another. Individuals and groups from the political margins use online media in an attempt to influence politics (Vowe & Henn, 2019). This can be well observed in the case of the social movement Fridays for Future, which went on digital strike in times of lockdown in order to bring their political goals to the attention of politicians. So, groups outside the mainstream, in this case a social movement, can now disseminate their views on particular issues on their own and mobilize worldwide support for their objectives. At the same time, journalists and press spokespersons are losing influence. In their place, new gatekeepers are emerging, for example, YouTube influencers and new “intermediaries”—platforms on which groups can discuss ideas and organize themselves (Vowe & Henn, 2019). Meanwhile, public opinion is being formed in new ways. Online media enables individuals to learn a lot about the opinions of

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others and about the evaluation of their own opinions by others. When thousands of people “like” an opinion on use of fossil energies, for example, or share it with others, this leads people to draw conclusions about public opinion (Eilders & PortenCheé, 2016; Porten-Cheé et al., 2018). However, they may be hugely mistaken about what is actually the majority opinion and what is a minority view, but the perception is still likely to have an effect. As far as content is concerned, the political communication of today is geared more toward individual interest profiles than it was in the past. Nowadays, in Germany, few people are satisfied with the general information available through the mass medium of newspapers. Instead, they want their information to be personally tailored, and algorithm-based systems capable of learning are getting better and better at providing this (Vowe & Henn, 2019). These mechanisms are not so widespread as they are for advertising, for instance—which explains why, on many political issues, there are still no significant differences in content between online and offline sources. Claims of “filter bubbles” and “echo chambers” cannot be confirmed for the majority of issues and people (Stark et al., 2021). Although people in Germany do fundamentally prefer information that conforms to their preexisting views, they still encounter many things that do not match their ideas. Opinion leaders on social media use a lot of reports from the traditional mass media which they then selectively process and, importantly, selectively present. And we have not yet reached the point at which the overall political influence of online media on people’s knowledge, judgements, and decisions exceeds the influence of traditional media. However, this point may not be far off (Vowe & Henn, 2019). After having shown that our results from Germany confirm many of the aspects Blumler had observed in the fourth age of political communication, the question arises whether Blumler’s observations are also applicable in India. It has already been noted in the preceding text that online media are being used more and more—in the case of India, also especially by high-ranking politicians. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an apt example of such communication. He uses Twitter extensively to inform his followers about both political and personal events. His role has thus become multidimensional: according to Bali and Jagan (2017), the prime minister is “journalist, public motivator, social activist, and a political commentator” (p. 247). Other important political figures, such as Shashi Tharoor, are also following the prime minister’s example and sharing their views extensively online. In this way, it becomes clear that politicians have become increasingly sensitive to their changing role as purveyors of news to the public. Thus, in addition to an abundance, the mediatization of communication is also evident. It becomes obvious that the development described in the preceding text also changed the role of the media in India. Politicians communicate directly, the tweets of the two Indian politicians mentioned earlier make it clear that there is no longer a need for gatekeepers in the media. So, one can also speak of a clear change in political communication in India—politicians often communicate directly with the population, bypassing the mass media. And this development is also emerging the other way around: The media are no longer necessarily needed by the people to receive information. Bali and Jagan (2017) speak of the public becoming owners of

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information. In India, too, we can speak of a transformation that is at least approaching the fourth age of political communication according to Blumler. Of course, this is with the proviso that only 43% of people in India had access to the Internet in 2020 (The World Bank, 2022). While not all Indians have access to newspapers either (also due to lower literacy rates), this still limits Blumler’s diagnosis of a fourth age in India. Looking at both countries, we can say as far as forms of communication are concerned, political communication is becoming more convergent. What were once strictly separate media are becoming closely interlinked in day-to-day communication practices, for instance, the media of mass communication and of interpersonal communication. For example, people often have the app for a major newspaper’s online edition right beside interpersonal communication channels on their smartphones (this could be all the more true for Germany). Thus, users themselves are ensuring that topics, news, and interpretations are conveyed through the different media. This results in a game of ping-pong between social media and the established mass media (Vowe & Henn, 2019). Summing up, the relations in the preceding triangle of politics, media, and citizens have changed as a result of the prevalence of a hybrid media system. There have been short cuts of direct communication rather than taking the detour via mass media. This circumstance is particularly suited for social movements and other civil society actors trying to get attention without many power resources which would be needed in case the actors have to attract mass media attention. However, the climate movement is not lacking institutionalization right now, it is well organized, has developed a robust practice of communication among supporters and is even globally known. Although social movements often have a fluid form, it is especially for social movements in the context of climate change that one can speak of a high degree of institutionalization. Not only have different movements with different focuses established themselves (e.g., Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion), but also different local groups. This could be a rare window of opportunity for promoting climate protection: Climate communication as an important field for civil society engagement ties in with the conditions of a hybrid media system as a facilitator for civil society communication to form a highly fertile habitat for growing support of climate protection. Even if the climate discourses in Germany and India differ from each other, due to wealth, industrialization, and colonialism, this must at least be a small opportunity window also for India. Social movements are playing an increasingly important role in India as well and the media system increasingly expanded through social media which attends to other types of actors than mass media does. The attention to social movements and the increase in social media communication mutually encourage each other. Even established political organizations might adapt to the new framework and integrate online media in their communication practice, although they are known to be very tenacious. The pace and direction of the change are determined by the behavior of other organizations: associations follow suit with other associations, parties with other parties (Vowe & Henn, 2019). However, as political

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communication changes, so do politics, and this applies to the institutional realm. The changes make it much more difficult to create a stable, legitimate framework through binding decisions. Decision-making processes are becoming shorter and more compressed, driven by accelerated communication. This generates a lack of reflection and deliberation among politicians. This development is ambivalent if not threatening. With regard to changes in politics in the less-institutionalized realm, it is to be expected that social movements will not only continue to play an important role in climate policy, but that they will also gain in significance. Environment and climate policy is the field in which the opportunity window of digitization for new, non-established types of political actors has opened widely. Social movements will increasingly establish themselves as important actors in the debate, alongside politics, media, and citizens. And this applies to both, Germany as a leading industrialized country with enormous responsibility to combat climate change, and India as a country experiencing severe consequences of climate change. The result for both countries is that climate change–related politics will take on a central role in political communication.

References Bali, A., & Jagan, S. (2017). Use of social media in India and Political Communication. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Studies, 3(4), 243–253. https://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-030-44563-8_11 Blum, R. (2014). Lautsprecher und Widersprecher: Ein Ansatz zum Vergleich der Mediensysteme. Herbert von Halem. Blumler, J. G. (2016). The fourth age of political communication. Politiques de communication, 1(6), 19–30. Blumler, J. G., & Gurevitch, M. (1995). The crisis of public communication. Routledge. Blumler, J. G., & Kavanagh, D. (1999). The third age of political communication: Influences and features. Political Communication, 16(3), 209–230. https://doi.org/10.1080/105846099198596 Chadwick, A. (2013). The hybrid media system: Politics and power. Oxford University Press. Eilders, C., Gerads, M., Scherer, H., & Scheper, J. (2022). Family, friends and taxi drivers in hybrid networks. Integrating the immediate social environment into the Spiral of Silence Theory. Studies in Communication Sciences, 22(1), 31–42. https://doi.org/10.24434/j.scoms.2022.01. 3060 Eilders, C., & Porten-Cheé, P. (2016). The spiral of silence revisited. In G. Vowe & H. Henn (Eds.), Political communication in the online world. Theoretical approaches and research designs (pp. 88–102). Routledge. Habermas, J. (2021). Überlegungen und Hypothesen zu einem erneuten Strukturwandel der politischen Öffentlichkeit. In M. Seeliger & S. Sevignani (Eds.), Ein neuer Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit? Sonderband Leviathan 37 (pp. 470–497). Nomos. Hallin, D. C. (2015). Media System. In G. Mazzoleni (Ed.), The Wiley-Blackwell international encyclopedia of political communication. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118541555. wbiepc169 Jackob, N., Schultz, T., Jakobs, I., Ziegele, M., Quiring, O., & Schemer, C. (2018). Medienvertrauen im Zeitalter der Polarisierung. Mainzer Langzeitstudie Medienvertrauen. Media Perspektiven, 5, 210–220.

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Porten-Cheé, P., Hassler, J., Jost, P. B., Eilders, C., & Maurer, M. (2018). Popularity cues in online media: Theoretical and methodological perspectives. Studies in Communication and Media, 2, 80–102. https://doi.org/10.5771/2192-4007-2018-2-80 Precht, R. D., & Welzer, H. (2022). Die vierte Gewalt – Wie Mehrheitsmeinung gemacht wird, auch wenn sie keine ist. Fischer. Stark, B., Magin, M., & Jürgens, P. (2021). Maßlos überschätzt. Ein Überblick über theoretische Annahmen und empirische Befunde zu Filterblasen und Echokommern. In M. Eisenegger, M. Prinzing, P. Ettinger, & R. Blum (Eds.), Digitaler Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Historische Verortung, Modelle und Konsequenzen (pp. 303–322). Springer. The World Bank. (2022). Individuals using the Internet (% of population)—India. https://data. worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.ZS?locations=IN Vowe, G., & Henn, P. (2019). An die Spitze der Bewegung! Forschung, 44(3), 20–23. https://doi. org/10.1002/fors.201970305

Christiane Eilders has been a professor for communication and media studies at the Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf since 2011. She is the Director of the Düsseldorf Institute for Internet and Democracy and Member of the Reviewing Board for Social Sciences in the German Science Foundation.

Enquiring Framing in India’s Mainstream Newspapers: Interpreting Frames of the Climate Change News in India During COP-26 Manish Tiwari

Introduction The UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP-26) brought together 120 world leaders and over 40,000 registered participants, including 22,274 party delegates, 14,124 observers, and 3886 media representatives. The climate change conference was held for 2 weeks from October 13, 2021, to November 12, 2021, the range of topics about climate change that was discussed can be summed up as the science, the solutions, the political will to act, and clear indications of action. Besides the debates and discussions that went into the conference, there were many other significant deals and announcements, the Glasgow Climate Pact was the most important outcome of the conference. According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the package of decisions consists of a range of agreed items, including strengthened efforts to build resilience to climate change, curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and provide the necessary finance for both. Nations reaffirmed their duty to fulfill the pledge of providing $100 billion annually from developed to developing countries. They collectively agreed to work to reduce the gap between existing emission reduction plans and what is required to reduce emissions, so that the rise in the global average temperature can be limited to 1.5°. For the first time, nations are called upon to phase down unabated coal power and inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels. The outcome of COP-26—the Glasgow Climate Pact—is the fruit of intense negotiations among almost 200 countries over the 2 weeks, strenuous formal and informal work over many months, and constant engagement both in-person and virtually for nearly 2 years. This paper examines the framing of information about climate change or climaterelated issues by four national newspapers of India: The Times of India, The Indian M. Tiwari (✉) Institute of Governance, Policies and Politics, New Delhi, India © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Briesen, S. P. Das (eds.), Media, Politics and Environment, Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31252-6_3

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Express, Dainik Bhaskar, and Dainik Jagran, and the differences or similarities in their incorporated frames during COP-26, that is, from October 31, 2021, to November 12, 2021. The concept of framing is related to the agenda-setting tradition but expands the research by focusing on the essence of the issues at hand rather than on a particular topic. Under the title of the book Frame Analysis, framing theory was first introduced by the sociologist Erving Goffman in 1974 as an examination of the many ways through which we construct, organize, and differentiate experiences. Gitlin (1980) was the first to introduce the concept of framing in the context of news production. He argued that this process enables journalists to process and disseminate information to audiences with improved efficiency and in a routine manner. The approach to examining the news discourse is framing analysis with the primary focus on conceptualizing news texts into empirical dimensions (Pan & Kosicki, 1993). The intent of a journalist has its reflection in the framing of the news (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989). Framing theory explains that through what is called “frames,” information is presented to the audience, and the frame determines the actual message that influences the choices people make about how to process that information. Hence, frames are structuration that works to organize or structure message meaning. The framing of the news or other contents on the information they convey is the most common use of frames. “To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, a moral evaluation and/or treatment recommendation” (Entman, 1993). Further he explains this and goes on defining framing that “Framing refers to selecting certain aspects of a perceived reality and making them more noticeable, meaningful, and memorable in a communication text.” Gamson and Modigliani defined frame in their work as “a frame is a central organizing idea or storyline for making sense of relevant events and suggesting what is at issue.” “Framing is the process by which people develop a particular conceptualization of an issue or reorient their thinking about an issue” (Chong & Druckman, 2007).

Framing and Its Importance Framing is in concept related to agenda-setting but does not limit it to agenda setting and instead broadens research by inquiry. Media is known to focus attention on certain information, to place them within a particular field of meaning, a discourse. Understanding framing is crucial not only in media analysis but in social research and in an organizational setup to understand the field of meaning it is embedded in. Through framing, information is presented to the audience through what is called “the frame” which influences the processing of that information. Frames are abstractions yet they work in a way that they organize or structure message meaning. In its most common usage, the frame influences the news or other content on the

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information they convey. Frames are frameworks through which media houses and journalists influence the perception and the processing of information by the recipient, and so it could be understood as a form of agenda-setting on a secondary level; frames not only tell the audience how to think about information but what to think about. Thus, framing is in many ways related to Agenda Setting theory. Agenda setting theory and framing both study how the media sets the attention of the public opinion on certain information and therefore set the agenda. Framing, however, takes agenda setting a step further, frames create and manage the way in which news and information are presented and processed, so beyond the agenda, it manages the information and not just highlights it for attention. The choices on the frame and the agenda thereof are usually made by journalists through conscious choices, and so a frame can be understood in simpler terms as the organization of information and ideas by media as gatekeepers of public opinion and the public sphere thereof. Although framing could be seen as a part of media politics, it is unavoidable in human communication because as part of communication we all bring our own frames embedded through thoughts and other discourses. Based on the above-mentioned definition of frame and framing, we can draw an inference that framing involves two important aspects: selection (selecting certain aspects of a perceived reality) and salience (reorienting it in the communication process). The “frames of thought” (recipients’ own perceived reality) of those who are the recipients of the message, get affected by the “frames of communication” (what the sender wants to make the recipient notice), and the influence of the latter on the former can be seen as framing effect. Framing is a widely used concept when it comes to the study of public communication, social sciences, mass mobilization, and social movements. The mainstream media and especially the mainstream newspaper of India have immense capabilities in shaping the public’s perception of any issue related to our day-to-day lives, the newspapers are one of the most important domains of the public sphere. This capability has shown its reflection on the issue of climate change too. The way newspaper shapes public perception and how they report it in their daily newspaper have an impact on the policy-making process and decision-makers as well. In many of the previous researches, it has been shown how media reporting on climate change can shape translation between science, policy, and the public (Boykoff & Rajan, 2007). The role of media in choosing different ways of reporting an issue has more impact and significance in people’s minds than education and their own experiences (Nelkin, 1987). Their way of framing the issue of climate change and the risks associated with it plays an important role in not only shaping people’s perception but also what and how the public communicates about it. Therefore, it becomes necessary to examine how various forms of mass media frame climate change when they report it, in our case the four newspapers that are examined in the following text.

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Methodology Content Analysis A content analysis was conducted to test the hypothesis that COP-26 has impacted the frequency of environment or climate change-related stories and the framing of these stories kept on changing before and after a month of this event and during the event. For this purpose, four newspapers were selected based on their coverage areas and readership. The Times of India, an English newspaper, is managed by the Times Group. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations report of 2019, it is the third largest newspaper in India by circulation and the largest selling English-language newspaper in India. In Digital News Report 2022, The Times of India emerged as a mostly read newspaper for the source of information. In the same report, it emerged as the most trusted brand with the highest “Brand Trust Scores,” when it comes to news trust. On the other hand, The Indian Express is the sixth most read English newspaper, which has a readership of nearly 1.6 million readers, according to the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2017. It has been selected as the second English newspaper due to its limited coverage of the northern states of India because of a split between the family members of the founder of this newspaper, as it would help while doing a comparative study with its Hindi counterparts. In Hindi, Dainik Bhaskar is selected as the first of the two Hindi newspapers because of its vast coverage in 12 states and its’s daily circulation of 4,579,051 copies, according to a report by the Audit Bureau of Circulations in 2019. The same Bureau gave this newspaper 4th ranking in the world by circulation and declared it the largest newspaper in India. Dainik Jagran is the fourth and the last newspaper, which is selected for the study, was ranked 5th in the world and 2nd in India by circulation in 2016 by the Audit Bureau of Circulation. The Indian readership Survey 2019 reported a total readership of 68.6 million. The PDF copy of these newspapers was downloaded from October 31, 2021, to November 12, 2021, for the purpose of data collection. The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly referred to as COP-26, was held at the SEC Centre in Glasgow, Scotland, UK, from October 31 to November 13, 2021, therefore, news articles were collected as per the previously mentioned time frame.

Critical Discourse Analysis and Frame Analysis Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a type of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context. With such dissident research, critical discourse analysts take an explicit position and

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thus want to understand, expose, and ultimately resist social inequality (Van Dijk, 2001). Frame Analysis is also a subset of CDA, the new articles from the archives were taken for data collection using the following environmental search terms: “Climate Change,” “Global Warming,” “Biodiversity,” “Pollution,” “Green City,” “Nuclear Energy,” “Coal,” “Coal Energy,” “Wildfires,” “Forest,” and “Sea” that appeared in the headline or in the story. In a frequently cited definition, Tankard, Hendrickson, Silberman, Bliss, and Ghanem described a media frame as “the central organizing idea for news content that supplies a context and suggests what the issue is through the use of selection, emphasis, exclusion, and elaboration.” In Hindi newspapers, the terms looked for were the translations of the equivalent English words: “Jalvaayu Parivartan” (Climate Change), “Global Warming,” “Jaiv Vividhta” (Biodiversity), “Pradushan” (Pollution), “Harit Shahar” (Green City), “Parmanu Urja” (Nuclear Energy), “Koyla” (Coal), “Koyla Urja” (Coal Energy), “Jangal me aag” (Wildfire), “Van” (Forest), and “Samudra” (Sea). These search terms were based on environmental themes. Each article was treated as a single unit for both purposes: analysis to identify frames and to measure their frequency. Only the most prominent frame would be taken for coding an article. For the analysis, five generic frames were used but open codification was also added to establish new frames (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000). Holli A. Semetko and Patti M. Valkenburg in their work “Framing European Politics: A Content Analysis of Press and Television News” defined these five generic news frames such as responsibility, conflict, human interest, economic consequence, and morality. Previous research has shown repeated use of these frames for content analysis studies as they can be treated as a standard set of indicators for the purpose of content analysis. This can be applied to various types of studies ranging from different disciplines, topics, and times.

India and the World on Climate Change Debate If we look at the overview of India’s international position in the U.N. climate regime, we know that India has defended itself by stating that its emissions do not have a significant impact. India has strictly refused to take international commitments to reduce or limit its GHG emissions, or other commitments such as targets for key industrial sectors or share of renewable energy sources. While India may be a developing country, India and China are considered advanced developing countries. And as such India’s noncompliance toward western defined standards of climate change has seen increased persistence from the western countries to keep the compliance. There have been recent changes in India’s position on global climate governance. But the growing need for energy consumption as India’s economy grows demands a better energy security policy, one that is not limited by the western set standards. But beyond the politics of east-west standards

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on climate change, there is reason to be concerned. 92.5% of India’s energy requirements are being met through hydrocarbons or fossil fuels. China, with 28% of the global emission share, tops the list of the highest GHG and CO2 emitters in the world, followed by the US, which contributes 16%; and then India and Russia, who contribute nearly 6% each to the total emission (Janardhanan, 2017). United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) took place in 2007 in Bali following which India formed the Prime Minister’s Council on National Action Plan on Climate Change. In June 2008, the first report detailing India’s plans for action was the “National Action Plan for Climate Change (NAPCC).” India has been able to make climate change-related decisions through the NAPCC, keeping in mind the long-term objectives and development goals that India must achieve. It can be said that NAPCC highlights the climate change response by India as motivated by a strong domestic-oriented policy to address climate change rather than any international pressure that contradicts national interests. Indian political approach to climate change negotiations and argues that technology, and not a multilateral agreement on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reductions, is the most realistic source of a solution to the problem of climate change, in both the Indian context and more generally. Looking into the climate change action plans we can see that in 2009, India had made a commitment to reduce carbon emissions intensity between 20% and 25% by 2020 in comparison to 2005 levels. The Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) in India as a result of the Paris agreement has been to further reduce emissions between 33% and 35% by 2030 from the 2005 levels. The United States differed from the consensus in Bangkok, before the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change, and showed the intention to change the base year for calculating emissions reductions to 2005. The US stuck to this position in Copenhagen, which made the Kyoto Protocol collapse. One principle that had run through previous accords including the Kyoto Protocol was that the polluters must bear the burnt. The industrial countries which are included in the Annex 1 countries of the Kyoto Protocol are primarily responsible for the dangerous accumulation of CO2 in the air, and as such, the argument was that they should bear the whale’s share of the cost for keeping emissions in check. This very principle has also been enshrined in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and in the Kyoto Protocol. Keeping in mind, this very principle of accountability, the year for calculating emissions reductions in the Kyoto protocol was made into 1990, as this made a better level playing field for underdeveloped and developing countries since they would have lower emissions back then. In terms of the media coverage, the interpretation of the pages on which climate change and the threat that global warming news appears shows that the threat it poses to the citizens of the country and the world is something that Indian policymakers, environmentalists, and the general public alike are still taking very lightly. It can be observed from the study as well that empirically speaking, most of the coverage on climate change during COP-26 was covered in the international section and in the political frame rather than the scientific, bio-diversity, or health impact frame. The

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climate scientist James Hansen’s presentation in the US senate in June 2008 on global warming reaching a tipping point after 20 years of assessment since his testimony in 1988 had shaken Washington but found no mention in the Indian media. If we look at some examples across the globe on the focus of media on climate change, in studies done in 2014 by Sun-Jin Yun, Dowan-Ku, Nyunbae Park, and Joon Han about three main newspapers, it was found that the South Korean media made greater attention to the opportunities created in the economic front by climate responses instead of the usual stories which had climate change policies as an economic burden. In Japan, a study was done by Midori Aoyagi on the relationship between media coverage and perception by the public. It was found that Japanese newspapers had put maximum coverage on climate change in the years 2007 and 2008. What started in December 2007 as the 2009 recession was coming to a tipping point, and more news coverage was given to the global recession from the year 2008, this was overshadowing even the news of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami which was followed by the nuclear disaster in Fukushima. As a methodology, a national public opinion survey was done and it was seen that risks involved with more immediate impact were given priority in the public concern. The most important outcome of the study was that it was found that there was a relationship between Japanese public opinion and the media’s frame and news coverage.

Media and the Climate Change While assessment of climate change brings into importance the scientists, economists, and policymakers, the role of media is increasingly greater than what is seen in terms of its contribution. Scientists, although open to talking, are sometimes worried about being misquoted by the media. There has been a gap in the information between journalists and scientists on the science and politics of climate change, and this can be apparent from the frames made in the media about climate change which determines in most cases politicians as the experts the most important stakeholders as seen in this study as well. Besides the policymakers, the media in India has yet to question whether India can reduce its carbon emissions when the world cannot. What kind of growth entails low-carbon growth and the implications it has in the industries have yet to go on a rigorous assessment by the media. The distinction that the Kyoto Protocol has made between Annex-I (past and current polluters) and non-Annex I (developing) countries make the onus of climate change responsibility fall in the hands of the Annex-I countries, to contribute economically to fighting climate change and to transfer technologies to NonAnnex-I countries to reduce carbon emissions. The western media has been described as “weak” by Sunita Narain (Centre for Science and Environment), western media reports showed that China is the biggest polluter, but fails to recognize the fact that China has about 20% of the world’s

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Local Page

National Page International

Total

Page Indian Express Times of India

7

2

30

39

5

33

38

Dainik Bhaskar

3

8

11

Dainik Jagran

5

30

35

Fig. 1 Table showing the distribution of climate change news among the Local, National, and International Page during COP-26

population. In what can be called hypocritical, the US is the second largest emitter of carbon dioxide and historically it has been the largest emitter, but it has only 5% of the world’s population, meaning that in terms of proportions the US is the largest contributor in carbon emission. There is, as she would call it, a “climate injustice” because as mentioned earlier, the call by the US for making the base year 2005 instead of 1990 for calculating carbon emissions shows the attempt to remove historical emissions, and this nullifies the efforts of the Kyoto Protocol. In view of the fact that the social construction of risk is mediated by the media gives a reliable solution to the question of taking climate change seriously. Therefore, the four papers have been chosen to shed new light on the role of the media in shaping public opinion about climate change through the framing of the news. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), risk communication can be described as the real-time exchange of information, advice, and opinions between experts or officials and people who face a threat (from a hazard) to their survival, health, or economic or social well-being. Mass media shapes the dominant risk perception of each society and risk communication is dependent on the mass media. It mediates and acts as a bridge between scientists, politicians, and the public. Through frames made in the media, socially important issues get publicized, climate change news related to COP-26 in this case. The media makes enhancement of citizens’ awareness, and affects policy making by giving news, and hence the framing of climate issues and events by the media is very critical in tackling climate change and assessment of risk management (Fig. 1). While there was a cumulative total of 123 news coverage on climate change news during COP-26 from the four-mainstream newspapers in India, we can see that there was only a total of 7 news coverage as local, 15 as national, and 101 as international news. The coverage in the local, national, and international sections of the newspaper can be interpreted as agenda setting, in which climate change news is presented as more of an international event rather than something that happens at close quarters. The frames upon which the information is set in the pages go a step further than agenda setting and guide the way in which the readers think and are confined in their thinking after processing the information. Thus, analysis of the media and especially the frames under which information is disseminated can shed light on the understanding of the country’s understanding of

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climate change and the risk communication carried thereon. As mentioned earlier, the Korean media have paid attention to the economic opportunity created by climate responses rather than focusing on the economic burden. In Japan, more coverage was given to the global financial crisis starting from 2008 and the Great East Japan Earthquake accompanied by the nuclear disaster in 2011 than climate change. In India, climate change news is shown mostly as political in the international section which has less to do with everyday lives in India.

Climate Change Policies in India In terms of climate policies, India is a very important and interesting case to study. India can be counted as an ever increasingly important player in the negotiations on global climate, it is also an ever-growing economy that has now become the 5th largest in the world. As part of the G77 and the BASIC group, India has gained much more power over the negotiations table on the standards of the climate change regime dictated by the Annex-1 countries. India has among the world’s lowest per capita GHG emissions, yet is the fifth largest source of GHG globally when accounted for in total tons, India’s per capita emissions stood at 2.7tCO2e in 2015, around a seventh of the US figure and less than half the world average of 7.0tCO2e. We know that ideological factors or competing perspectives in international political economy, individual actors, and institutions play their role in influencing policymakers. In the age of mass media, policymakers are subjected to interests and influences increasingly in the international scenario as well. The decisions then are influenced much more by the interaction of domestic and international politics rather than a one-level influence at just the international or domestic level, this is especially true for democracies that depend on the voters’ perception and the public opinion while existing as a sovereign player in the international arena. The party that comes to power at the domestic level influences industries and developmental goals, the focus on sectors of development, for example, and their outlook on the western standards of climate change regime. In India, the BJP came to power in 2014. This was a government led by a party whose ideological roots were webbed deep in nationalism. It meant that a new impetus for development was aimed because it wanted India on a better footing in the international arena which was a podium dictated by developed nations and growth. With the aim of making India a developed nation in by 2047, the development model was oriented toward a more green and clean policy. In the worldhistorical shift toward renewable power, India wanted the lead. And in COP-26, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserted at the crucial international climate summit COP-26 that it is the only country delivering in “letter and spirit” the commitments under the Paris Agreement. India led the COP-26 by pledging to become a net zero emitter of carbon by 2070, India also pledged to become a country powered with at least about 50% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuelbased energy resources by 2030. India also launched “One Sun, One World, One

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Grid” (OSOWOG) at the conference with an aim to harness solar energy wherever the sun is shining, ensuring that generated electricity flows to areas that need it most. The Union Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav was quoted in Economic Times during the COP-26, “Since the time I became the minister, our 14 tiger reserves have got CA|TS accreditation, 47 sites have been declared as Ramsar protected sites, 10 beaches have got Blue Flag certification. . . We have established a new commission for Delhi’s pollution for which we brought a new legislation, we have amended the biodiversity and wildlife laws, regional conferences under NCAP have begun in Mumbai and Guwahati. We will do it across India.” After 72 years since the Cheetahs went extinct, 8 Cheetahs were brought to India from Namibia in September 2022, with an additional 12 expected from South Africa in the next month. The updated Nationally Determined Contributions has started its implementations over the period 2021–2030. The Modi government launched many schemes and programs across many sectors, including water, agriculture, forest, energy and enterprise, sustainable mobility and housing, waste management, circular economy, resource efficiency, etc. On the policy front, India has progressively continued decoupling of economic growth from GHG emissions. The approach for India has been guided centrally on equitable sharing of the burden of climate change, it has been guided by the same principles as that of the Kyoto protocol, that is, sharing the historical responsibility for GHG emissions but in a manner as that of affirmative action where the Annex-1 countries must take a bigger responsibility in technological development and transfer for tackling climate change along with the financial needs for it. The emission obligations cannot be shared equally among all the nation-states as the Annex-1 countries had already made their development with massive emissions for which the developing and underdeveloped countries cannot be held accountable. India’s industrial and agricultural sectors unlike most developed countries consist of a very large number of small entities, who are for the most part poor, and in the case of small and medium industrial enterprises, the activities are widely heterogeneous. This structural feature makes regulation of GHG emissions from these sectors challenging (Stuligross & Ashutosh, 2002). While it is true that a strong influence comes from international politics, national sovereignty has been the central concern as independence is a recent memory in the nation’s history. Thus, a will to thwart outside intervention has made India more resistant to policies being dictated to by industrialized countries, despite keeping international scenarios in mind. India will also not have its domestic priorities subverted by pressures from western nations either, and the result of any possible outside influence invites the sharpest criticism in the parliament. But policymakers in India have taken on a different approach, one that is harmonious in the international arena, while lifting the development goals domestically, and this has been true, especially after 2014 as the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power with Narendra Modi taking on a bigger role in international politics. The popularity in leadership also influenced domestically, across the bureaucracy, in civil society, and within the parliament. The international influences over India’s domestic policy tend to be in the realm of ideas, domestic influences are typically related to material needs and ambitions,

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largely shaped by concerns about meeting the twin objectives of poverty reduction and economic growth. Sub-national actions are critical in addressing climate change due to their proximity to the consequences of climate change. India has always been a nation with policies that are directed from a “bottom-up” approach, the presence of the three-tier government called panchayat ensures that policies always incorporate the grassroots level of development. The federal structure of governance in India makes considerable variations in policy at the domestic level, that is, between states in the policies and outlook toward climate change, the geographical spread of forests and terrain also makes priorities different for each state, as Kashmir has snowfall and Rajasthan has desert and Bengal has Tiger, the national animal of India. To look at examples of policy in different states, the first state to set up a climate change department in India is Gujarat, and Kerala 2010 announced a green fund equivalent to 1000 crores of Indian rupees to be used over the next 5 years for various climate objectives. At the bureaucratic level, the Department of Science and Technology deals with climate change in many states while the State Pollution Control Boards or the Department of Environment takes care of the same in many states. The institutional mechanisms might be set to influence the focus of policies in different arenas in different states, but the climate policies in India are embedded in wider policy concerns that consider grassroots implementation, and it does not come easy in a country of 1.3 billion. With COP-26, we can see that through this study more focus has been given by India in the international realm, and broader foreign policy strategy. Therefore, policy-making in India can be accounted to see influence from both the bottom-up, grassroots levels, and the top-down, international politics, with a focus on domestic growth. Policymakers and influential civil society organizations make their discourses, and the media houses make their media frames, under the multilayered influence of norms and interests, which run both at the domestic level and, increasingly, at the international level as mass media coverage finds the Internet for dispersal and global coverage. The intermixing relationship between the international and domestic agendas is seen best in the case of India, where we can observe the outcome that strong economic development goals and sanctity of national sovereignty have on climate policy and climate politics.

Interpreting Frames The frames that have been analyzed in the study can be interpreted and classified as follows: 1. The five generic frames: (a) Responsibility Frame—This frame “presents an issue or problem in such a way as to attribute responsibility for its cause or solution to either the

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(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

government or to an individual or group” (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000, p. 96). Conflict Frame—This frame “emphasizes the conflict between individuals, groups, or institutions as a means of capturing audience interest” (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000, p. 95). Human Interest Frame—This Frame “brings a human face or an emotional angle to the presentation of an event, issue or problem” (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000, p. 95). Economic Consequence Frame—This frame “reports an event, problem, or issue in terms of the consequences it will have economically on an individual, group, institution, region, or country” (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000, p. 96). In the context of climate change, this frame emphasizes the way in which climate change will (economically) affect people, and that news reporting will often use the consequence frame to dramatize the issue to their audience. Morality Frame—This frame “puts the event, problem, or issue in the context of religious tenets or moral prescriptions” (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000, p. 96).

2. The non-generic frames: (a) Political Frame—This frame puts the news in a section of political interest and outcomes. It puts information on climate change that is related to politics. (b) Scientific Frame—This frame puts science as the basis of understanding climate change and the opinions of scientists and climate change experts find a surface through it. (c) Bio-diversity Frame—This frame puts bio-diversity at the heart of climate change and the need to save the eco-system. (d) Health-Impact Frame—This frame makes more of an anthropogenic appeal to tackling climate change and the complicacies related to change in climate change and human health. (e) Government-Initiative Frame—This frame highlights the government interventions; it shows the initiatives taken by the government to tackle climate change.

Enquiring Frames in the Four Newspapers During COP-26, there was almost a daily coverage of climate change news covered beyond the generic frames mentioned earlier, the four newspapers have been analyzed with frames that included Political, Scientific, Bio-Diversity, Health, and Government Initiative. Figure 2 shows the distribution of climate change news among the frames. It can be seen from Fig. 2 that the political frame had been used the most. Climate change has been covered as more of political news during the COP-26, which can be

Enquiring Framing in India’s Mainstream Newspapers: Interpreting Frames. . . Frames

Indian

Times of India Dainik

Express Conflict frame Economic

35

Dainik Jagran

Bhaskar 2

3

5

2

4

consequences frame Morality frame Political frame

1 21

Scientific frame 12

2

24

5

21

3

2

3

2

2

Bio-Diversity frame Health Impact

1

2

1

3

frame Responsibility

2

frame Government

1

Initiative

Fig. 2 Table of the distribution of climate change news within frames during COP-26

attributed to the fact that climate change is seen as more of a global north-south dialogue seen from the Indian stance on climate change (Figs. 3 and 4). For the Indian Express, during the 13 days of COP-20, it can be observed that the number of articles jumped from 1 on the first day to a maximum of 8 articles on the fourth day. At an interval of another 4 days, it was observed that it lowered to 1 again and gained momentum to a maximum of 4 at the end of the conference day. The average number of articles per day during the COP-20 was 3 and the total was 39. However, for the Times of India, during the 13 days of COP-20, it can be observed that the number of articles jumped from 2 on the first day to a maximum of 7 articles on the third day. At an interval of another 4 days, that is, on the eighth day, it was observed that it lowered to 2 again on the sixth day and lost momentum at the end of the conference day. The average number of articles per day during the COP-20 was 3 and the total was 38. For Dainik Bhaskar, there were no articles on the first day and 1 article only on the second day with a maximum of 3 on the second day. There were no articles on the fifth day and only 1 on the last. The average number of articles per day during the COP-20 was less than 1 and the total was 11. For Dainik Jagran, there were 5 articles on the first day and a maximum of 6 articles on the fourth day. There were only two articles on the last.

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11/12/2021 11/11/2021 11/10/2021 11/9/2021 11/8/2021 11/7/2021 11/6/2021 11/5/2021 11/4/2021 11/3/2021

11/2/2021 11/1/2021 10/31/2021 0

1

2

3

4

Times of India

5

6

7

8

9

The Indian Express

Fig. 3 Number of articles related to climate change during COP-26 in the two English newspapers 11/12/2021 11/11/2021 11/10/2021 11/9/2021 11/8/2021 11/7/2021 11/6/2021 11/5/2021 11/4/2021

11/3/2021 11/2/2021 11/1/2021 10/31/2021 0

1

2 Dainik Bhaskar

3

4

5

6

7

Dainik Jagran

Fig. 4 Number of articles related to climate change during COP-26 in the two Hindi newspapers

Enquiring Framing in India’s Mainstream Newspapers: Interpreting Frames. . .

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The average number of articles per day during the COP-20 was 2.6 and the total was 35. It can be then observed that three out of four mainstream media had an average of three articles. Between the Hindi and the English newspapers, it can be observed that in total the English newspapers have more coverage of climate change. Whereas Dainik Jagran has approximately similar numbers to the English newspapers, Dainik Bhaskar sees much lower content on climate change. Climate change in India has been understood in the media frames as more of an international event rather than a national or local one. This can be inferred from the data table given earlier, for example, in Indian Express 29 articles on climate change were covered in the international section, out of 39. For the Times of India, the figure was 33 out of 38, for Dainik Jagran 30 out of 35, and for Dainik Bhaskar, it was 8 out of 11.

Conclusion Climate change has engaged stakeholders at multiple levels, at the domestic, international, local, government, bureaucracy, civil society, and media among others. Climate change hence presents a multidirectional approach, in which policy-making, implementation, and risk management communication go hand in hand. The drive toward clean green energy marks the new economies and India looks to represent itself as an example and a leader in development led by green energy. The four newspaper analyzed show that although on the policy front many initiatives have been made, the risk management communication remains largely undermined as the framing of the climate change news during COP-26 reveal that the four newspapers report climate change news as an international event rather disconnected with other events at the home front. The representation of the climate change news as mostly political rather than a more serious and personalized frame such as health impact shows the disaccord between policy-making and risk management communication.

References Boykoff, M. T., & Rajan, S. R. (2007). Signals and noise. Mass-media coverage of climate change in the USA and the UK. EMBO Reports, 8(3), 207–211. Chong, D., & Druckman, J. N. (2007). A theory of framing and opinion formation in competitive elite environments. Journal of Communication, 57(1), 99–118. Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43, 51–58. Gamson, W. A., & Modigliani, A. (1989). Media discourse and public opinion on nuclear power: A constructionist approach. American Journal of Sociology, 95(1), 1–37.

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Gitlin, T. (1980). The whole world is watching: Mass media in the making & unmaking of the New Left. University of California Press. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Harvard University Press. Janardhanan, N. K. (2017). India’s energy policy: Energy needs and climate change. Special report #188 Indian and Chinese Energy Policies. Nelkin, D. (1987). Risk and the press. Industrial Crisis Quarterly, 1(2), 3–9. Pan, Z., & Kosicki, G. (1993). Framing analysis: An approach to news discourse. Political Communication, 10, 55–75. Semetko, H., & Valkenburg, P. (2000). Framing European politics: A content analysis of press and television news. Journal of Communication, 50, 93–109. Stuligross, D., & Ashutosh, V. (2002). Ethnic diversities, constitutional designs, and public policies in India. In A. Reynolds (Ed.), The architecture of democracy: Constitutional design, conflict management, and democracy (Oxford studies in democratization). Oxford University Press. Van Dijk, T. A. (2001). Critical discourse analysis. In D. Tannen, D. Schiffrin, & H. Hamilton (Eds.), Handbook of discourse analysis (pp. 352–371). Blackwell.

Manish Tiwari has been associated with the electronic and print media for more than 25 years in different places, capacities, and institutions—from newspaper in small town (1996 in Ajmer) to top brands in electronic media (Research Head for Devil’s Advocate with Karan Thapar, 2011). Manish has intermittently taught sociology, journalism and media, and cultural studies at different colleges and universities since 2006. He was a DFG-Post Doctoral Guest Lecturer in Political Communication at the Siegen University, Germany, in 2010. He presently is the Director of Institute for Governance, Policies and Politics, New Delhi.

Food and Nutrition Scandals in Germany Since the 1950s: Social Value Change and Scandalisation as Catalysts for Environmental Policy Detlef Briesen

Introduction My contribution deals with the question of how a permanent environmental discourse was able to establish itself in the Federal Republic of Germany after the Second World War, a discourse which is now firmly anchored in politics and the media.1 My idea is that this happened in a process that lasted several decades, and which began even before the First World War. Its catalysts were scandals in an area that directly affects people, the food, and drink sector. In this area, food scandals, that is, the uncovering of problems with individual foods, occurred more frequently even before 1914, and then later, especially since the 1950s, dietary scandals became strikingly relevant. By this I mean events that raise general doubts about the health value of the previously prevailing dietary system. The third stage of this “escalation” was reached when events finally took place which were interpreted as scandals affecting the entire environment, in Germany in particular the accident of the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl in 1986. Regarding the area of focus here, these environmental scandals accelerated the fundamental scepticism of consumers towards all foods, which could be observed anyway. The shaken confidence thus led to the dissemination of a then novel nutritional concept, which I call Negative Nutrition in reference to Belasco.2 The change described here would not have been possible without the background of comprehensive social changes that took place during the same period, in particular a significant change in human value systems and in the media. However, this change, 1

This essay is essentially based on my work on the history of healthy eating. Briesen (2010). I also consider the following publications to be fundamental: Levenstein (1988, 1993) and Kiple (2007). 2 Belasco (1989). D. Briesen (✉) History and Cultural Studies, Justus Liebig University Gießen, Gießen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Briesen, S. P. Das (eds.), Media, Politics and Environment, Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31252-6_4

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especially in value systems, did not occur slowly and continuously, but disruptively via scandalisation. Scandals thus had an important function for the area examined here: they acted as catalysts of change. On the other hand, they are excellently suited for retrospectively analysing changes in values and media as factors for the emergence of environmental awareness. For scandals allow answers to two central questions: – They give more precise information about which values are the dominant ones in a society at a given point in time: What is therefore perceived as “scandalous” in a historical context? – And they provide clues to the contemporary structures of the media: How are conditions that are perceived as “scandalous” actually reported? Answers to these two “what” or “how” questions may make it possible, through the analysis of scandals, to find an explanation for the way in which a social development has finally come about in Germany, which has provisionally come to an end today with a higher level of environmental awareness, more environmental policy or at least the permanent presence of environmental issues in the media. The question of healthy eating and its relationship to the change in values and media, which in turn is interesting both as a catalyst and as an indicator, was of course by no means the only factor in such a decisive process of change, but it was, from my perspective, a very revealing one. Such an assessment is reinforced when one looks at value systems and the role of scandals for the media from a theoretical perspective. I have therefore placed a brief theoretical consideration of these at the beginning of my essay. One more preliminary remark: This essay focuses mainly on developments in the Federal Republic of Germany but goes beyond these. In my opinion, the history of the entire context of food, environment, media and value change, and scandalisation can only be adequately written from a transatlantic perspective; thus, the intensive interactions between Germany and the USA must be taken into account. Since the eighteenth century, the societies of both countries have influenced each other repeatedly and in many ways. Modern dietetics and the industrial production of food were developed mainly in the German-speaking countries. They were then first implemented in the USA, which in turn had a major influence on the first major scandals in this area being uncovered in the USA after 1945. German society in turn, after the lost Second World War, looked intensively at the USA and the scandals taking place there. This in turn contributed to the sensitisation of Germans to food and environmental issues. The proximity between Germany and the USA has probably been replaced in the last three decades by a significantly increasing distance; one could also say that Germany is now far ahead of the USA regarding environmental consciousness and policies. However, the special transatlantic relationship has played a decisive role in the emergence of a modern environmental awareness of major food and nutrition scandals until very recently.

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Change in Values and in the Media This essay is about social change. To explain this or even value change is one of the most difficult challenges in the cultural and social sciences, because it addresses a question that is not always theoretically clarified, the basic scientific problem of causality. The science of history, for example, usually limits itself to identifying change in the context of historical processes as a first step in its analyses. In a second step, explanations are then worked out by means of certain factors; the disadvantage is above all that this proceeding is based on implicit assumptions of causality. Sociology and political science, on the other hand, usually make their assumptions of causality explicit, as they are guided by theory; but they are often not interested in social change. They therefore usually limit themselves to obtaining up-to-date information on current problems and conditions. They then use this information to test their models based on general assumptions. Explanation of change, on the other hand, is done, if at all, only by comparing different, cross-sectional analyses, which often originate from diverse research interests and are characterised by different methodologies. For all these reasons, there are only a few successful social science approaches to research and explain social or particularly value change. The most important studies on this topic are still those by Ronald Inglehart.3 A brief comment on his theoretical approach: Inglehart sees values as the basis of the culture that determines the behaviour of the population of a particular country. These cultures are adaptations to particular social, political, economic, and social conditions. Values are thus the foundations for the respective adaptions and contain not only rational but also emotional components. As social conditions change, so do values and thus culture. Values are therefore no more eternal and unchangeable than culture. However, their change is accompanied by complex rational and emotional transformations. Or rather, because Inglehart does not take a deterministic approach, culture, values, and framework conditions are interdependent. Cultural change is thus a consequence of a change in values, which results from adaptation to changed social conditions. Two characteristics in particular are constitutive of value change: firstly, it usually takes place rather slowly and is characterised by time lags between generations, because people are generally deeply influenced by the values they were taught in an early phase of their lives. Older people are thus more “conservative” than younger people. Secondly, although the phenomenon of cultural change is intricately linked to social, political, and economic changes, it is only linked to them and not determined by them. For it is not possible to isolate individual factors as determinants: Rather, each factor is part of a system of interdependent causes and thus has a relationship to all the others. In this system, cultures and values are decisive factors—and even more interesting as they are difficult to measure and therefore rarely studied.

3

Inglehart (1989).

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Inglehart’s further considerations will not be discussed in detail here. However, for the question chosen here the connection between scandals and environmental problems, his empirical work provides two valuable indications. Firstly, in the 1970s and 1980s a radical change in value priorities occurred in the industrialised countries. According to Inglehart, a transition from materialistic to post-materialistic value orientations took place in decisive parts of the population. This change is a consequence of the relative material security in which many people in North America and Western Europe have lived since the 1950s—unlike in many other parts of the world, free from wars and material hardship. Post-materialism refers to the attitude of individuals or complete social milieus, on the basis of what has been achieved materially, no longer to strive predominantly for the tangible material, but to want to achieve “higher” goals in life. These include health, freedom, happiness, culture, education, animal welfare, and environmental protection. Materialistic values, on the other hand, are the need for security (through national defence, fighting crime, peace, and order) and the need for provision through economic stability, economic growth, and the fight against rising prices. Secondly, the post-materialist values spread in the 1970s and 1980s mainly among younger people with higher education and a greater willingness to engage in society. The reasons for this are obvious, different experiences of socialisation than those of the age cohorts of their parents or grandparents. It was therefore not only the attitudes or possibly also the consumption styles within the population groups that were younger during this period that changed. Rather, their postmaterialism has had a direct influence on politics, because the changed value attitudes within post-materialistic milieus have drawn attention to quite different, hitherto largely neglected problem areas: precisely to violations of central values already listed earlier, such as health, freedom, happiness, culture, education, animal welfare, and environmental protection. In short, the change in values was accompanied by a change in political priorities in parts of the population. But that is not all: as already mentioned, the post-materialistically oriented age cohort was still among the younger part of the population in the 1970s and 1980s. But due to their high level of education and willingness to engage in politics, many of their members managed to penetrate the elites. As a result, an increasing number of people with a basic post-materialist orientation were also those who decided which topics received greater attention in public discourse. The change in values was thus linked to a change in the elites and initiated a further process about which Inglehart could only make assumptions in his publication, which appeared at the end of the 1980s: that a new synthesis of materialistic and post-materialistic value attitudes should emerge in the medium term. However, the change in values observed at the time does not in itself explain the high level of attention to environmental issues that began to establish themselves in the period mentioned: this requires a second actor, the mass media. For public attention is generated via mass media and their agenda-setting or framing function. Contrary to the idealistic notion that mass media strictly differentiate between facts and opinions and present them in a neatly separated way, they often pursue a completely different strategy: mass media want to attract the attention of their

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(potential) consumers and therefore target the emotions of their recipients. In short: mass media tend to scandalise conditions or events that are assessed as bad or insufficient. The word “scandal” is borrowed from French in German and English; it comes from Middle Latin (scandalum) and actually from ancient Greek. There “scandalon” means trick, pressure, anger. So, a scandal is something that causes public outrage because it is annoying and requires action to end the abuse. A scandal is thus an outraged and thus emotional reaction to an actual or alleged grievance that has become public, to a damage that needs to be repaired. Scandals require the mass media to spread them. Looking at the multitude of such scandals, their media presence is characterised by the following six characteristics according to Mathias Kepplinger4: – Scandals begin with the discovery of hugely different kinds of grievances or damage, from things to people to complete ecosystems. However, the causes of scandals are always violations of standards and values. Scandals are therefore excellent indicators of which values are important in a culture. It is only worthwhile for the mass media to report on them. – Norms and values that are violated in scandals are not universally valid everywhere and for all times, however. They differ from one historical epoch to another, depending on the social milieu and culture. Which scandals are uncovered therefore depends to a large extent on the recipients to whom the mass media are addressed to. By analysing their addressees, it is thus possible to determine value attitudes and (in a temporal comparison) their change in relation to social milieus, different countries, and historical epochs. – Scandals do not arise of their own accord or through natural laws, they are rather the consequence of human activities and therefore concrete people are responsible for them. This responsibility, another characteristic of scandals, is a consequence of wrong action or omission. It is therefore always certain people who are responsible for wrongdoing and whose actions or omissions are denounced in a scandal. Which grievances are addressed, when, and with which scandal thus also say something decisive about a culture and its values. Above all, however, it reveals lines of conflict within a society. – Scandals are caused by human perpetrators who often have moral deficits; they are the bad guys. The motives for their actions are egoism, stupidity, incompetence, negligence, or even ignorance. Those who uncover scandals are the “good” counterparts. In this way, too, scandals are suitable as indicators of a change in social values: Who is the bad or the good in each case? On what criteria is this categorisation based? – An important point about scandals is that that responsible persons act culpably. They have deliberately violated norms and values, and in fact they could have acted better: less selfish, more informed, more careful, less malicious, etc. Once

4

Kepplinger (2018).

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again, an explicitly normative component is evident, which plays a decisive role in scandals. – The media, especially the mass media, are of great importance in scandalising grievances: only scandalous news will spread. However, not all mass media have to report with the same tenor about a scandal. The media can act selectively, even controversially. This in no way diminishes the significance of scandals for the change in values. On the contrary, whether and how something is scandalised by different media and in different discourses reveals rather very well the different value attitudes of the recipients. So, what is a scandal in the post-material milieu can be considered normal in other social groups; what causes a tangible environmental scandal in Western Europe cannot generate interest in the mass media in other parts of the world. This leads us to another especially important point—the transformation of the mass media in recent decades. Successively, print (such as magazines, newspapers, and books), radio (radio and television), and finally today’s Internet-based new media have taken over the role of leading media in a rapidly changing media market. This technological change has had an impact on the use and content of mass media. For, to put it simply, media users are increasingly inundated with media offerings during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As a result, it is becoming more and more difficult for individual media to attract the attention of their addressees due to the ever-increasing range of offers. Therefore, according to a widespread idea, mass media are presenting topics of any content to their recipients in a scandalised manner.

A Brief History of Food and Dietary Scandals The First Food Scandals At the beginning of the development analysed here were food scandals, which began to accumulate in countries such as the German Empire from the 1890s onwards, because the mass media there increasingly exposed scandals at that time. Above all, the wrong or fraudulent handling of food that was basically considered to be good and healthy was denounced as “scandalous”—during production, packaging, transport, and/or storage. In addition, there has also been criticism of food in general, especially by supporters of the life reform and vegetarians. However, this early form of nutritional criticism was only rarely presented in scandalous form in the mass media: it tended to appear in a thoroughly religious guise and spread through often esoterically inspired prophets. Until the First World War, food and nutrition criticism therefore had quite different causes and manifestations, albeit with a common historical background: the gradual improvements in mass nutrition since the middle of the nineteenth century. Until then, the lower classes in Europe had often simply been forced to

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eat food of poor quality, such as mouldy cereals or half-rotten potatoes. This did not change dramatically until the 1860s when incomes increased and the food situation gradually improved, the latter due to rising domestic production and increasing imports from the New World. Two other important factors were added up to 1914: a modern food industry was created on the basis of technical and scientific progress, whose products could now be checked by means of a food control system that was also based on natural science. The consequence was that even before the First World War, systematic, state food controls were introduced in most European countries, as there was a need for better monitoring of the industrialised food industry. It soon became apparent that harmful preservatives were being used in high doses during production: aluminium salts, phosphates, hydrofluoric and lactic acid, boric, benzoic, salicylic and formic acid, and even formaldehyde. The official control of food was finally politically enforced—because of a public controversy between the food industry on the one hand and scientifically trained food chemists on the other. The keyword “publicly carried out” refers to another factor: before the First World War, the mass media, that is, newspapers and magazines, expanded in countries such as the German Empire. They eagerly took up grievances especially when the then novel fat product margarine had once again led to illness and even death. At the beginning of 1910, for example, contemporary newspapers reported in detail about mass poisoning caused by margarine produced by the Mohr company in Altona. In the Hamburg area about 200 people fell ill at the time, in Bromberg (West Prussia) there are said to have been over 300. The reason was the improper treatment of vegetable fat, which the manufacturer had processed into margarine. This was repeated in 1911 in another margarine scandal, in which the Mohr company was also involved: as late as July 1910 it had imported cheap Ceylonese cardamom oil and produced around 78 tonnes of margarine from it. But between the outbreak of the First World War and the beginning of the 1950s, the number of food scandals declined, at least in Germany. This was mainly due to two factors, apart from the freedom of the press, which, apart from the 1920s, was now severely restricted or even non-existent, and the miserable food situation over many years. Even in the first two decades after the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany, there were initially only a few food scandals. At that time, it looked as if the considerably improved mass nutrition together with a likewise consistently established system of food monitoring would be sufficient to protect the population from poisoning. Or perhaps it was rather the case that scientific experts did not investigate critically enough, and that the mass media did not want or were unable to achieve added value by scandalising food. All this changed in the early 1970s, when a new type of nutritional criticism led to a wave of reviews of individual foods using scientific methods5 The results were shocking—especially in the 1980s there was a flood of food scandals. This is by no means an exhaustive list:

5

Katalyse-Umweltgruppe (1982).

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– – – – – – –

D. Briesen

1971 Lindane in drinking milk 1981 Aniline in olive oil 1985 Glycols in grape wine, chicken manure in pasta 1987 Nematodes in marine fish 1989 Botulinum toxin in yoghurt 1996 Nicotine in chicken meat 2000 Mineral oil in chicken eggs

Dietary Scandals and Consumer Panics These food scandals were only partial results of a new, fundamentally critical assessment of human nutrition and its consequences for man and nature. It was no longer primarily a matter of denouncing incorrect or fraudulent handling of food which was considered valuable and healthy—the prevailing diet was now being scandalised in the first place. This was done in two directions, firstly regarding the health value and secondly with a view to the effects on the environment and nature. Both, in turn, were promoted by a number of factors: the expansion of scientific research after the Second World War, the changes in the mass media, especially the spread of television, the gradual emergence of mass affluence, and, associated with this, the change in values outlined earlier. This led to political changes even more drastic than before 1914, to modern health and environmental policies. The “mother of all dietary scandals” was the consequence of a, probably pointed, interpretation of the results of a scientific long-term study, the famous Framingham Study. Its background was the significant changes in mortality statistics that had been observed in the USA between 1900 and 1950. To put it simply, cardiovascular disease and cancer replaced infectious diseases as the leading causes of death. In most Western European countries, such as the Federal Republic of Germany, mortality also changed accordingly, albeit with a slight delay compared with the USA. The change in mortality became the starting point for an innovative scientific study of paradigmatic value: the Framingham study marked the beginning of the scientific and systematic search for the causes of mass diseases. The study was started in 1950 in Framingham, Massachusetts, hence its name. For many decades, the health status, living habits, and, finally, mortality of a sample of 6507 people was surveyed in this small town. During the long-term observation of the patients, the study finally identified six risk factors for cardiovascular diseases and thus for increased mortality: high blood pressure, blood lipid levels, smoking, low physical activity, high obesity, and diabetes. The most interesting result of the study was the discovery of the great influence of lifestyle on the development of cardiovascular diseases. The study showed that poor blood lipid values and tobacco smoking promote the development of arteriosclerosis. The results of the study also allowed a reverse conclusion to be drawn—negative consequences for the heart, vascular system, and kidneys of the people studied could be avoided or at least reduced if the patients changed their lifestyle. This was

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particularly true for nutrition, and more specifically for the possible avoidance of exactly those foods that had previously been recommended by scientists as particularly valuable: fatty meats and sausages, and high-fat dairy products in the form of cheese, butter, and cream. Almost overnight, they had now become real pathogens and the harmful ingredient in all these previously prestigious and previously considered healthy foods was soon identified—cholesterol. The Framingham study was thus not only the first modern nutritional study, it also triggered the first consumer panic of the twentieth century: the cholesterol phobia that has been fuelled by the mass media ever since. Cholesterol was not just a single batch of spoiled food, but a complete diet—the “healthy” food of north-western Europe—that was pilloried on scientific grounds. The dietary scandal that followed the Framingham study was also effective because it challenged the deep-seated certainties of the population: No one could ignore the research results. Another contributing factor was that a heated public discourse developed about the NorthWest European diet, traditionally considered to be of high quality: scientists, politicians, and especially the dairy and margarine industry fought each other with great effort and expensive advertising campaigns. Almost 10 years later, the first major modern environmental scandal took place, and once again the starting point was the diet of people in industrialised societies and fat. Biologist Rachel Carson investigated the question of whether the then modern plant protection products, especially DDT, which was developed from a chemical warfare agent, would actually diffuse into the environment without leaving a trace, and eventually be degraded, as agricultural chemistry claimed. It showed the exact opposite, because it succeeded in proving that DDT was enriched in the food chain from plants via animals and humans, each with higher concentrations in the fatty tissue. Carson thus demonstrated a process with catastrophic consequences: substances such as DDT and the then novel chemical fertilisers did not only enter the cultivated plants, but the entire environment and thus also the human and animal organism. Once there, however, they were not excreted again, but rather accumulated in the fatty tissue until poisoning occurred. The pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides which changed agriculture so radically after the Second World War proved to be “elixirs of death”. When “The Silent Spring”6 was published in 1962, it triggered an enormous public response, perhaps because Carson addressed two horror scenarios at once: a bird extinction (the conservation of songbirds had been a major concern of early nature conservation in Western Europe and North America), soon to be followed by massive health damage to humanity. There was a flood of publications in specialist organs and the mass media. The magazines were flooded with letters from readers. Representatives of the agricultural and chemical industries launched a campaign against Carson and other critical scientists. Articles in mass media like Time or Reader’s Digest attacked the methods and results as unscientific. Environmental

6

Carson (1962).

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activists were defamed as pseudo-scientists who were indifferent to human suffering if the environment only satisfied their aesthetic demands. Scientific discoveries such as the Framingham Study or the work of Rachel Carson have had an enormous influence on consumer behaviour in Western countries, such as Federal Germany, since the 1950s. On the one hand, they increased scepticism towards individual foods or even complete dietary systems. This encouraged consumers to switch to fundamentally different diets that were perceived as alternatives: raw food diet, vegetarianism etc.7 In many cases, the scandalisation of the abuses that had been uncovered was combined with a reaction that Levenstein had already described, perhaps somewhat pointedly, as “consumer panic”. These are formed in the interplay of scandalising media coverage and panicky reactions by broad sections of the population. As the choice of words suggests, consumer panics are not purely rational responses: They are not primarily about exposing grievances, eliminating evils, and changing consumer behaviour. Panics, whether individual or collective, are based on intense (exaggerated) fears of an actual or perceived threat. The extent of the fears, an important characteristic of panic, tends to reach a level that is often perceived as unjustified and dramatising by outside observers. From the internal perspective of the affected persons themselves, however, and this on the level of individual and collective panic behaviour, panics are comprehensible and obvious reactions to extreme stress situations. Such a stressful situation including a solid consumer panic triggered the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 in Ukraine. On 25 April of that year, as a result of a safety review of a nuclear reactor, an uncontrolled power increase occurred, as a consequence of which the reactor exploded in the early morning of 26 April and the graphite used as moderator caught fire. In the first 10 days after the explosion, radioactivity of several million becquerels was released into the earth’s atmosphere which was transported by the wind to large parts of Northern and Eastern Europe. As the then Secretary-General of the CPSU, Mikhail Gorbachev did not inform the world public about the accident until 14 May 1986, this also delayed appropriate countermeasures, in particular warnings for those areas which may have been particularly affected. In Western Europe, the greatest danger for the population was not the direct exposure to radiation but the intake of contaminated food, especially fresh milk, fresh vegetables, wild mushrooms, and game. These foods became the starting point for a consumer panic which eventually culminated in the question of how to feed infants and young children. Because of alleged or real dangers, many mothers stopped breastfeeding their babies and fed powdered milk instead. However, powdered milk is essentially made from cow’s milk. Since milk in particular was contaminated, parents bought up stocks of powdered milk that had been produced before the accident and hoarded them. Finally, milk powder considered to be uncontaminated was hardly available. The consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear accident for the Federal Republic of Germany were thus above all another, now gigantic, food scandal, which was

7

Kollath (1942), Bircher-Benner (1944), and Kofrányi and Wirths (1994).

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perceived and evaluated rather controversially. The reactions to the accident depended on general attitudes to questions of health, lifestyle, and, in particular, the respective acceptance of nuclear energy—supporters of nuclear power played down the consequences, critics of nuclear power saw the accident as the final proof of an irresponsible, risky energy policy. Chernobyl, according to this view of things, had demonstrated the dangers of nuclear power, whereas for supporters of this technology the main reasons were the inadequate safety standards and the miserable handling by the Soviet side, which had negligently caused an accident in an intrinsically safe area of technology.

The Scandal in Permanence and Negative Nutrition The consumer panic in the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear accident was the end of a historical development in the Federal Republic of Germany which had gradually gathered momentum after the Second World War. The chain of food and nutrition scandals that has continued since then ended for many people in a permanent state of scandal about the human nutrition situation since Chernobyl. Several factors outlined earlier worked together: experiences with previous scandals, fundamental changes in values and elites, the new role of critical science, and changes in the media landscape. Since then, the latter have apparently tended towards fundamentally scandalising reporting, which in an initial phase since the 1980s may have been due to the penetration of private providers on the television market. Since the turn of the millennium, the trend towards omnipresent scandalisation has then increased even further. Since then, the new media have been expanding; they promote forms of communication that present their users with conditions and events often only in a scandalised way. Since the 1980s, individual foods or the entire diet have been under a fundamental suspicion: could they be toxic or lethal? Particularly among the educated or worried sections of the population, a basic attitude has developed which Warren J. Belasco already called Negative Nutrition in 1989.8 Negative Nutrition is not a system of positively formulated recommendations for a healthy diet, but the exact opposite, an anti-concept that can only be explained by comparing it with the prevailing dietary teachings up to that time: Until Negative Nutrition, all nutrition systems had categorised foods according to their value or damage to health. Consumers were either encouraged to access good products to their heart’s content or to avoid harmful foods altogether if possible. All classical dietetics had been based on such categorisations: humoral pathology, protein science, healthy mixed diet, health food, or the Mediterranean diet. Negative Nutrition, on the other hand, mainly spread a truly negative message—be sceptical and careful, keep yourself informed, and consume only those foods whose harmfulness or toxicity has not yet been proven!

8

Belasco (1989).

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Negative Nutrition has established itself as a fixed attitude towards everything edible and drinkable, especially in countries such as the USA or Germany among the higher educated for three decades, even if this attitude towards nutrition had its ups and downs. After a first peak in the second half of the 1980s, Negative Nutrition lost importance in the decade that followed, perhaps because major individual scandals such as Harrisburg or Chernobyl failed to materialise by chance, or because during the economic crises before and after the turn of the millennium, materialistic values regained importance over post-materialistic ones. 9 Nevertheless, in Germany, for example, it can be assumed that Negative Nutrition is firmly established overall and, as a central value system, forms the social foil for the numerous scandals and even consumer panics. To this day, nutritional educators and especially consumer associations have taken a proactive stance, in Germany, for example, the Ökotest foundation and above all Food Watch. The latter was explicitly founded by Thilo Bode, the long-standing head of Greenpeace, to systematically transfer the strategy of the predecessor organisation to uncover or provoke scandals to the field of nutrition.10 With the message “distrust all advice and especially that of government and experts”, the campaigns of such organisations target the entire population. In doing so, an implicit or explicit enemy image is served: the major food producers, their organised interest groups, and the authorities, which are too lax or not acting at all. NGOs like Foodwatch are not only concerned with food, but also with the protection of animals, nature, and environment in general. This pursues much broader goals than just creating scandals or consumer panic: It is about a fundamental change in environmental, health, and social policy to ensure that a healthy and environmentally sound diet for all becomes possible. The driving force behind these movements continues to be food scandals, which can develop into veritable consumer panics. It is obvious that this is closely related to the agendasetting by the mass media.

Summary The path that societies like Germany’s have taken over the last 100 years has led from singular food scandals to permanent scandalisation and repeated consumer panics in the very recent past. In this process, numerous social changes have become apparent which are symptomatic of the change in values and the media outlined in the preceding text. Today’s phenomena such as fundamental nutritional criticism, consumer panic, and negative nutrition are thus revealing indicators of a profound social change. Firstly, they illustrate the penetration of post-materialistic views in a very central area of societies or human existence. In countries such as Germany, the primary

9

Hradil (2006). Bode (2007).

10

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concern is hardly to provide enough food for all people in the first place—it is about the quality of nutrition and minimising the potential damage that may be associated with it. In other words, nutrition is the subject of a public discourse that is based on a change in social values, which at the same time illustrates this change in an exemplary manner and also draws on (supposed or actual) scientific research findings. The question of healthy nutrition has apparently played a decisive role in the politicisation of the environmental issue. Secondly, every criticism of nutrition, from the first food scandals to the major consumer panics and negative nutrition, is based on the scandalising interpretation of individual findings by the mass media. They selectively scandalise “intolerable” circumstances, especially since the 1980s and in media strongly associated with the New Left, critical scientists, and consumer protectionists. Their central motive for the past 30 years or so has increasingly been not to remedy individual grievances alone—it is rather a matter of alleged or actual interests of the general public. What is called for is not just improvements in individual products, but a change in nutrition in general. This brings us to a noticeably clear conclusion about the role of scandals, which was initially suspected to be of great importance. Bernhard Pörksen and Hanne Detel recently talked about the unleashing and loss of control over scandals in the digital age.11 In the area under investigation here, this process already began in the age of the classic mass media, print, and television and has since continued disruptively in the new media. Beyond all justified criticism of the creation of a scandal in permanence, however, an essential result of the process outlined here remains to be noted: The scandalisation has been a manifestation of a profound change in values and media. It has thus contributed considerably to the establishment of a lasting and politicised environmental discourse in countries like Germany.

References Belasco, W. J. (1989). Appetite for change: How the counter culture took on the food industry, 1966–1988. Cornell University Press. Bircher-Benner, M.-O. (1944). Kranke Menschen in diätetischer Heilbehandlung. WendepunktVerlag. Bode, T. (2007). Abgespeist. Wie wir beim Essen betrogen werden und was wir dagegen tun können. Fischer Verlag. Briesen, D. (2010). Das gesunde Leben. Ernährung und Gesundheit seit dem 18. Campus. Carson, R. (1962). The silent spring. Houghton Mifflin. Hradil, S. (2006). Die Sozialstruktur Deutschlands im internationalen Vergleich. Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Inglehart, R. (1989). Cultural change. Princeton University Press. Katalyse-Umweltgruppe, K. V. (Hrsg.). (1982). Chemie in Lebensmitteln. Zweitausendeins. Kepplinger, M. (2018). Medien und Skandale. Springer.

11

Pörksen and Detel (2012).

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Kiple, K. F. (2007). A movable feast, ten Millenia of food globalization. Cambridge University Press. Kofrányi, E., & Wirths, W. (1994). Einführung in die Ernährungslehre. Umschau Verlag. Kollath, W. (1942). Die Ordnung unserer Nahrung. Grundlagen einer dauerhaften Ernährungslehre. Levenstein, H. A. (1988). Revolution at the table: The transformation of the American diet. University of California Press. Levenstein, H. A. (1993). Paradox of plenty: A social history of eating in modern America. Oxford University Press. Pörksen, B., & Detel, H. (2012). Der entfesselte Skandal, Das Ende der Kontrolle im digitalen Zeitalter. Herbert von Halem.

Detlef Briesen is a German historian and political scientist. He completed his doctorate at the University of Cologne and his habiliation at the University of Giessen. Since 2009 he is professor at the JLU Gießen. His fields of research include the spatial organisation of modern societies, the political history of consumer society, and, in recent years, increasingly development policy in Asia. Detlef Briesen has been a guest researcher in the USA, India, Sweden, and other countries and has been serving as DAAD University Advisor for Southeast Asia since 2010.

Social Media and the Environmental Discourse in Vietnam Nguyen Thi Thuy Hang

Introduction The role of social media in combating environmental problems has been confirmed in many studies. Cheong and Cheong (2011) researched social media by analyzing Tweets during the 2010–2011 floods in Australia. Cameron et al. (2012) evaluated emergency awareness from Twitter for crisis management. Haddow and Haddow (2013) commented on disaster communication in a changing media world, in which social media left a considerable impact. Anderson (2014), in his work on Media, Environment, and the Network Society, emphasized that mass media played an important role in raising discussions about environmental conflicts. Through examples ranging from climate change to oil spills, the author provided a fairly comprehensive and timely analysis of the media politics characteristics of contemporary environmental debates. Houston et al. (2014) went into detail about social media and disasters—a theoretical framework for the use of social media in disaster planning, response, and research. Palen and Hughes (2017), Lovari and Bowen (2019), and Mirbabaie et al. (2021), etc. specifically analyzed the role of social media in disaster communication. Telles et al. (2022) studied the environment, media, and popular culture of Southeast Asian countries. This work researched both theoretical and practical aspects, contributing to the debates on conservation, sustainable development, and indigenous rights in Southeast Asia. They emphasized the role of communication, including social media. There are a few studies on social media in Vietnam. Some of them focus on the role of social media in the context of migration (Gribble & Tran, 2016); the role of social media in the field of apparel retailing (Mai et al., 2016); customers’ attitudes N. T. T. Hang (✉) University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Briesen, S. P. Das (eds.), Media, Politics and Environment, Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31252-6_5

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toward online promotional videos on social networking sites (Wang & Lan, 2018); social media, journalism, and social power structures in Vietnam (Mach & Nash, 2019); the sustainability of the public health system in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (La et al., 2020), technology acceptance model and factors affecting acceptance of social media: An empirical study in Vietnam (Nguyen et al., 2021), etc. It is noticeable that research on social media in Vietnam mainly concerns aspects such as business, anthropology, social, etc., but very few of them study social media and environmental discourse. Meanwhile, in reality, the number of people using social media in Vietnam is considerable, and the role of media in environmental discourse is undeniable. This study first raises the real state of social network usage in Vietnam and its impact on social life. Then, the article analyzes some typical cases including the “Tree Hugs” campaign against the cutting of 6700 trees in Hanoi in 2015 and an environmental protection campaign on Facebook after the Formosa disaster in Ha Tinh in 2016. Finally, based on research and observational data, the author points out the role of social media in raising awareness and promoting participation in environmental protection and sustainable development in Vietnam.

Social Media Usage in Vietnam November 19, 1997, is the official date when Vietnam first integrated into the global Internet. Over the past 25 years, Internet usage in Vietnam has developed drastically, which is evident through the accelerating number of Vietnamese Internet users. While only 0.25% of the population used the Internet in 2000, this percentage reached 73.2% by 2022. Efforts by the government, science and technology developments, as well as improvements in people’s socio-economic lives are the driving forces behind such rapid increase in Vietnamese Internet usage. The country is now in the top 20 countries with the highest number of Internet users in the world. Growing along with the increasing number of Internet users is the number of social media users in Vietnam. In Vietnam, the concepts of “social network” and “social media” are used almost interchangeably. However, “social network is only one part of a larger whole called social media, which consists of many very different parts, such as websites, blogs, forums, search engines, and Wikipedia, etc. Social media is the means used, and the social network is the tool used” (Tấn, 2017, p. 30). The number of Internet users in Vietnam increases every year (Fig. 1). Not only is social media a tool for work and entertainment purposes, but it is also an important source of information for many Vietnamese people. According to KEPIOS statistics, the number of social network users in Vietnam at the beginning of 2022 is equivalent to 78.1% of the total population. However, it is important to note that social network users may not represent unique individuals. In just 1 year, the number of social network users increased by 5.0 million people, an increase of 6.9%. The average time Vietnamese people use social networks every day is 2 h and 28 min. Of the total number of social network users, women account for a larger

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80% 69.…

60% 45%

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17.25% 3.78% 0.25% 2000 2003 2006

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The proporon of Internet users Fig. 1 Individuals using the Internet in Vietnam from 2000 to 2020 (% of population). Source: The World Bank (2021) 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

92.0%

91.7% 76.5% 53.5%

47.6% 38.5% 24.1%

YouTube Facebook

Zalo

Instagram

Tiktok

Twier

22.9%

Pinterest Linkedin

Fig. 2 The most used social networking sites in Vietnam. Source: Lao Dong (2021)

proportion at 51.4% and men take up 48.6%. The most used social networking sites in Vietnam include YouTube, Facebook, Zalo, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn (Fig. 2). “Vietnam is in the top 10 countries with the largest number of Facebook and YouTube users in the world” (Hương, 2018, p. 44). According to the latest survey data in Vietnam in the first quarter of 2022, today Facebook is the most-used social network in Vietnam among all ages. Social networking platforms of major technology companies such as Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram account for three out of the five leading active social networks among Internet users. Only one Vietnamese social network, namely, Zalo, ranks in the top 5 of the most-used social networks. Meanwhile, TikTok has recently emerged as one of the fastest-growing social networks in Vietnam.

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The Environmental Discourse on Social Media: Case Study In late 2014–early 2015, the City People’s Committee of Hanoi approved a proposal by the Hanoi Department of Construction to implement a project called “Replacing and renovating trees.” Accordingly, Hanoi will replant more than 6700 trees on 190 streets with a budget of more than VND 73 billion. However, the city had to face harsh criticism concerning the mistakes and shortcomings during the implementation process from both the media and its people. Many trees, which were in good condition and did not affect traffic at all, were cut down and replaced with other trees. Witnessing this practice, Hanoi lovers could not help but feel frustrated as well as surprised by the sudden decision of the authority. Press agencies constantly updated and published information about the streets where trees kept being cut down and replaced. Many respected experts in the community —journalist Tran Dang Tuan, former deputy director of Vietnam Television; Professor Ngo Bao Chau, the first and only Vietnamese mathematician up to this point to receive the Fields Medal; Professor Nguyen Lan Dung, People’s Teacher, Member of the 11th and 12th National Assembly of Vietnam—also spoke up. Social networks have become a means for experts and citizens to post opinions. Specifically, in an open letter to the Chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee, journalist Tran Dang Tuan said that people did not object to cutting down some trees due to plausible reasons such as dangerous trees that might fall and cause accidents, trees that were harmful to health, trees that had no effect on everyday life, etc. However, he requested that the Chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee pause the project for a while so that people could check whether all 6700 trees were in need of removal or not. The authority was also expected to notify the press about the exact number of such trees on each specific street, as well as to mark and identify those 6700 such trees. If the answers were satisfactory, people would have no reason not to support them. If the answers were unsatisfactory, people would have opinions, and the Department of Construction should consider adjusting the list of trees to be removed. Listen to scientists and people giving their opinions on: What trees should be kept or abandoned? What trees should be kept but reduced in number? How to replace (if really needed): Gradually planting new trees to slowly replace old trees or replacing the trees all at once; What is the basis for choosing a new tree, are the reasons satisfactory, and what are the costs? If the reasons are plausible, are they an economical choice during this time? How much funding comes from the budget, and how much is supported by units, organizations, and individuals? What method is used to spend the budget on buying trees, planting trees, replacing trees, etc.? (Tuan, 2015).

Journalist Tran Dang Tuan believed that listening to the opinions of scientists and people also showed responsibility in delivering transparent information to the public. After the open letter was posted on Facebook, there were thousands of comments showing agreement and support. Many fan pages calling for “saving” trees were also launched, most notably a page called “6,700 people for 6,700 trees.” Founded by a Hanoi lover on March

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17, 2015, within 3 days, this fan page attracted nearly 45,000 likes, and many of its pictures, stories, and meaningful messages were shared. The administrator left passionate words when launching this fan page: Who am I, you might wonder, to launch an environmental movement? Dare to call for everyone’s support? Dare to waste your time? First, I’m not even a Hanoi citizen, I’m from Da Nang. I’ve only lived in Hanoi for 7 years until now (. . .) I’m an ordinary housewife, taking care of my children at home. In short, I am nobody. But last night, I lay thinking about the trees. The springtime trees are sprouting and changing leaves; they are still full of life; they provide a roof for so many branches, leaves, birds, and souls; the shades of the trees are still imprinted on the road as always. Suddenly, no one consulted anyone, and certainly, no one consulted them, they were sawed across the body, dug up the stump, and then transported to unknown places. It is unknown what will be done to them, all because they are “not suitable for the landscape of urban areas and are at high “risk of collapsing”.” I cannot stand that. Echoing in my sleep last night was the sound of the chainsaw nonchalantly cutting the tree’s lifeline, killing the green leaves and branches. I cannot stand that. Therefore, I raised my voice. I hope this voice is heard by my peers so that it can become louder, so that the fragile hope reaches the ears of the important people and then reaches the place where the chainsaws are about to kill an innocent tree so that it can stop that process. That’s all I, a nobody, aspire to be able to do. Can you give me a voice? (Fan page 6,700 people for 6,700 trees, 2015).

Thus, the environmental discourse here is the voice of an ordinary citizen, demonstrating citizens’ participation in political issues. This fan page sent the message “For the 6,700 trees about to be cut down in Hanoi,” “Take actions for trees today! Save trees, save lives.” The number of 45,000 likes and shares on the fan page “6,700 people for 6,700 trees” in just 3 days showed the community’s interest in this issue. On March 17, 2015, Mr. Phan Dang Long—Deputy Director of the Propaganda Department of the Hanoi Party Committee, said that the cutting of trees to replace with other trees in Hanoi was decided by the authority, and it was not necessary to consult the people. This statement has angered the people as they feel that their voices are not being heard. On March 20, 2015, the Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee, Mr. Nguyen Quoc Hung chaired a press conference with the participation of representatives of hundreds of press agencies to inform about the cutting of thousands of trees. The meeting lasted only about 30 min, and 21 questions raised by the press agencies were not answered by the Organizing Committee, which made the discussion on social networks even more heated. During the press conference, Mr. Hung pushed the responsibility onto sponsors when saying that the hasty cutting of trees was due to “the impatience of the sponsors, the lack of transparent information of the implementers” (Vnexpress, 2015). The article received 456 comments from readers, most of whom expressed disappointment at Hanoi’s leaders avoiding answering questions in the press conference and pushing away the government’s responsibilities. During that time, the fan page “6,700 people for 6,700 trees” always updated about the situation and proposed many new activities: (1) Gather opinions of scientists (experts and scientists in related fields who can give scientific evaluations,

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criticisms, and proposals for this project); (2) Carry out a survey concerning trees (quick statistics of streets where trees are being cut); (3) Change the Tree Hug avatar; (4) Organize Tree Hugs event. Environmental discourses focus on the following key issues: Firstly, request the government to publish transparent information. An open letter with more than 22,000 signatures was been sent to the leaders of Hanoi city, asking for three things: PAUSE, PUBLICATION, and CONVERSATION. People asked the city to temporarily stop cutting down trees and publicize the details of the project including 13 contents—the proposal on renovating and replacing urban trees on both sides of Hanoi streets in the period 2014–2015, survey and research results used as the basis for the development of the Scheme, the member list of the Scheme Appraisal Council, the specific planning map of the streets where trees would be cut down and replaced, detailed statistics of trees to be cut down, a detailed timeline of cutting down trees, the number of trees that had been cut down, the amount of wood obtained after cutting trees, the number of trees that had been relocated, the financial implementation of the Scheme, a list of donors and their responsibilities as well as interests, a plan to monitor the implementation of the Scheme and a hotline number for people to report if illegal tree cutting was detected. In addition, the authority needed to communicate with experts and interested citizens. This discourse addressed the most basic rights of the people: the right to free access to information and freedom of expression. Secondly, monitoring activities of the people with the government. Fan page “6,700 people for 6,700 trees” urged people to monitor the falling of trees, take photos, and report immediately if they found trees being cut, or directly confront and repeat the city’s president’s decision of halting the project. However, the group also put a warning on the fan page: “You need to pay attention to clearly distinguish between pruning and tree cutting. Avoid statements that are predictive, emotional, impulsive, or extreme. We have completed the preliminary survey plan, with the participation of biologists, environmentalists, information technology, etc. We hope that people in the city will volunteer to participate in the survey. The collected data will be digitized and made public for everyone to follow. As the people become more aware of the situation, the people’s supervision of the government will also be more focused”. Moreover, when the leaders of Hanoi promised to answer 21 questions from journalists, the fan page even changed its avatar to countdowns to the day the city leader gave their answers as a way to remind people to submit any questions they might have. The team compiled and categorized nearly 500 questions before sending them to journalists. Today, the regulation of democracy at the grassroots is embodied in the motto “People know, people discuss, people do, people check.” The participation of social media in government surveillance is also a way of demonstrating the level of democracy in Vietnam. Thirdly, Tree Hugs picnic activity by people in Hanoi, calling for actions for the environment.

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Picture 1 Avatar tree hugs. Source: Fan page “6,700 people for 6,700 trees”

Initially, the fan page called for attaching ribbons on trees in Hanoi. As long as each citizen shows their love by attaching a small ribbon, tens of thousands of trees in the city will be attached with ribbons, which is a symbolic act to show people’s concern for environmental issues. In fact, some young people even attached posters and banners, tying them around the trees. However, such actions can be regarded as destroying urban beauty and the banners may be removed by local authorities. Realizing that continuing the movement would result in more garbage for the environment, the fan page itself officially decided to stop attaching ribbons or posters to the tree trunk from March 21, 2022 (Picture 1). It can be said that the Tree Hugs picnic activity is one of the most successful activities of the fan page “6,700 people for 6,700 trees.” The group advocated that everyone would go on a weekend picnic, a morning of street cultural activities on Sunday morning at Thien Quang Lake. This activity aimed to show the citizens’ love for trees. A carnival, street artists, children’s paintings, hugs, etc., all of which were organized with the “I love trees” spirit. Their motto was “When you come, bring nothing but your love. When you come back, leave nothing but your hugs.” On their fan page, the group wrote: What you can do is not just hitting the like button and signing, you can do so much, so much more. Currently, other individuals and groups are making urgent plans to protect Hanoi. However, there are extreme actions, which tarnish our image in the eyes of the government and law enforcement officers. We hope you won’t encourage and participate in such activities. We have logical reasons, we have plausible emotional reasons, we are on the side of justice, and we don’t need to resort to negative measures. Hanoi belongs to all Vietnamese people, and Hanoi’s trees are invaluable assets of the capital. As Mr. Nguyen Lan Dung said, touching the common property of Vietnam required consulting the people, consulting the National Assembly, biologists, and environmentalists. Today we will ask. Please wait for the answers and the next actions from the Hanoi people. (Fan page “6,700 people for 6,700 trees”, 2015)

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72% 23%

5%

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Check again

Survey results

Fig. 3 Survey results on VnExpress “How do you evaluate the cutting down of 6,700 trees in Hanoi?” Source: VnExpress

The answer was quite evident as on March 22, 2015, many Hanoi citizens gathered at several places scattered in the city to express their disagreement with the decision to cut down 6700 trees by the City People’s Committee. “At Thien Quang Lake alone, about 300–400 people gathered. They carried banners as well as small trees to show the spirit of protecting Hanoi’s trees. At about 10 o’clock, everyone paraded along the lakeside and chanted slogans to protect the trees” (Kiền, 2015). Many people gathered at Thien Quang Lake to express their love for trees in Hanoi. Together they sang their favorite songs. Many young people drew their symbols and slogans with green tree images incorporated. Some foreigners also showed interest and joined the line of people. Small logos with green trees were stuck on some young people’s cheeks. Green bows were tied around the wrist. Some people gifted small plant jars to children as a symbol of environmental love for nature messages. Some fan pages also cited the survey results of VnExpress, the newspaper with the largest number of readers in Vietnam. For the question “What do you think about the plan to cut down 6,700 trees in Hanoi?”; only 5% of respondents agreed with the plan, 72% of them opposed, and the remaining 23% wanted the plan to be re-examined (Fig. 3). On March 31, 2015, Secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee Pham Quang Nghi requested the leaders of Hanoi who were directly involved in the incident to selfreflect on the situation. On April 1, 2015, Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai asked Hanoi leaders to clarify the replacement of trees in Hanoi. On July 21, 2015, the Hanoi People’s Committee announced the punishment decision after inspecting the renovation and replacement of trees in the area. Eleven officers were disciplined, of which three people were suggested to be dismissed or demoted, and one contract officer was fired. Chairman of the City People’s Committee Nguyen The Thao took accountability as the head of the City People’s Committee. Thus, environmental discourses on social networks have made an important contribution to policy criticism. People’s voices were heard. Therefore, what role does social media play in environmental discourses?

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Role of Social Media Firstly, social media has raised people’s awareness of environmental issues and increased their participation. According to the survey results PAPI (Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index) by CECODES, VFF-CRT, RTA & UNDP conducted annually by directly interviewing people in 63 provinces and cities from 2009 to the present, environmental issues are one of the most pressing concerns of the people, besides poverty, economic growth, and employment (Fig. 4). In 2016, 12.53% of people said that the environment was their biggest concern. “Compared to the survey results in 2015, the percentage of respondents who said that environmental issues are the most concern increased by more than 10%, a very significant increase” (CECODES, VFF-CRT, RTA & UNDP, 2016, p. 19). In 2019, the environment still remained one of the three issues that people are most concerned about, after poverty and economic growth. Social media gives people the tools to directly express their viewpoints and draw the attention of others to social issues, especially young people. On the fan page “6,700 people for 6,700 trees,” a question was posed: “Have you ever been curious about the 62,643 people who have created and liked this page? Who are they? Mostly young women. 40% of them are aged 18–24 years. 76% of them are people from 18–34 years old (. . .) The oldest administrator of this site is 34 years old. The page’s youngest administrator is on the Forbes under 30 list. We are housewives, freelancers, social workers, researchers, writers, bakers. . .” (May 18, 2015). The characteristics of social media make it a good tool to connect, to share any content at any time, and a fast and free medium. Therefore, on social media information is able to spread very quickly. When a controversial event like the tree replacement project in Hanoi happens, information is shared at a rapid speed on social networks. The more errors and problems a project has, the stronger is the public reaction. Founded in 2015 with an aim to “save” trees in Hanoi and express love for the environment, the fan page “6,700 people for 6,700 trees” has remained active until now, sharing information and expressing opinions on environmental issues. Like

30 20 10

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Fig. 4 Problems of great concern for Vietnamese citizens. Source: CECODES, VFF-CRT, RTA & UNDP

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many other countries in the world, Vietnam is also facing serious environmental problems. The media, in general, and social media, in particular, have continuously spoken out about environmental issues in Vietnam. Some environmental problems arise from within the country, such as air pollution, soil pollution, and water pollution. Meanwhile, there are also global problems caused by global warming and its impacts on climate and sea level rise. All these problems are mentioned by social media to raise awareness about environmental issues. For instance, the fan page “6,700 people for 6,700 trees” continues to talk about environmental issues such as marine pollution related to Formosa company in the Central region (2016), coal-fired power plants (2016), protesting against the construction of Son Doong cable car, protecting Son Tra peninsula and Cat Ba national forest (2017), air pollution problems in Hanoi (2019), central flooding storms (2020), etc. It is on this social networking forum that people’s awareness of the environment has been raised, which is proven through active participation in discussions and expressing opinions on environmental issues. Secondly, social media contributes to changing people’s attitudes toward environmental issues. Previously, 30 years of war (1945–1975) have caused serious damage to the environment in Vietnam, the economic crisis (1975–1986) and the hot growth after Doi Moi (1986) also made the problem worse. Environmental issues were not really of interest to people. But today, Vietnam is moving toward sustainable development with three pillars being the economy, society, and environment. People’s attitudes on environmental issues have been directly expressed on social media. Specifically, after the mass fish deaths in the Central region due to industrial discharges of Hung Nghiep Formosa Ha Tinh Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., the public was furious. After the Company’s Director of External Relations said, “You have to choose either a steel factory or a fish in the sea,” many people simultaneously changed their profile pictures to “I choose fish,” “I love the sea,” “I choose fish and shrimp,” etc., on Facebook (Picture 2). Picture 2 Avatar “I’m a Vietnamese. I choose fish.” In 2016, netizens simultaneously changed their profile picture with the content I choose fish to express their desire to preserve the natural environment

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When the online community simultaneously changed the avatar to “I choose fish,” it also meant that they chose to side with the environment, with sustainable development instead of sacrificing for economic benefits at all costs. The fan page “6,700 people for 6,700 trees” also posed the question: “We return to the question of choice: infrastructure or environment? Sustainable or unsustainable. Like trees or railways, this is also a choice. What do you choose?” (April 25, 2016). On social networks, people easily exchange information and easily express their attitudes, especially when that attitude is similar to that of the crowd. When it comes to environmental issues, it is evident that people will immediately stand on the side of the environment, protecting the environment at all costs. For example, people expressed their opposition to the construction of Son Doong cable car and helped save the core forest area of the world natural heritage Phong Nha—Ke Bang (2017); they protected Son Tra peninsula, Cat Ba national forest; they advocated against coal-fired power (2017); they required authorities to speak out about severe air pollution in Hanoi (2019); they called on the Government to review and cut off small hydroelectric projects (2020), etc. Will you contribute one voice to ask the government to review, postpone, cancel, cut off the hydroelectric projects, change the electricity planning in the long run, and prioritize other options with higher performance yet lower impact on the environment? Each of us, when we turn off unnecessary electrical appliances, is also minimizing the harmful effects of what we do every day on the lives and livelihoods of ourselves and our compatriots. Thermal power is pollution, and hydropower is deforestation, flooding, life (Fan page “6,700 people for 6,700 trees”, October 18, 2020).

Thirdly, social media increases participation in combating environmental issues. Analysis of the case of the fan page “6,700 people for 6,700 trees” in the preceding text shows that social media has given ordinary people the opportunity to speak up and take action for the environment. Many people acted, and together they saved the trees in Hanoi. More importantly, people’s love for trees and sense of connection with their surroundings has become much stronger and more noticeable. On social networks, many environmental initiatives have been proposed, especially by the younger generation. Some of them are the #Nostrawchallenge movement calling for replacing plastic straws with bamboo and rice straws, #Noplasticbag calling for using paper bags instead of plastic bags or wrapping food with bananas, and #Challengeforchange going from social media to real life. On July 28, 2022, the fan page of an English Club of Foreign Trade University, a university in Vietnam, wrote a summary of “How Gen Z protects the environment”: Paper bags and cloth bags take the throne, be ready to say no to plastic bags. With Gen Z, cloth and paper bags have never been so popular and trendy. They see them as an effective solution for the continuous use of plastic bags which have a short life cycle but a 500-year decomposition cycle. Use second-hand items: Second-hand items used to be unpopular and seen as a sign of poverty. However, Gen Z has given second-hand goods new lives, turning them into a unique and fashionable trend. This is also a solution to avoid wasting resources and reduce waste for the environment.

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Most of the current environmental campaigns in Vietnam are widely disseminated on social media because the number of users of these platforms accounts for more than two-thirds of the population of Vietnam, especially young people. However, besides that, social media also poses several problems as information is often not controlled, and hate speech and crowds are easily provoked.

Conclusion Social media, especially social networks such as Facebook, YouTube, Zalo, etc., are changing the communication behaviors of Vietnamese people in recent years. More than 78% of the population is using social networks, and more than almost everywhere in the world, Vietnamese people are using social networks in daily communication. Social media is also a place for Vietnamese people to participate in environmental discourses, especially for young people. This is where people express their desire that the environment should be protected, and the country should be developed sustainably with three pillars being economy, society, and environment. The people also demand that the government be transparent with information concerning environmental policy and be supervised by the people in the implementation of the policy. At the same time, they call on every citizen to take specific actions to protect the environment. Social media has played an important role in raising people’s awareness, attitudes, and behaviors about the environment as well as increasing their participation. On the other hand, social media also has negative sides such as unverified information, fake news, hate speech, and cybercrime. Social media poses both advantages and challenges for the Party and the State of Vietnam in solving environmental problems. The government can listen to people’s real needs and aspirations expressed through environmental discourses on social media, thereby offering timely and effective remedial measures, pushing communication strategies to propagate the Party’s vision and the State’s policies on these social networking platforms. On the contrary, the Party and State have to combat negative phenomena and hostile forces that are taking advantage of social media to incite the masses as well as criticize the policies of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Only when both issues are harmoniously solved can the Government use social media effectively for environmental issues. Meanwhile, only when every citizen consciously uses social media responsibly, correctly, and honestly can their environmental discourses be truly heard.

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Telles, J. P., Ryan, J. C., & Dresibach (Eds.). (2022). Environment, media, and popular culture in Southeast Asia. Springer Singapore. The World Bank. (2021). Individuals using the internet (% of population) - Vietnam. https://data. worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.ZS?locations=VN Tuan, T. D. (2015). An open letter to the Chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee. https:// ngaynay.vn/nha-bao-tran-dang-tuan-gui-thu-ngo-toi-chu-tich-tp-ha-noi-veviec-don-ha-6700cay-xanh-tren-pho-post14626.html VnExpress. (2015). Lãnh đạo Hà Nội: Nhà tài trợ nôn nóng chặt cây. https://vnexpress.net/lanhdao-ha-noi-nha-tai-tro-non-nong-chat-cay-3160160.html Wang, S. L., & Lan, N. T. N. (2018). A study on the attitude of customer towards viral video advertising on social media: A case study in Viet Nam. The International Journal of Engineering and Science, 7(6), 54–60.

Nguyen Thi Thuy Hang is a lecturer at the School of Journalism and Communication, VNU University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi.

Media, Politics, and Environment from a Federal Politics Perspective in India N. K. Kumaresan Raja

Introduction The Eurocentric understanding of a political process has certain preconditions such as historicity, popular consent, and popular consent getting institutionalised through a law-making process endorsed by the sovereign. To a certain degree, the same applies to the political process of the United States of America, with its highest degree of participatory civic culture and civil society engagements. The countries of the western hemisphere have evolved the aforesaid structured development of the political process, including and involving media as one of the essential factors in generating popular consent. The Gutenberg revolution initially served to strengthen the monopolies of knowledge. However, over time, it contributed to establishing the separation of church and state, legitimising public opinion. It earmarked the division of state powers, including the emergence of parliaments as legislative—legal textmaking—bodies, theorised by Montesquieu. The print revolution shaped the advent of the new contractualism that allowed for the conscious, adaptive, and evolutionary process of constitution-making. The American and French revolutions, as well as the constitutional traditions in the regions of the world that the West had colonised, were all influenced by this new spirit. It can be argued that this tradition perpetuated by mediated politics served as the foundation for the Bolivarian movement in Latin America as well as the Madisonian legacy of North America. Unlike in India, these societies were by and large homogenous and shared a common language and culture.

The author expresses his thanks to his students Mr Gaddela Srikanth and Dr Aswini Varna for their valuable assistance rendered in the completion of this paper. N. K. K. Raja (✉) Department of Politics and International Studies, School of Social Sciences and International Studies, Pondicherry University, Pondicherry, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Briesen, S. P. Das (eds.), Media, Politics and Environment, Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31252-6_6

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Media in India: A Brief History On the contrary, in the Indian situation, the role of media, whether print or electronic, is not located in a vantage point as it is in the western countries. The Gutenberg revolution that cascaded in colonial India supported the spread of Christianity in the Indian subcontinent and later engaged with literary and ethnographic studies. It took almost a century after printing press technology reached India, the first newspaper in the Indian subcontinent was published only in 1780 by an Irishman as a weekly who used it to mock the British colonial masters. In response, the then Governor of Bengal Hastings funded another newspaper which eclipsed the Irishman’s weekly. Since then, the press in India has been placarding news items engaging with colonial politics. It can be seen over the next two centuries that the role of media and the legislation over media were contested between colonial powers (English and other colonisers), provincial governments, and the people. A careful analysis of this history would conclude that the British suzerainty heavily controlled the print media during 300 years of colonial times, thus shaping the people’s consciousness that media is a handmaid of the ruling establishment. This inference is fundamental to understanding how and why Indian media lacked neutrality. The absence of accommodating the local narratives and recognising local and regional languages as means of communication until the national movement gained momentum could be argued as contributing factors for the relative less impactful role in politics and constructing deliberative politics. For example, in the case of Dravidian Politics, the name given to the Politics of Tamil Nadu since the emergence of the Non-Brahmin Movement, which later emerged as the Justice Party, is known for its effective use of media to captivate the people to attain the goals of electoral politics. While E.V. Ramasamy Naicker used print media to propagate his view, his disciples C.N. Annadurai and Muthuvel Karunanidhi made the best use of cinema as an instrument of propaganda. This phenomenon of using media to capture power extended to M.G. Ramachandran and Jeyaraman Jayalalitha to occupy the seat of Chief Minister in the Indian Province of Tamil Nadu. Thus the press in India, by and large, is encapsulated by political patronage. The same news would have a divergent interpretation in the news channel patronised by the opposite political party. The vastness of the political spectrum, population, and political orientation have pushed media to a small space in popular uprisings such as anti-nuclear protests or any other issues involving civil society. Corporate companies, the principal environmental concern actors, are known to fund political parties and media. This scenario is well established with the national media in India, which are mouthpieces of ruling establishments. Thanks to social media’s advent, specific issues neglected by mainstream media get instant attention. The emerging role of social media and the graphic representation of their ideas through memes is gaining importance, which is less studied. It must also be stated that the leading social media in India either gets regulated by the State agencies or by the influence of the political elites. Hence the

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end user of media, unless they are an informed citizen, can discern the matrix of opinion creation and manufacturing in Indian media, be it print or digital media.

Federal Politics and the Complexity in India The origin of India’s Federalism dates back to colonial times when Governor Montague Chelmsford outlined in his report in 1918. Structurally, the institutional effort of integrating the erstwhile Princely states (there were 565 in number) into the directly administered Indian territories paved the institutional mechanism of federalism in India. Federal and provincial subjects for administration, dyarchy, bicameralism, direct election, electoral representation for minorities (Anglo-Indian, Indian Christians, and Sikhs), provincial budget separate from the central budget, Government of India Act 1935, and so on are some of them. However, Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru’s address in India’s Constituent Assembly in 1946, the earlier form of the Indian Parliament, underlined the independence of the Provinces that shaped the foundation of India’s federalism post-independence. After the 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendments, the local governments (rural and urban) have added to the existing two-tier model of federalism, making India’s federal structure a three-tier model. The system of federalism, however, is biased towards the Union Government and leaves the Provinces with lesser autonomy. If this is the case, one can imagine the status of decentralisation and devolution of powers to the local bodies by the provincial governments. Except for granting building plot approval which is a fruit of political bargaining towards rent-seeking politics, the local governments in India have neither competence nor powers on crucial environmental issues that are of local, regional, national, and even global concerns. To explain this, specific legislative arrangements and the role played by Local Governments were examined concerning themes such as ‘forest produces’, drinking water and water supply, inland waterways, land improvement, implementation of land reforms, land consolidation, and soil conservation. The legislative arrangements convey that the local governments do not enjoy any autonomy and decision-making from the clutches of the Provincial Governments (the state governments), just like the provincial governments make a case against a strong federal government. Thus, Tables 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 would explain the colonial legislations continue to date with little or no powers for the local bodies on the environmental protection issues covered by climate change. Although more than 60% of Indian territories are rural areas, the level of autonomy in these rural areas under representational politics is very much dismal, even after three decades of constitutional arrangements for the devolution of powers to the grassroots.

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Table 1 The provincial laws on minor forest produce that has overarching authority over local governments Andhra Pradesh 1. A.P. Forest Act—1967 • The Act has come into force to protect and manage forests in the state • The forest settlement officer has the power to decide the right in relation to the right to way, right to a watercourse, right to pasture, and the right to forest produce 2. AP Minor Forest Produce (Regulation of Trade) Act— 1971 • The Act imposes the restriction on the sale, purchase, or transport of minor forest produce except by the government, an authorised officer of the government, or an agent appointed by the government • The government can also constitute an advisory committee for one or more forest divisions consisting of not less than six but more than nine to advise the government to fix a fair and reasonable price for the produce

Bihar Bihar Tendu Leaves (Control of Trade) Act— 1973 • An act to provide for the control of the trade of tendu leaves grown in the state of Bihar • The state government may, for the purpose of purchase and sale of tendu leaves on its behalf, appoint agents in respect of different units • The state government shall constitute an advisory committee to advise the state government in fixing the place at which tendu leaves may be purchased from a grower by the state government or its authorised officer or agent, which shall consist of not more than nine members and submit the report to the state government

Haryana/Punjab Haryana Forest Development Act—1983 • The act promulgated for constituting the effective agency for the implementation of national forest policy • The government shall constitute the Haryana Forest, development board • For the purpose of the Land Acquisition Act 1894, the board will be the local authority • The board consists of a chairman and a director who shall be a member of Indian forest services and nine other members, of whom four shall be official and five non-official • The principal duty of this commission is the scientific exploration of the forest resources, a market of raw and refined goods, establish and manage industries based on the forest produce trade in forest produce

Karnataka Karnataka Forest Act—1963 • This act gives the power to make rules to the government for village forest for regulating the management of village forest, prescribing the conditions under which the community or the group of communities for the benefit of which such forest is constituted may be provided with forest produce or with the pasture and their duties in respect of the protection or improvement of such forest • The control of all the rivers and their banks regards the floating of timber, as well as the control of the timber and other forest products in transit by land or water, is vested in the state governments, and it may make rules to regulate the transit of all the timber and other forest produce

Uttar Pradesh U.P. Tendu Patta (Vyapar Vinimyan Niyamawali • This act provides in the public interest for the creation of a state’s monopoly in the purchase and distribution of tendu leaves • Further fixation of the prices is also under the control of the state U.P. Resin and Other Forest Produce (Regulation of Trade) Act—1976 • As per the act of 1976, there is a provision in the constitution for an advisory committee consisting of not more than nine members nominated by the state government

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Table 2 The provincial laws on water that has overarching authority over local governments Central act Water (prevention and control of pollution) • It was enacted to provide for the prevention and control of water pollution and to control and adapt water pollution • The act lays for the composition of the state boards whereby the state governments have been vested with the power to nominate officials or the non-officials • The state governments can nominate five persons from amongst the members of the local authorities functioning within the state • The state government by notification in the official gazette (a) Alter any water pollution, prevention, or control area, whether by way of extension or reduction (b) Define new water pollution, prevention, or control area in which may be merged one or more water pollution, prevention, and control areas

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh Water Supply Act—1968 • To develop, control, and manage the water supply works in rural and urban areas of the state • All the schemes taken by the local authorities shall be under the supervision and control of the state government, and the working of the scheme shall be liable to the periodical inspection by the agency of the state government • When the local body becomes incompetent to perform or persistently makes defaults in the performance of its duties or exceeds or abuses its power or fails or neglects to maintain the scheme in an efficient manner, the state government, by notification in the reasons for so doing, shall be stated to take back the development, management, or control of the scheme

Maharashtra Maharashtra Drinking Water Supply Requisition Act— 1983 • During scarcity, the collector of any officer authorised by him shall have the power to order a supply of water for the public purpose from any well

Table 3 The provincial laws on inland waterways that has overarching authority over local governments Odisha Bengal Embankment Act—1882 • The act provides for an amendment to the law relating to embankments and water courses • Under this legislation, the collector has been given the power to take charge of embankments by the government, remove embankments or obstruction, change the line of embankments, improve drainage, alternate roads, and construct water ways

Environmental Legislation and Issues in India Myriad sources of literature explain India’s mystic and mythological connection between humans and the ecosystem. A careful observation of the traditional customs and conventions which formed the planning of the rural landscape, the priority of preserving nature, and a natural extension of human ethos can be found in native narratives across India. The British conquest of India emphasised the source of

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Table 4 Provincial laws on land improvement, implementation of land reforms, land consolidation, and soil conservation that give little or no scope for local governments Andhra Pradesh A.P. (Telangana Area) Land Improvement Act —1953 • The government, for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of the act, constitutes a board called the Hyderabad area land improvement board • The board may direct the preparation of land improvement schemes for any area within its jurisdiction to make provisions for any one or more of the following matters reclamations of waste • The board shall constitute the land improvement committee to prepare draft schemes containing the following particulars, i.e., the object of the scheme, the approximate area of the lands to be included in the scheme, the work or kind of work to be carried out under the scheme, the agency, or

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh Land Development Act—1973 • An act to provide for the preparation and execution of land development schemes, the reclamation of the waste land, and the control of private forests • Every district will have a land development committee and shall be constituted consisting of the deputy commissioner of the district concerned as the chairman and two members who shall be the persons of experience in agriculture and irrigation engineering or forestry and two non-forestry members

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh Bhumi Sudhar Yojana Abhiniyam— 1967 • An act to provide for the preparation and execution of land improvement schemes including schemes for the conservation and improvement of soil resource, the prevention or mitigation of soil erosion, the protection of the land against the damage by floods and drought • The minister in charge of the agriculture will act as the chairman, four members to be elected by the Madya Pradesh legislative assembly and four members who are above the cadre of deputy secretary will be the members

Odisha Orissa Development Authority Act—1982 • This act provides for the constitution of the committee consisting of members wholly of the other persons, partly of other persons, and for such purpose or purposes as it may think fit

Rajasthan Rajasthan Soil and Water Conservation Act— 1964 • According to this act the state government is authorised to regulate, restrict, or prohibit the clearing or breaking up of land for cultivation, the quarrying of the stone, the burning of lime, the cutting of the trees, and the timber or the collection or removal or subjection to any manufacturing process of any forest produce for any of the purposes • The Rajasthan government may constitute a Rajasthan soil and water conservation board, the minister of agriculture will be the chairman and three members from the Rajasthan state assembly. The secretaries and the commissioners of the concerned (continued)

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Table 4 (continued) Andhra Pradesh agencies through which the work shall be carried out

Himachal Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh

Odisha

Rajasthan department will be the members

irrigation, waterways, and natural formations such as cattle pounds, thrashing grounds, tanks, and lakes. The underlying aim of the English rulers was to systematise their Land Revenue collection, which was a significant share of revenue to the Colonial government. The Land revenue management attained its perfection in such a manner that the principal officer of the British Raj (the district Collector) was the pivot of the District administration. Post-independence, during the late 1960s and 1970s, to support India’s starving population, Governments took a war foot measure to enhance agricultural production with high-yielding varieties of staple food crops, augmented by extensive use of chemical fertilisers reducing the soil to a depleted one. The excess water drawing from the underground also contributed to the excessive exploitation of groundwater. When India as a country could not understand the reactive mechanism to these standalone issues that come across environmental concerns, which are not limited to state boundaries, the Stockholm declaration of 1972 initiated a series of environment protection legislations starting from its 42nd amendment to the Indian Constitution making environment protection as a legally binding obligation by both the Citizen and the State. However, it must be admitted that these developments did not percolate in the country’s body politic, and neither had any media campaign. Even to this date, the political parties react to environment-related hazards. They do not have the habit of making poll promises based on a solid commitment towards the environment, as the Green party of Germany. Polluter pays principle, and the Public trust doctrine was demonstrated by the judiciary and not the legislature. Only in 2010 did The National Green Tribunal Act come into force, and a cursory examination of all the legislations would indicate their bias towards an industrial economy. Thus it can be logically concluded that the environmental legislation of India did not emanate from civil society or pressure groups but the pressure on international regimes. Except for sporadic protests post the 1990s against the exploitation of groundwater, felling of trees, and mining in forest areas, the struggle against livelihood was given a facelift as environmental protests. The assertion of national pride for nuclear energy and jingoism after the atomic tests created a sharp divide between political elites and ordinary people who were dubbed receiving foreign aid to destabilise the nation, as narrated in the National media during the Koodangkulam (KKNP) protests against nuclear plants in Tamil Nadu. Thus, the environmental issue can be seen as a fractured theme between contestations, elitism, and opinion formation leading to a fundamental question, to what extent does the media in India create a platform for deliberative democracy or a mere platform of opinion

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Table 5 The adaptation of central law on water management and watershed development by certain provinces that continues to date with little or no scope for the local governments Central acts • Whenever it appears expedient to the state government that the water of any river or stream flowing in a natural channel or of any lake or other natural collection of still water should be applied or used by the state government for the purpose of any existing or projected canal or drainage-work the state government Canals Act—1864 • An act to amend and consolidate that law relating to the collection of tolls on canals and other lines of navigation and for the construction and improvement of lines of navigation within the provinces under the control of the lieutenant governor of Bihar • It is a pre-independence act, and as per the act, the state government has the power to appoint persons to collect tolls

Andhra Pradesh A.P. Canals and Public Ferries Act—1890 • The Act provides that all vessels using the canal shall be either licensed or registered as the state government may direct

Haryana Haryana Canal and Drainage Act—1974 • The state government may appoint any officer of the state government or of the Haryana state minor irrigation corporation limited for the exercise of powers and duties under the act • The state government can also declare that any water of any river or natural stream be used for any existing or projected canal or drainage work • The canal officers can enter into any land to remove any obstruction or close any channel

Punjab Punjab Minor Irrigation Act—1905 • The collector has been given the power to construct a canal • The state government has the power to assess and levy water dues • The state government, upon an inquiry through the collector, can fix the limits of the irrigation and water rates and regulate the distribution of water

A disclaimer: The preceding contents were tabulated from various original courses of Acts and regulations. The author’s role was to tabulate them and claims credit only for the tabulation of the Acts to explain the core argument that the Local Governments in India have been marginalised in issues of environmental concerns and does not dwell with the causes for it. This is just a factual narration

manipulation? It is in such a situation that social media, with all its shortfall, tend to fill the vacuum for mediated politics, which also includes the environment.

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The Case for Civil Society and Media Engagement on Environmental Issues It is to be understood that from a post-colonial third world that has imitated western democracy and succeeded in the project of constitutional democratic governance, India’s challenges on the environmental front are many. The culture of green energy, from households to industries, is not only a matter of concern for the self but also for the state. The lack of economic viability, citizens’ unawareness and implementation concerns of the environmental laws lead to a convincing conclusion that India’s environmental laws are driven not from within but due to external factors. When the western hemisphere has demonstrated that environment and democracy complement each other, the Indian experience is somewhat contentious as there is tension between environmental protection and democracy. With the recent decision of the Supreme Court of India restricting the people of India to restrain from burning firecrackers, some politicians decided as if against the Hindu religion and its practice of celebrating Diwali. Thus India, like any other South Asian State, has been battling between democracy and the environment, which can be called the tension between development and environmental protection. Thus, when politics and society consider ecological issues not a priority in their development planning, the pressure on building awareness falls upon civil society and the media. Given its rudimentary political culture, Indian political parties often do not have a vision. The commonality in the contents of election manifestos of national and regional parties competing with each other with the populist announcement and undermining their party ideologies can be a classic example of this inherent crisis. Political parties seldom understand that the Constitution binds them, and they do not have any caveat to expand their operation beyond which the Constitution of the State provides a political party. Civil society organisations do not have such boundaries and can reach out to issues and solutions beyond the ambit of the Constitution. It is a paradox that, in most cases, political parties take the role of civil societies when they are not in power and behave as responsible political parties when they run the Government. This structural function of Indian political parties has almost weakened all civil society organisations except those dealing with environmental concerns, given their funding and sponsorship by the industrial lobby. In this aspect, a necessity arises for the engagement of media and civil society on issues relating to environmental concerns. It is also empirically demonstrated that the civil society Organisations in India on ecological problems have been successful. The correlation between Human Rights and Environment prepares an even ground for civil society organisations to build opinion and sensitise ordinary folks. When the agenda-setting is over, the next stage is engaging in public discourse. It is at this juncture that the role of media comes. When the mainstream media has set its agenda and engaged between the Industries, politics nexus, the role of social media becomes inevitable.

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Civil Society, Social Media, and Environmental Issues Conventionally, the press or print media were viewed in the context of media as a reflection of the people’s collective consciousness in a democracy. It has moreover been seen as the fourth estate in a democracy. At this juncture, ICT (Information and Communication Technology) has ushered in a fundamental shift in print media’s reach. The words and images from print media took on an audio-visual effect on a digital platform, giving users a new route. Since conventional media is just one-dimensional and the information flow is from the media outlet to the recipient, social media take on a significant and distinct position in this trajectory. The extent of participation is shown through sporadic engagement, such as letters to editors in the case of print media, but with control on the part of the media outlet. The idea of information exchange underwent a paradigm shift with the arrival of social media in the communication arena since the exchange of information has been dramatically democratised. The peculiarity of social media is intrinsically created and architected for focused two-way contact, unlike traditional media, which is designed for mass connection with audiences. Any registered social media user can initiate a conversation with other users on any topic of interest. Any registered social media user with Internet access and a basic understanding of how to utilise the site can engage in two-way or even multi-way discussions. The choice of what information will be published or broadcast rests with the sender in traditional media, including newspapers, newsletters, magazines, television, and radio. Additionally, the aforementioned forms of communication are designed so that the recipient is constantly on the receiving end. Social media, on the other hand, serves as a channel for two-way communication. If communication flow is the unit of analysis, social media outperforms traditional media primarily because it democratises information transmission and establishes a comfortable environment for debate. Despite all complacencies of social media, such as Cambridge Analytica or the ongoing censorship and purchase of bots, social media remain a formidable medium for debate and discussion.

Conclusion Being the largest democracy, India is the only country that has survived the experiment of democracy. Though seven and a half decade has passed after embracing a modern constitutional democracy, there are challenges ahead and accomplishments to make in building a better polity. Housing a 1.24 billion population, the role of Indians in creating a safer world by contributing to environmental protection becomes a moral duty. Politically, it remains a fact that the federal polity of India, with the addition of Local Government as a third tier, needs to readdress its political structure and engage in a constructive inclusion of grassroots into its environmental governance architecture. The Indian political system should be aware of the need to

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build an informed citizenry, as natural resources cannot be protected through legislation alone. It is essential to understand that the immediate custodians of the environment are people. While it is recommended that devolution of powers happen, it is also recommended that the engagement of Civil Society organisations and media engagement is the need of the hour. To what extent the civil society engages media and people on environmental issues reflects the success of both the media and civil society. Kumaresan Raja, Professor and Head, Department of Politics and International Studies, Pondicherry University, India.

Media and Environmental Destruction in Indonesia Ririn Sefsani and Patrick Ziegenhain

Introduction There is close connection between media coverage and environmental awareness. As has been delineated more in detail in the introductory chapter of this volume, the popular perception whether environmental problems are a serious threat for the wellbeing of the community or country and thus should be a policy priority is often shaped by national and local media. The latter have the ability to change values in the political and social discourse of a country, which in turn may influence the national environmental policy. Through framing or framing events, the media can clarify issues and help the public understand the complexities of environmental destruction or climate change through close real-life experiences. Only then readers can understand the root causes of environmental problems and are encouraged to show more interest. Particularly agenda-setting and scandalization of environmental topics are tools for the media to influence national environmental policies. Thus, one of the main tasks of media is to report critically and to inform the general public about environmental destruction and pollution. In this article, we will take a closer look at Indonesia and analyze in how far the national media can play the before-mentioned role as an agenda setter toward more environmental awareness or influence the environmental policy of the country. To this end, we will present empirical data but also highlight general issues with case studies from various parts of Indonesia. We will start with a short overview of environmental problems in Indonesia. Then, we will take a closer look into what kind of problems occur when environmental topics are dealt with in Indonesian media. We thereby analyze the

R. Sefsani Jakarta, Indonesia P. Ziegenhain (✉) Department of International Relations, President University, Bekasi, Jawa Barat, Indonesia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Briesen, S. P. Das (eds.), Media, Politics and Environment, Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31252-6_7

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possibilities and limits of Indonesian media when exposing and covering environmental issues in recent years. In terms of methodology, we did a thorough Indonesian and English language literature review and received many important information from four expert interviews conducted in Jakarta in July and early August 2022. The first interview was with Erick Tanjung from Aliansi Jurnalis Independen (AJI, Alliance of Independent Journalists) and the second with Ade Wahyuddin, the director of LBH Pers (Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Pers, Press Legal Aid Institute), a non-profit organization which provides legal support for journalists and press companies. In addition, we interviewed Zenzi Suhadi, the director of WALHI (Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia, Indonesian Forum for the Environment), the biggest environment organization in Indonesia with 457 NGOS as members and 26 offices in the provincial areas. Another source of information and interview partner was Bustar Maitar, the chairman of ECONUSA, an environmental NGO focusing on Eastern Indonesia where conflicts about natural resources are frequent.

Environmental Problems in Indonesia Indonesia is in many ways a country in which environmental questions play an important role. The archipelagic state contains quite substantial rain forests, significant ocean water areas, and one of the highest rates of biodiversity worldwide. At the same time, it is important to know that Indonesia has undergone a rapid socioeconomic transformation, particularly after independence in 1945. Several indicators show the enormous transformation within the last 80 years: In 1950, the population of Indonesia was around 75 million people. It has nearly quadrupled to more than 270 million people in 2022. In the 1950s, more than 90% of the population were uneducated farmers living in the countryside. In 2022, 57.9% of the population lived in cities with more than 100,000 citizens and 96% of the population could read and write (CIA Factbook, 2022). Indonesia moved out of mass poverty to hunger after its independence in 1945 to a country which reached upper middle-income status in the World Bank ranking before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 (Akhlas, 2020). While all these socio-economic developments are a huge success and lifted millions of people out of poverty into a middle-class lifestyle, there was a price which had to be paid. Cities, factories, and roads had to be built for the fast-growing population and their ever-increasing needs. The growing numbers of cars and motorbikes led to traffic jams, noise, stress, and air pollution in the cities. The exploitation of natural resources led to logging of trees and forests, pollution of

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rivers, and the creation of farmland and plantations. Indonesia’s development changed the nature of the archipelago in many ways and damaged also the previously existing tropical landscape and its flora and fauna to a great extent. Understandably, the priority of all Indonesian governments since 1945 has been the improvement of the financial, macro-economic and social circumstances through the enactment of certain structures and policies. The country’s second President Suharto (1966–1998) was officially termed Bapak Pembangunan (Father of Development), while the focus of current President Joko Widodo (since 2014) is clearly the building of physical infrastructure and promoting macro-economic growth. It is therefore no surprise that environmental policies, which to some extent slow down or contradict economic development, have played a rather subordinate role in Indonesian politics. The article of Ha Thi Thanh and Abdul Fikri Angga Reksa in this volume will deal with Indonesian environmental politics more in detail. It is obvious, however, that despite rhetorical lip-service to Western donors and sponsors, environmental destruction rather increased than decreased in the last 25 years. It is also no secret that the exploitation of natural resources is conducted to more than 90% by national actors, mostly state-owned enterprises. The few private and international companies must work in close cooperation with powerful actors, such as national and local government, the police, and the military.

Media and Environment in Indonesia: Ownership Environmental topics are not very popular in Indonesia. One reason for this is that Indonesian media do not report extensively about environmental issues (Parker & Prabawar-Sear, 2020). In general, Indonesian media prioritize the commercial side rather than educate, inform, or exercise social control (ArifBillah, 2019). The large majority (around 75%) of the content on national commercial television stations is entertainment in the forms of soap operas, movies, infotainment, and reality shows (Lim, 2012: 9). The role of Indonesian media as a social watch on environmental issues is thus very limited (Setyawati & Shaw, 2015). When there is the rare occurrence of a report on environmental issues, these reports are often framed through the lens of the national government. A good example is palm oil, which is the biggest export commodity of Indonesia. Western media describe the creation of huge palm oil plantations in Indonesia as a major reason for deforestation and environmental destruction. In Indonesia, however, most people believe in their government’s version that palm oil is a sustainable environmental-friendly and economically very useful export commodity and often criticize in an emotional and nationalistic manner the EU’s decision to reduce palm oil imports for biofuel (Choiruzzad, 2016). The over-reliance of ordinary citizens on government information was also confirmed by Ade Wahyuddin from LBH Pers. He added that many terms regarding environmental issues are too technical and could not be easily understood by ordinary citizens. In early 2021, for example, various Indonesian media compactly

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“swallowed” the words of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry that the enormous floodings in South Kalimantan did not occur because of environmental damage, but because of weather anomalies (Lavenia, 2021). At the same time, the influence of business elites and party politicians on media reporting is increasing (Fahrudin, 2013). Several successful businessmen invested their capital in mass media, with the hope that their invested capital can generate abundant profits and at the same time increase the political power of themselves. Examples for such businessmen are Aburizal Bakrie and Surya Paloh, who both own several Indonesian TV stations and became influential national politicians. The owners of the media have full discretionary power over the programs of their TV/radio stations and publications. It is their personal decision to prohibit the production of news that is not in accordance with their wishes (ArifBillah, 2019). During the 2014 presidential elections, for example, TV One, which is owned by Aburizal Bakrie, continued to proclaim the latter’s ally Prabowo Subianto as the winner of the elections, despite contradicting quick counts from serious polling stations. Making the matter more severe is the fact that most media moguls are also businesspersons, many of them also in the field of natural resources sector. In so far, they try to suppress extensive coverage about environmental scandals since this would be detrimental to their business interests. An example is the newspaper Bisnis Indonesia which, according to our previously mentioned interview partner Erick Tanjung, jointly covered critically an electric steam power plant in West Java, but later did not publish the results of the coverage because it received an advertisement from this company. When one of Aburizal Bakrie’s companies, Lapindo, was involved in a huge environmental scandal in Sidoarjo, East Java, his media conglomerate (including the TV stations Viva News and TV One) did either not report about this case or broadcasted distorted information to its audience. Ignatius Haryanto, the Executive Director of the Institute for Press and Development Studies (LSPP) is quoted by stating that as a result of conglomeration the presence of mass media owners in the newsroom has become very dominant (Kompas, 2010). Another aspect is that in recent years the diversity of media ownership is shrinking and that a few media conglomerates dominate the Indonesian media landscape (Haryanto, 2011). Merlyna Lim in “The league of thirteen: Media concentration in Indonesia” (2012) has concluded that the whole media landscape in Indonesia was controlled by 12 major groups, namely, Media Citra Nusantara (MNC) Group, Mahaka Media Group, Kompas Gramedia Group, Jawa Pos Group, Media Bali Post Group, Elang Mahkota Teknologi (EMTEK) Group, Lippo Group, Bakrie & Brothers (Vision Media Asia), Femina Group, Media Group, Mugi Reka Abadi (MRA) Group, and Trans Corpora Group. These conglomerates “have control over 100% of national commercial television shares (10 out of 10 stations). These groups also own five out of six newspapers with the highest circulation, four out of the four most popular online news media, a majority

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of Jakarta-flagship entertainment radio networks, and a significant portion of the major local television networks” (Lim, 2012: 1).

Media and Environment in Indonesia: Risks for Journalists In Indonesia, where environmental degradation is often a sort of organized crime involving government circles, covering environmental issues fairly is a security risk (Lavenia, 2021). Most cases of environmental destruction do not happen in the capital Jakarta or the other big cities. They rather take place in rural areas on remote islands. Zenzi Suhadi from WALHI reported that it is not easy for journalist to go to these areas, to get useful information from the local villagers, and to avoid harassment from the private security organizations of big companies. At the local level, it is much more difficult to cover and report about environmental issues because in the context of local politics, business in the natural resources sector is closely linked to powerful local political forces. The situation is, according to Bustar Maitar from ECONUSA, particularly tense in the less developed and not densely populated Papua provinces, where Indonesian stateowned enterprises, private businesses, work hand in hand with Indonesian security forces. In the virtual absence of national and international reporters (who need a special working permit for the Papua provinces) huge environmental destructions take place. Not only there, but everywhere in Indonesia only very few local media dare to publish news related to environmental cases because of the potential for violence and even death for journalists. There were several cases in recent years, when environmental journalists experienced repression, even killed for being vocal. In October 2019, Martua P. Siregar and Maraden Sianipar, both working as reporters for local weekly Pindo Merdeka, were killed on an oil palm plantation in North Sumatra. In January 2020, Mongabay environmental journalist Philip Jacobson was arrested and held several weeks at the Detention Center in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan. Mongabay regularly reported about the destruction of forests and the environment in Indonesia. In addition, Mongabay also highlighted land conflicts between indigenous peoples and a number of companies as well as between indigenous peoples and the local government, particularly in Kalimantan (Jelajah Maluku Utara, 2020). Another case relates to Jefri Barata Lubis, a Top Metro News reporter, who tried to make a media report about illegal gold mining in Mandailing Natal Regency in North Sumatra in March 2022 and was severely beaten by local gang members. Other cases in 2022 involved two journalists from Lampung Post and Lampung TV, who were thrown out and their work equipment confiscated when reporting at the National Land Agency office of Bandar Lampung City. Another journalist named Mahmud from Media Facts of Law and Human Rights was harassed in Kotabaru, South Kalimantan on February 8 after he covered illegal mining activities in the region. On March 5, 2022, two INEWS TV contributors were beaten by about 20 people in Borai Village, Yawakukat District, Yapen Islands Regency. At the

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end of March 2022, Palembang journalist Agus Harizal was threatened by an unknown person through a message on the WhatsApp application, with the threat of being splashed with acid. On April 11, violence was experienced by Sutarman, a journalist in Southeast Sulawesi, while covering a student demonstration against President Joko Widodo (Nguyen, 2022). More prominent is the case of Nurhadi, a Tempo journalist, who was physically assaulted while reporting in Surabaya, East Java in March 2021. The Tempo journalist was assigned to cover a story related to Angin Prayitno Aji, a former director of tax collection for the national Ministry of Finance who was named a suspect in a bribery case investigated by the national Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). Nurhadi went to the wedding reception of Angin’s daughter to collect information for his report when plain-clothed policemen working for Angin physically attacked him (Oktavianti, 2021). Even though he said that he was a Tempo reporter on duty, the officers took Nurhadi’s cellphone and slit his neck (Andryanto, 2022). According to Ade Wahyuddin, until now (July 2022) Nurhadi and his family are still threatened, must hide in an unknown place, and still need protection. The Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) stated that throughout 2021 there were 43 cases of violence against journalists. The violence included physical attacks, bans on reporting, legal lawsuits, and the deletion of news coverage. According to Erick Tanjung, AJI recorded nine murders of reporters because of their journalistic work between 1996 and 2021. Of these nine murder cases, six have been resolved while three are still unclear. Among them is the case of 32-year-old Bernas reporter Fuad Muhammad Syafruddin, who wrote several critical articles about the national government including the military and was murdered in August 1996 in Yogyakarta. Erick Tanjung stated that violence against journalists because of their work has increased in recent years. Particularly journalists, who cover corruption, the environment, and government performance are under threat. A new form of violence against journalists are digital attacks in the form of hacking journalists’ accounts. During the last 4 years, 2018–2022, AJI added that the most common perpetrators of violence were national police forces. Erick Tanjung said that “for the past 4 years, the biggest enemy of press freedom has been the police.” It is no wonder that Indonesia is still only classified as “partly free” in the most recent Press Freedom Index of Reporters without Borders. The country was ranked 117th out of 180 countries in the 2022 Index (Reporters without Borders, 2022). The reasons for the poor performance in the rankings are (as have been described before) intimidation and attacks on journalists. Another major weakness is the legal insecurity for journalists who are always under the threat of being sentenced for a critical report to pay high fines for “insult” or “defamation” of a company or powerful person (Masruro & Shidqiyah, 2022). Having a series of “rubber paragraphs,” particularly in the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law, the number of cases brought against citizens for online political defamation has more than tripled in recent years from 74 (2009–2014) to

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233 (2014–2019). Among these cases, around one-third were accused of insulting the president (Bertelsmann Transformation Index, 2022). In September 2019, for example, independent journalist Dandhy Dwi Laksono was targeted as a suspect in the spread of hatred. He was arrested for an article, in which he criticized government policies in Papua and charged under the ITE Law (Wiratnam, 2022). Another case involved journalist Muhammad Asrul, who wrote several articles with allegations of corruption committed by the son of the mayor of the town Palopo in Sulawesi. Despite the statement of the Indonesian Press Council that the news articles written Muhammad Asrul were legitimate journalistic products, a court in Palopo sentenced him to 3 months prison for defamation based on the ITE Law in December 2019 (Nolan, 2021).

Media and Environment in Indonesia: How to Build More Security for Journalists Reporting About Environmental Issues? According to Ade Wahyuddin, the Indonesian mass media does not have sufficient security protection systems for journalists when covering environmental cases. The work of journalists is not only sometimes dangerous, but there are also many who do not receive proper and regular wages. Only a few large mainstream media such as Kompas, Tempo, or Media Indonesia provide decent wages and facilities for their journalists. All the others pay wages often below the Provincial Minimum Wage, and not regularly, but only based on the number of published articles. For many journalists the publication of an article is more important than insisting on articles that have the potential for conflict, such as those on environmental and natural resources issues. In addition, it is common knowledge that many companies and several government offices provide envelopes with cash for journalists who copy/paste their prefabricated news reports. Consequently, the precarious situation of journalists makes them vulnerable. It is often difficult for them to keep up to the highest ethical and professional standards. However, if a journalist is found to have received money from companies or government for covering or not covering certain cases, then the journalist is threatened with being fired. Erick Tanjung encouraged all journalists to join trade unions and professional organizations such as AJI in order to protect journalists and to get adequate wages and facilities. Another aspect relates to conflicts of journalist with media owners. If journalists insist on fighting for their articles to be published, they can be relatively easily dismissed. Therefore, they often think twice if it is worth all this for a critical report on environmental issues. How can this situation be improved? Several senior journalists and editor-inchiefs as well as NGOs have built Indonesia Leaks, an online channel (https://www. indonesialeaks.id) that aims to provide space for the public. Ordinary citizens can upload articles anonymously, data and information which are then processed by

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journalists and/or followed up in coverage. Indonesia Leaks focusses on public issues that are not easy to publish in the mainstream media. Ade Wahyudin from LBH Pers explained: “We will check all information so that there is no possibility for the criminalization of the journalists who writes the article and the whistleblower who provided the information. We have a team of lawyers if there is a case against journalists because of their work, but first we review sensitive articles to ensure that they are legally safe and there is no potential for criminalization. This is important, because many journalists are entangled in criminal cases through the ITE Law, freedom of media in Indonesia is not okay.” There are some mainstream media that have been quite consistent and courageous in reporting on environmental issues. Among them is Tempo, but also Kompas had some critical publications in the last 20 years (Abrar, 2020). In general, however, reporting on environmental issues is still quite tame and journalists tend to write from a safe position. While it is not easy for journalists and mainstream media to produce news and in-depth coverage of environmental and natural resources issues, there are several media that are present specifically to focus on environmental issues, such as Mongabay. Mongabay already has a good protection system in place when reporting. The presence of Mongabay and Indonesian Leaks is a strategy in an effort to build public discourse and involve the public to be more concerned with issues of saving the environment and it is hoped that in the future it will support mainstream media to be more concerned with environmental and natural resources issues. According to Zenzi Suhadi from WALHI, another possible improvement could come from the national Press Council (Dewan Pers), whose task is not only to ensure that the media work professionally but also to protect the work of journalists. However, not all cases involving journalists can be handled properly by the Press Council, due to limited financial and human resources. Another challenge is that if there is a dispute involving journalists/media, the Press Council usually lays its focus on administrative checking of the media, for example, whether the media is registered, whether the journalist is a true journalist, not on the substance of the news. Nevertheless, the Press Council is, according to Erick Tanjung, a reliable partner for media freedom including critical journalism. There are several initiatives to reduce challenges of potential violence in journalistic work and the high cost of covering issues. One form is a fellowship for journalists to conduct special coverage on specific environmental issues. In 2020, for example, LBH Pers in collaboration with KEMITRAAN (Partnership for Governance Reform) provided fellowships for 10 selected journalists to cover case studies of human rights defenders in the environmental sector. The results of this coverage were then published in the media where the selected journalist works. Collaborative coverage like this is quite safe for being published without interference from media owners since the coverage is financially supported. A similar approach was also chosen by the environmental NGO ECONUSA. According to chairman Bustar Maitar they regularly invite journalists for trainings and seminars in Eastern Indonesia, where they get many information about the

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environment, natural resources, and the conflicts connected to them. After getting more insights, the invited journalists are usually eager to write in their newspaper/ magazines about environmental topics, particularly with regard to Eastern Indonesia.

Summary and Conclusion Indonesia has enormous environmental problems, particularly with regard to deforestation as well as air and water pollution. The Indonesian population, however, is not yet aware about the negative impact of environmental destruction for their lives. A major reason for this is the very reluctant coverage of environmental issues in the national media. As explained in this article, there is a multitude of explanations for this. First, the few media owners in Indonesia are often not interested in environmental topics since they often have personal business interests related to natural resources. Second, the Indonesian government focusses on economic development as top priority and often environmental protection is treated as an annoying hindrance for further progress. Media tend to give applause for government policies bringing material benefits to the citizens but do forget about the environmental damaged caused by these policies. Third, Indonesian journalists take a high personal risk when reporting about environmental scandals, which are usually taking place in the countryside. Many cases of resistance and violence at the local are documented. The journalists are also not protected by the legal system. On the contrary, many court decisions show that powerful business and political actors were able to silence critical journalists by legal means. However, there are a few bright spots. Indonesia Leaks has been founded to facilitate news coverage on sensitive issues such as environmental destruction. Some media, such as Tempo, Kompas, or Mongabay, keep up their critical reports on environmental issues and the national Press Council is also struggling for media freedom. Initiatives such as the one from KEMITRAAN and LBH Pers in 2020 are also useful in order to give investigative journalism on environmental destruction a platform, while at the same time protecting the involved journalists. It is obvious that the possibilities of Indonesian media to expose and cover environmental scandals in recent years are still limited. The overall situation of journalism, however, can only improve if the political system of Indonesia will become more democratic. Unfortunately, the trend in recent years went into a different direction.

References Abrar, A. N. (2020). Environmental journalism in Indonesia: In search of principles and technical guidelines. Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication, 36(1), 465–479.

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Akhlas, A. W. (2020, July 2). Indonesia now upper middle-income country, World Bank says. The Jakarta Post Online. Retrieved from https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/07/02/ indonesia-now-upper-middle-income-country-world-bank-says.html Andryanto, S. D. (2022, January 17). Kronologi Kekerasan Dialami Jurnalis Tempo Nurhadi dan 3 Kejanggalan Persidangan. Tempo.co.id. Retrieved from https://nasional.tempo.co/read/1550 913/kronologi-kekerasan-dialami-jurnalis-tempo-nurhadi-dan-3-kejanggalan-persidangan ArifBillah, M. (2019, January 2). Fenomena Konglomerasi Media Massa di Indonesia. Kompasiana. Retrieved from https://www.kompasiana.com/takberotakakademik/5c2c41d2 aeebe12d03537df9/fenomena-konglomerasi-media-massa-di-indonesia Bertelsmann Transformation Index. (2022). Indonesia country report. Retrieved from https://btiproject.org/en/reports/country-report/IDN Choiruzzad, S. A. B. (2016). Source of destruction’ or target of a ‘trade war’? Competing narratives on the palm oil industry in Indonesia. In M. Caballero-Anthony & R. Barichello (Eds.), Natural resource management for sustainable growth (pp. 71–103). S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. CIA Factbook. (2022). Indonesia: People and society. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/theworld-factbook/countries/indonesia/#people-and-society Fahrudin, D. (2013). Konglomerasi Media: Studi Ekonomi-Politik terhadap Media Group. Jurnal Visi Komunikasi, 12(1), 82–97. Haryanto, I. (2011). Media ownership and its implications for journalism and journalists in Indonesia. In K. Sen & H. Hill (Eds.), Politics and the media in twenty-first century Indonesia (pp. 104–118). Routledge. Jelajah Maluku Utara. (2020, January 22). Jurnalis Lingkungan Ditahan, Kebebasan Pers Semakin Terancam. Retrieved from https://jalamalut.com/2020/01/22/jurnalis-lingkungan-mongabayditahan-kebebasan-pers-semakin-terancam/ Kompas.com. (2010, March 3). Konglomerasi Media Massa Ancam Kebebasan Pers. Retrieved from https://nasional.kompas.com/read/2010/03/03/21451329/~Nasional%2011ecb7fb802c0 7d42c82 Lavenia, A. (2021, November 24). Krisis Iklim di Depan Mata, Bagaimana Media Memberitakannya? Remotivi. Retrieved from https://www.remotivi.or.id/mediapedia/726/ krisis-iklim-di-depan-mata-bagaimana-media-memberitakannya Lim, M. (2012). The league of thirteen: Media concentration in Indonesia. Research report. Participatory Media Lab at Arizona State University. Masruro, A., & Shidqiyah, S. (2022, April 14). Jurnalis Terancam, Berbagai Pihak Dukung Ciptakan Ruang Aman. Balairung Press. Retrieved from https://www.balairungpress. com/2022/04/jurnalis-terancam-berbagai-pihak-dukung-ciptakan-ruang-aman/ Nguyen, H. (2022, May 3). Indonesian press in the midst of threats. Newsdelivers. Retrieved from https://www.newsdelivers.com/2022/05/03/indonesian-press-in-the-midst-of-threats/ Nolan, J. (2021, December 3). Indonesia: ITE convictions threaten press freedom. International Federation of Journalists. Retrieved from https://www.ifj.org/media-centre/news/detail/ category/press-releases/article/indonesia-ite-convictions-threaten-press-freedom.html Oktavianti, T. I. (2021, March 31). Assault of ‘Tempo’ journalist raises fresh concerns about press freedom. The Jakarta Post. Retrieved from https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2021/03/31/ assault-of-tempo-journalist-raises-fresh-concerns-about-press-freedom.html Parker, L., & Prabawar-Sear, K. (2020). Environmental education in Indonesia. Creating responsible citizens in the global south? Routledge. Reporters Without Borders. (2022). Press freedom index 2022. Retrieved from https://rsf.org/en/ index?year=2022 Setyawati, D., & Shaw, R. (2015). The media as social watch in forest management: Indonesia experience. Journal of Mass Communication and Journalism, 5(258). https://doi.org/10.4172/ 2165-7912.1000258

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Wiratnam, H. P. (2022, May 4). Indonesian law systematically stifles journalists. The Jakarta Post. Retrieved from https://www.thejakartapost.com/opinion/2022/05/04/indonesian-law-systemati cally-stifles-journalists.html

Ririn Sefsani is responsible for Strategic Partnerships and Resource Mobilization at Environmental Bamboo Foundation based in Jakarta, Indonesia. Patrick Ziegenhain is Associate Professor, Department of International Relations, President University, Cikarang, Indonesia.

On the Missing Links in Climate Change Communication in Two States of India: Problems, Politics, and Solutions Devendraraj Madhanagopal

and Lisha Samuel

Climate Change and Risks in India In the recent Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dasgupta et al. (2014) emphasized that future climate change impacts will be complex on rural areas, rural infrastructure, rural livelihoods, rural incomes, fisheries, and forestry because it is difficult to identify the intervening factors that mediate vulnerability and resilience in responding to climate change. This report warns that climate change will likely seriously affect rural infrastructures (e.g., dams and irrigation systems) and exacerbate rural migration, which is already a problem in many rural areas worldwide. Like this, the recently edited volume “Observed Climate Variability and Change over the Indian Region” by Rajeevan and Nayak (2017) compiled changes in climate systems over the last 110 years (1901–2010). Significant findings from the chapters of this book indicate that the weather and climate systems are undergoing change and that these changes are not uniform, as significant variations have been observed throughout the Indian region. This book agrees that climate change associated with variability is evident and that such changes are likely to increase the vulnerability of natural, physical, and human systems. It emphasizes the scarcity and dispersion of studies conducted in India in light of the enormity of the climate change problem. Climate change and associated risks are becoming more evident in coastal India in recent years (Patnaik & Narayanan, 2009; Rabbani et al., 2010; Senapati & Gupta, 2014). Climate change and variability have direct and indirect effects on these waterrelated issues in Indian coastal cities. Climate change exacerbates rapid urbanization, high population density, and poor urban governance in many cities (Ray & Shaw, D. Madhanagopal (✉) School of Sustainability, XIM University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India L. Samuel Monmouth University, West Long Branch, NJ, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Briesen, S. P. Das (eds.), Media, Politics and Environment, Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31252-6_8

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2019). According to Nicholls and Small (2002), near-coastal zones are within 100 km of the coastline and 100 m of elevation. Furthermore, they discovered that the average population density of the near-coastal zone is significantly higher than the average population density. However, Sekovski et al. (2012) pointed out Kolkata, which is located approximately 150 km from the sea, and noted that due to its deltaic setting, it is directly affected by marine processing and sea-level rise; thus, they contend that this city is also considered part of the near-coastal zone. The media is critical in connecting science and policy with the general public. Climate change communication should be simple because the more people understand and learn about this issue, the more awareness it will generate. As a result, when dealing with the challenges of climate change, the media should be trained to communicate with the public in a jargon-free vocabulary. According to Boykoff and Yulsman (2013), accuracy is essential for good media reporting regarding complex scientific and political issues like climate change. The media has many facets and serves as a bridge between science, policy, and society (Goodman & Boykoff, 2021). It plays a critical role in creating and communicating the meaning of climate change and its effects. India is one of the few nations in Asia that is exceptionally vulnerable to climate change and risks. Whereas, concerning the climate crisis, the Indian media depicts a divide between the Global North and the Global South, demonstrating that developing countries demand action from developed nations because they are responsible for this climate crisis (Schäfer et al., 2014). In addition, between 1997 and 2009, media coverage of climate change in India increased by 2.9 times, compared to 10.5 times in Australia and 16.4 times in Indonesia (Keller et al., 2020). A study by Keller et al. (2020) discussed how the Indian media reported on climate change in terms of society and politics with no focus on environmental impacts or climate science. Similarly, when there are international events through non-governmental environmental organizations (ENGOs) and International Conferences of Parties (COPs), only then will the Indian media give more prominence to these events and less to climate science and India’s vulnerability (Schäfer et al., 2014; Thaker & Leiserowitz, 2014). Indian newspapers have recently increased their coverage of environmental and climate change impacts. However, most reports are concerned with agriculture (Datta & Behera, 2022). Another issue with the lack of action is the lack of communication between legislators and climate scientists, as scientists fail to effectively explain the scope of climate impacts (Ghosh, 2022). The more climate experts or scientists address this immediate threat, the more politicians and bureaucrats will be exposed. Politicians can develop a greater interest in climate change issues through the media because the media creates a report linked to the published research and aims to attract a larger audience (Ghosh, 2022). However, India’s journalists cannot trace the direct effects of climate change at the regional level, demonstrating a lack of scientific expertise or understanding (Prem Nivas et al., 2016; Keller et al., 2020). West Bengal is facing impacts from climate change, and Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, is not adequately prepared to cope with the challenges. Due to many physical threats and climate migration, West Bengal’s resources have been strained.

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This is similar in the case of Tamil Nadu; in addition, the coastal populations of Tamil Nadu have been experiencing multiple risks and threats not just from climate change but also from environmental pollution, developmental complications, and resource conflicts. Nevertheless, the local communities of these regions observe these changes that affect their daily livelihoods but do not connect them to the current climate crisis. To raise awareness, the Indian media has increased media coverage over the past 10 years; however, it is still insufficient.

Tamil Nadu and West Bengal: Verge of Climate Change and Risks Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu, a coastal state located on the southeastern coast of India, comprises 1076 km of coastline (around 15% of the country’s coasts) that comes next to the state of Gujarat. The state’s coastline runs along the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean, and the Arabian Sea. According to the 2011 census, the population of Tamil Nadu is approximately 72 million, with an 80% literacy rate (Census of India, 2011). The coastal districts of Nagapattinam and Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu are known to be highly vulnerable and sensitive to climate change, including droughts (Maiti et al., 2015; Jayanthi et al., 2018; Balaganesh et al., 2020). Climate projections over the Cauvery basin of Tamil Nadu show that these regions have increasing trends in both maximum and minimum temperatures and rainfall, with direct and indirect impacts on agricultural productivity. As a result, farmers require various adaptation options to deal with extreme climatic conditions, water shortages, and drought conditions (Geethalakshmi et al., 2011). The Center for Study of Science, Technology, and Policy (CSTEP) has recently published a report providing historical climate and climate change projections for the southern states of India for the period 2021–2050. It uses climate models to simulate future climate scenarios based on different greenhouse gas emission scenarios, and it provides district-level projections for these regions. It projects an increase in the number of rainfall events in most districts of Tamil Nadu in the future, along with increasing temperatures. The projections suggest that rainfall is expected to increase in all districts of Tamil Nadu, and there will be more heavy rainfall events in the range of one to five annually. However, it is important to note that the changes in rainfall vary across districts in Tamil Nadu. Further, it shows that the eastern coastal districts of Tamil Nadu will experience particularly high and heavy rainfall events. It projects a decline in rainfall during the Kharif season in some districts of Tamil Nadu, but not all districts in the southern states. The findings and discussions made in this report are crucial because an increase in heavy rainfall events could lead to flooding, landslides, and other related hazards that can damage infrastructure and disrupt communities (CSTEP, 2022).

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Chennai, a coastal city and the capital of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, has been experiencing a severe water scarcity crisis in recent years. These issues have become acutely felt throughout the city in the last 5 years. This city has been severely impacted by cyclones, floods, heavy rain, and the effects of sea-level rise (Ramachandran et al., 2017; Saleem Khan et al., 2020; Shankar et al., 2021). Climate change emerges as one of the factors contributing to the drought-related situation, as found by Shankar et al. (2021) in their data analysis of the Chennai water crisis, along with population growth, decreased water reservoirs, illegal sand mining, a rapid increase in borewells, and other developmental complications and poor governance systems. In this context, it is vital to stress that the crisis is not limited to Chennai but also to the entire coastal region of Tamil Nadu. Based on six parameters, including relative sea level rise, geomorphology, shoreline alterations, coastal slopes, mean significant wave height, and mean tidal range, Rajan et al. (2019) conclude that 36% of the whole coastline of Tamil Nadu is in a state of high vulnerability. Within Tamil Nadu, Nagapattinam, the coastal district of the Coromandel coast, is highly vulnerable to rising sea levels. The impacts of extreme climate events such as cyclones and heavy downpours have intensified in Indian megacities such as Chennai. This is due to anthropogenic factors such as poor urban planning, weak infrastructure, weak flood control projects, and existing social and political inequalities. In November and December 2015, Chennai and nearby districts received heavy downpours, far exceeding the normal rain estimates. In November 2015, the Chennai district received around 1200 mm of rainfall, almost three times more than the recorded normal rains in November. These heavy downpours had severe impacts on Chennai and the nearby coastal districts, with Cuddalore being the hardest hit. In December 2015, the third spell of heavy downpours devastated Chennai and nearby coastal districts, including Cuddalore, Villupuram, Kanchipuram, and Thiruvallur. Within 24 h of December 1, 2015, Chennai received record-breaking rains since 1901 (Banerjee, 2021). Such “unprecedented” heavy downpours made a large portion of the city and suburbs look almost like an island. The inundation of a large area of the city and surrounding districts resulted in massive asset and infrastructure losses and public damage; marine fishers and farmers were among the hardest-hit victims of this extreme event. Arabindoo (2016) critically discusses the fact that the December 2015 Chennai “deluge” was not due to “unprecedented” and “record-breaking” heavy downpours but was a completely man-made—in particular, a state-made—disaster. By denying the fallacy of the “100-year flood,” she exposes the flaws in flood control projects as well as the state government’s controversial decision to release excessively heavy downpour waters into the reservoir without warning to the public. The feeble understanding of the state of the Chennai rivers’ geographical basin, the delayed decisions and actions of the governmental officials on multiple occasions of different phases of flood occurrences, and the deliberate negligence of the disappearance of wetlands, reservoirs, and other water bodies in the city.

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West Bengal The state of West Bengal lies in the eastern part of India, and the southern part of the state is surrounded by the Bay of Bengal; the coastline extends 157 km. West Bengal has a population of 91.28 million and a literacy rate of 76% (Government of West Bengal, 2017–2020). West Bengal is highly vulnerable to climate change due to its three major rivers—the Ganga, Brahmaputra, and Subrnarekha—and 39 sub-basins that are prone to flooding. Further, West Bengal is also vulnerable to sea-level rise and particularly severe cyclones and thunderstorms. The region was hit by 41 severe storms and 21 cyclonic storms in May 2020 (Basu, 2020). Among them are 9.9 million fishermen who rely solely on fishing for a living (Handbook of Fisheries Statistics, 2020). According to a UN report, Kolkata is one of eight megacities most vulnerable to climate disaster-related mortality (Basu, 2020). Another highly vulnerable region in West Bengal is the Sundarbans, situated at the southern end of the state, which consists of the most vulnerable fishing populations and forest dwellers (Chakravartty, 2016). The Sundarbans, an important and highly vulnerable coastal mangrove region, face challenges like disappearing mangroves, rising sea levels, rainfall, and cyclones (Ghosh et al., 2018). Without the protection of the “cyclone shield,” the fishers have begun relocating to Kolkata in search of new livelihoods, which puts immense pressure on its resources (Ghosh, 2017; Bandyopadhyay, 2021). To address the importance of climate change to the people and the government, it is critical to increase climate change communication and implement effective media strategies. Due to West Bengal’s extreme vulnerability to climate change, the local government must implement policies to increase climate change coverage through collaboration with the media. Public opinion can significantly influence the government to take action on political, economic, and social issues related to climate change (Kahn, 2014). In West Bengal, a strong sense of community exists, and effective public climate communication is crucial to achieving new policies and a willingness to act on climate change (Kahn, 2014). However, the state government’s climate change strategies have not effectively engaged with local and vulnerable communities, resulting in a lack of understanding of the local effects of climate change and its implications for the local fishing community (Salagrama, 2012; Ghosh et al., 2018). The first version of West Bengal’s State Action Plan on Climate Change (WBSAPCC) suggests adaptation strategies, but these strategies are limited in addressing long-term solutions, and their implementation has been slow. To improve the effectiveness of the state government’s climate change policies, it is recommended that they consider the research output of academic institutions (Dey et al., 2016). This approach has been successful in other states with large Delta populations, where appropriate policy actions have been implemented. Dey et al. (2016) identified gaps in West Bengal’s state policies, including the failure to consider climate change impacts in sectoral policies and the gender-blind nature of the majority of strategies. Cross-sectoral policies also lack a comprehensive

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approach to addressing climate stress issues. The state government has recognized the need to update its adaptation strategies with new scientific findings in the revised version of the WBSAPCC 2017–2020 (Government of West Bengal, 2017–2020). However, the West Bengal government has not adequately addressed the issue of increasing communication with the public and providing timely updates, even though the WBSAPCC 2017–2020 acknowledges the critical importance of knowledge generation to combat climate change. To improve the situation, the media can play a crucial role in addressing why West Bengal needs to reassess its policies to adapt to climate change. However, the media’s efforts are often hindered by a lack of knowledge, untrained journalists, and insufficient funds.

Climate Change Communication in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal: Missing Links Around two and a half decades ago, Chapman et al. (1997) published an influential book, “Environmentalism and the Mass Media: The North-South Divide,” where the authors elaborated on the ways in which the media plays a critical role in shaping environmentalism in the masses of India and the UK, and how north-south gaps exist due to the differing social, economic, political, cultural, and historical contexts. In this book, the authors highlight the fragmented nature of mass media in India due to the country’s highly heterogeneous nature along the lines of states, languages, populations, and geographies. However, English newspapers interlink the majority of urban regions of the country, no English newspapers have a nationwide circulation, and most of them are confined to some states or regions of the country. According to the recent report of the Office of the Registrar of Newspapers for India, in the years 2020–2021, there were around 32,938 publications (newspapers and other periodicals). As many as 28,942 publications are privately owned, and the Union and state governments and cooperatives own only 498 publications. As a result, media ownership in India is predominately private, with the state owning the least. As per the estimates for 2020–2021, Hindi has the highest number of publications published (16,274), followed by English (2432), Tamil (885), and Bengali (537). According to circulation figures, Hindi continues to lead with 189,396,236 copies, followed by English with 34,927,239 copies. Tamil and Bengali have 8,060,512 and 7,609,130 copies, respectively (Office of the Registrar of Newspapers for India, 2021). Climate change communication to the “public” in India is still evolving. This is not to say that the general public has a poor understanding of climate change. A decade ago, in late 2011, a research team from Yale University conducted a nationwide survey of 4031 adults in urban and rural India on climate change awareness, beliefs, and related issues. The findings of this survey were intriguing, revealing that a majority of Indian adults experience the effects of climate change in their local environment in different ways, such as alterations in rainfall patterns and a

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surge in temperatures in their respective regions. However, only a small portion of the populace follows local environmental issues, including air and water pollution, via media outlets (Leiserowitz & Thaker, 2012). Limited studies (Saleem Khan et al., 2012, 2020) have been conducted on the communication strategies employed by the state and other stakeholders to disseminate information about climate change to the general public, particularly those severely affected, such as farmers and fishermen, and knowledge gaps exist in these areas, with a focus on Tamil Nadu. Compared to western media, particularly in the United States of America, climate change skepticism in English-language print media reporting in India is minimal. The Indian media acknowledges that climate change is a real issue that poses complex challenges to both physical and human systems (Billett, 2010; Boykoff, 2010; Schäfer et al., 2014). However, as previously stated, discussions and reporting in India’s English-language press are primarily based on “North-South” lines and “RiskResponsibility” perspectives; this means that Western (developed) nations should be held accountable for growing climate change threats, but not underdeveloped and developing nations (such as India). Even a decade ago, Billett (2010) observed that coverage of climate change issues at the sub-national level has been weak, with less emphasis on socio-climatic stratification and no proper emphasis on climate mitigation activities within the country. Daily Thanthi, a Tamil news daily, ranks first in Tamil Nadu as per circulation, with 8.2 million readers (Office of the Registrar of Newspapers for India, 2021). Daily Thanthi had the highest readership, with over 25 million readers. Following this, Dinakaran and Dinamalar—Tamil daily newspapers with over 12 million readers during the survey period of December 2019 to March 2020 (Statista, 2022)—were published. “The Hindu Tamil,” a Tamil News daily, recently ranked fifth with a total readership of 2,728,000 (The Hindu, 2019). There has been a rise from 407 million newspaper readers in 2017 to 425 million readers at the end of the first quarter of 2019, even though digital news consumption is on the rise globally and in India (Business Standard, 2019). Though Tamil Nadu is one of India’s states with high literacy and a robust higher academic educational infrastructure, there is no visual consistency in environmental education and reporting. Recent research conducted by Nirmala (2019), entitled “Newspaper coverage of environmental issues in Tamil Nadu,” provides a detailed account of the ways in which both popular Tamil and English newspapers report environmental issues, including climate change. She observes that reporting on environmental issues in news outlets also varies by month and season. In another work, Nirmala and Aram (2018) highlight that infographics on the environment and climate change are less frequently included in popular English news dailies (The Times of India and The Hindu) than photographs. The Hindu, Tamil Nadu’s widely read English-language daily, covers more climate change and water-related issues than The Times of India. However, it should be noted that most climate change coverage focuses on international negotiations rather than local climate change impacts and adaptation. Alongside this, Nirmala (2019) provides new perspectives and observations on the Tamil news media. According to her, the Tamil News Press’s environmental coverage is more event-oriented than process-oriented,

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resulting in fragmentation and a lack of consistency in environmental reporting, including climate change. The Tamil News Press emphasizes local environmental issues such as solid waste management, water pollution, and water scarcity; to demonstrate this, photographs are utilized more frequently than visuals and infographics. In Tamil Nadu, the Tamil daily Dinamalar and the English daily The Times of India publish far more provocative images of environmental issues than the Daily Thanthi, which has a large readership in Tamil Nadu. Mainly, all the major Tamil news dailies prioritize reporting on politics, movies, and crimes over environmental protection and climate change. The most widely read Tamil newspaper, Daily Thanthi, pays less attention to climate change and environmental issues. As Nirmala (2019) has observed, the Tamil and English news media politicize climate change along North-South lines. Dinamani, a popular Tamil news daily, plays a significant role in framing climate change conflicts and presents coverage (especially international climate change negotiations) in which readers may not be encouraged to consider or engage in mitigation. Recently, in 2013, The Hindu Group launched “Hindu Tamil Thisai,” the Tamil News daily focusing on urban centers. It covers a lot of national, international, and local news, and it also has sections about money, education, movies, health, the environment, and politics.

Source: Screenshot from “Hindu Tamil Thisai” Date and Time: September 20, 2022, 6.23 P.M.

Though Hindu Tamil Thisai claims that it covers environment-related reporting, it does not have devoted sections or sub-sections for environment and climate change. This is not to say that this news daily does not focus on the environment and climate change. Though it covers climate change and the environment and offers critical insights better than the other widely read news dailies, it focuses more on international climate negotiations and event-based reporting. For example, all the Tamil newspapers widely reported the November and December 2015 heavy downpours in Chennai and the resulting flood events, and the December 2017 Ockhi cyclone in coastal Tamil Nadu.

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Source: Screenshot from “Hindu Tamil Thisai” on 2015 Chennai floods (Posted on December 18, 2015)

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Source: Screenshot from Dinakaran, a widely read Tamil News Daily (Posted on November 19, 2015)

Hence, though substantial environmental coverage can be seen in the popular five Tamil news dailies (Daily Thanthi, Dinamalar, Dinakaran, Dinamani, and Hindu Tamil Thisai), all these news outlets have not provided a single section on environment and climate change in their official websites. At the same time, these news outlets have separate sections for film news and film reviews. All Tamil news dailies generally emphasize politics (state, national, and international), crime, economics, spiritual news, and sports. Recently, after 2019, they started providing more coverage on COVID-19 and economic development, and there has been a decline in covering climate change problems. English-speaking newspapers like The Times of India (TOI), Hindustan Times, and Indian Express and magazines like Down to Earth and Sanctuary do communicate on climate change; nonetheless, coverage is still limited (Jana, 2020). The

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Telegraph is another newspaper that has slowly increased its climate change coverage; however, it is not nearly enough. Surprisingly, even the Times of India and Telegraph are inadequate in their coverage of climate change. The two Bengali newspapers with minimal coverage of climate change are Anandabazar Patrika (ABP) and Ei Samay. Citing a news article in Anandabazar Patrika, a popular Bengali News daily, Ghosh and Boykoff (2018) discussed the lack of trust between the local inhabitants and the state regarding the Sunderbans. They highlighted a statement from the residents, which when translated into English, reads as “Embankments are constructed to be broken. More erosion, more contracts, and higher commissions. This is the reality of the Sundarbans” (Ghosh & Boykoff, 2018, p. 6). Additionally, there is an influx of people moving from the Sundarbans to West Bengal, and these developments are not communicated as related to climate change impacts. At this time, climate change coverage should be equally important as political stories (Jana, 2020). In relation to West Bengal, Anandabazzar Patrika’s (ABP) is the leading local Bengali newspaper that has about 56.9 million total visits (Similarweb, n.d.). ABP also circulates 768,134 copies per publishing day (Office of the Registrar of Newspapers for India, 2021). Most of the viewers are between 25 and 34 years old. This means that the younger generation visits ABP for their local news. The homepage, like most pages in Indian newspapers, does not have its own column for climate change issues. Under its hidden climate change sub-page, the first article refers to how climate change is changing India’s economy, the second article refers to a warning from the Secretary General of the United Nations; and the third article covers climate change in China. Other articles focus on US carbon emissions, agriculture, or health issues. However, most of them provide general information on the topic and give international examples instead of focusing on local West Bengal impacts. Even though it is the most expensive newspaper in West Bengal, ABP has a unique distribution strategy to reach remote areas like Sagar Island in the Bay of Bengal.

Source: Screenshot from “Anandabazar Patrika” on a weather update in the Bay of Bengal (Posted on September 17, 2022)

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The preceding report refers to increasing dangers in the Bay of Bengal due to storms. However, they headlined it as “Weather Update” instead of bringing attention to how local communities can cope with severe storms or interviewing them to understand their coping methods. Ei Samay, another local Bengali newspaper with 5.3 million total visits (Similarweb). Most of the viewers are between 25 and 34 years of age. The younger generation visits their local newspapers for local news; hence, it would be the best way to communicate climate change to the youth. However, Ei Samay prints mostly political, general local news, or advertisements (can be seen in the preceding image) on its front page, with no space for climate change issues. As of 2020–2021, 656 publishers had a total of 98 million, and language-wise, Bengali has the highest circulation, with 63 million copies circulated.

The Solutions? Discussions on Climate Change Communication Theories The media should not only encourage rational public engagement with climate change but also understand how to appeal for the audience. Every sector has its own agendas; however, the media will help bring the impacts of climate change onto people’s agendas. Using agenda-setting theory and cultivation theory, the media would have a positive outcome on public knowledge and engagement.

Agenda-Setting Theory The agenda-setting theory was developed to help the media prioritize news and form public opinions (Jana, 2020). The media has the power to influence people’s values and beliefs. When the public is preoccupied with more immediate concerns in their daily lives, persuading people about the impending threat of climate change is challenging. Newspapers do not yet give significance to climate issues as the media focuses more on entertainment and politics and has dominated people’s agendas with these topics. The media is good at telling people what to think about, which affects public attitudes and exposure to knowledge (Neuman et al., 2014). The public and the media are two components that affect the importance of an issue. The public should be interested in the issues the media puts forth. However, distrust, an unwillingness to compromise, and a lack of knowledge can affect the media’s agenda and reduce attention to the issue (Pralle, 2009). Various actors, including NGOs, policymakers, and scientists, have disputed the issue of climate change and may frame it based on their respective agendas (Koteyko et al., 2015). To ensure effective communication about climate change, the media should consider the larger context of politics and its underpinnings when reporting

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on this issue (Goodman & Boykoff, 2021). Agenda-setting theory is vital to facilitate the effective addressing of climate policy politics, by determining which climate change issues attract attention from governments and non-governmental institutions. It is important to note that the media’s focus on climate change events plays a significant role in attracting attention from policymakers and the public. Policymakers can also use public polls to gauge public preferences, which can help in determining the applicability of policies (Pralle, 2009). West Bengal’s local government can partner with journalists to understand their local communities’ concerns and coping requirements to survive the climate crisis. An effective approach to addressing the challenges of communicating climate change is through the application of agenda-setting theory and framing, which can promote audience engagement, especially when the issue has a high level of complexity and ambiguity, such as climate change. By adopting a climate justice frame that emphasizes the normative, ethical, and political dimensions of climate change, journalists can prioritize engaging audiences in climate news, highlighting community experiences and attitudes. This approach can enhance public engagement and increase political productivity (Appelgren & Jönsson, 2021). The goal of agenda-setting theory is to bring climate change into people’s preoccupied agendas as soon as possible. In addition, it is recommended that West Bengal’s local government partner with journalists to better understand the concerns and coping requirements of local communities in the face of the climate crisis. By engaging with local communities, policymakers can gain insights into their needs and priorities and tailor policies and communication efforts to better address their concerns.

Cultivation Theory Cultivation theory aims to identify the broader sense of how television messages impact people’s knowledge and influence collective perception (Vinney, 2019). Today, cultivation theory focuses not only on television effects but also the media as a whole. In reality, it matters which media sources people’s beliefs and opinions are influenced by and what information they acquire. Cultivation theory throughout the years has had one common theme—crime. When people watch many crime shows or news reports, they might believe there is a higher crime rate (Penrod, 2021). However, with climate change, cultivation theory can positively shape people’s values and opinions on the climate crisis. Cultivation theory views television influence as a dynamic and ongoing process of interaction among messages. Another aspect that will help increase people’s engagement on issues of climate change is social media. Throughout the years, digital and social media have taken over traditional media (Goodman & Boykoff, 2021). However, it is said that social media is mainly used to discuss more social issues than traditional media (Neuman et al., 2014). Social media is often conducted in visual forms like stories, images, and videos, which ultimately help visually communicate climate change (Anderson, 2017; Athira & Karthika,

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2021). West Bengal journalists can use social media to represent personal stories to increase public knowledge and understanding of local climate change impacts. Exposing audiences to narratives or emotional storylines on climate change can be a valuable tool to increase awareness about the impacts of climate change (Sakellari, 2014). Wade, a new animated film about how serious the challenge of climate change is, is one example. Wade envisions what will happen if a rising sea floods Kolkata with humans and animals, sloshing through thigh-deep, litter-strewn water. Animated series or short films can be a core medium for children to gain insight into climate change. This film seeks to connect people’s experiences with climate change and the need to start thinking about long-term solutions. Another relevant example is a news channel, NDTV 24X7, which visually shows the Ghoramara Island in the Sundarbans. This show showcased how the local people used a short-term solution like building bunds to adapt to sea level rise and failed at this strategy (Prem Nivas et al., 2016). Presenting visual examples on television could help influence people’s perceptions of the climate crisis. West Bengal should adopt this visual technique to address Kolkata’s and Sundarbans’ vulnerabilities and help formulate adaptation strategies for local stakeholders. Although sometimes films of this kind can cause fear among the audience due to a lack of understanding of the different media effects on society, media reports should be motivating yet righteous (Sakellari, 2014).

Local Media Initiative: Some Recent Trends With the support of the Climate Justice Resilience Fund and Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN), a 3-year project called the Bay of Bengal Resilience Reporting Initiative was started. The aim of the project was to work with journalists, educators, and civil society organizations toward three specific goals: increasing understanding of how coastal communities in Eastern India and Bangladesh survive and prosper through resilience; addressing financial and systematic barriers; and supporting the spread of reliable and actionable information to vulnerable coastal communities in the Bay of Bengal. A research firm studied the media landscape and found that journalists needed more training and capacity building at the district level. As a result, there were two workshops created, one of which was held in the Sundarbans area of West Bengal. This workshop alone resulted in at least 15 news articles in local, national, and international media outlets about the effects of rising sea levels on coastal stakeholders (Gupta, 2019). The Bay of Bengal Resilience Fund also held its own workshops, two of them in India (Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh). This workshop aimed to discuss the effects of saltwater erosion on local communities. Participants produced some interesting stories, including one by All India Radio reporter Monika Gulati about how mangroves play an essential role in protecting coastal ecosystems (Gupta, 2019). The project realized that local media outlets either lack the ability to support their journalists’ travel expenses or do not want to pay for

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reports on climate change. Setting up workshops and grant opportunities for journalists helps them overcome obstacles and increase the quantity and quality of media coverage. This is also a good way to find out about climate challenges from people who live and work along the coast.

Reinforcing Media Effects Locally In the case of West Bengal, journalists should use Bengali (West Bengal’s local language) terms to engage and reach a wider regional audience. Similarly, climate experts or scientists should train environmental journalists to use the appropriate words to address the impacts of climate change. Agenda-setting theory and cultivation theory have been identified as strategies that can be used to increase the effectiveness of climate change communication. However, the media itself plays a crucial role in effectively communicating the issue of climate change and must take steps to ensure that its message is conveyed in a manner that is easily understandable. In West Bengal, media outlets can leverage social media platforms like YouTube and Instagram to expand on visual representations of climate change, as these platforms tend to attract younger audiences. However, this approach is not without its drawbacks, as the communities most vulnerable to climate change tend to be those that have limited access to social media sites. This is where All India Radio (AIR) can help, as it has the potential to reach the most vulnerable and sensitive communities in the region. For example, in 2018, the fishing community in Rameswaram, a small town on Pamban Island (South India), used radio broadcasts to help save lives during cyclone Gaja (Asaru, 2020). Community radios have proven to be effective platforms for connecting people who have been otherwise disconnected due to a lack of infrastructure (Jagani, 2021). Although community radio faces a few challenges, it has helped local communities cope with and adapt to the climate crisis. Another influential example of using All India Radio, along with the Department of Science and Technology and the Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology, has been broadcasting “Bhoorameya Bisiyusiru” for the past 10 years (Sarmmah, 2019). The show is aired in 19 languages, one of them being Bengali (the native language of West Bengal). This program aims to create awareness among people about how technology can help us cope with climate change and to encourage people to use resources wisely (Patil, 2019). Especially in the Sundarbans, West Bengal region, this radio show would prove to be very effective for the local fishing community as they could share their experiences and adaptation strategies. As a result, it could produce political reactions and increase the urgency for new climate policies. In June 2021, the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) launched the Bulbul multimedia platform, aimed at climate change reporting in the Himalayan region. The focus of this platform is on solution-based stories that benefit vulnerable communities, helping them better understand policies and technologies to address human-induced climate change. This project emphasizes the training of young journalists and the engagement of local communities to promote

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change and includes an exclusive learning management system and live virtual classrooms. Additionally, the initiative aims to initiate an Internet radio channel with a focus on people, culture, and environmental issues in the Himalayas (TERI, 2021). Adopting the Bulbul project’s approach, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu can consider formulating targeted approaches based on their specific needs and resources to train young journalists, increase climate communication, and, ultimately, improve climate policies. The involvement of local journalists and state governments can be particularly effective in achieving these goals.

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Handbook on Fisheries Statistics. (2020). Department of fisheries. Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, & Dairying. Government of India, New Delhi. Retrieved from https://dof.gov.in/ sites/default/files/2021-02/Final_Book.pdf Hindu Tamil Thisai. (2015, December 18). (Aathi Valliappan). Retrieved from https://www.hindutamil.in/news/supplements/ilamai-puthumai/ 67205-.html Hindu Tamil Thisai. (2022, September 22). (Indu Gunasekhar). Retrieved from https://www.hindutamil.in/news/tamilnadu/870612-tamilnadu-government-neg ligent-in-teacher-shortage-issue.html Jagani, A. (2021, July 20). Stories that matter: How a South Indian Island’s community radio station saved lives during cyclone Gaja. The Postscript. Retrieved from https://www.thepostscript.org/ p/pamban-island-radio-india-cyclone-climate-change Jana, M. (2020). Environment reporting of leading newspapers of West Bengal: A content analysis. International Journal in Multidisciplinary and Academic Research, 6(3), 36–40. Jayanthi, M., Thirumurthy, S., Samynathan, M., Duraisamy, M., Muralidhar, M., Ashokkumar, J., & Vijayan, K. K. (2018). Shoreline change and potential sea level rise impacts in a climate hazardous location in southeast coast of India. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 190(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-017-6426-0 Kahn, C. (2014). The climate of newspaper coverage: Communication of climate change in India. Unpublished master’s thesis. University of Washington, School of Marine and Environmental Affairs. Retrieved from https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/bitstream/handle/1 773/26764/Kahn_washington_0250O_13352.pdf Keller, T. R., Hase, V., Thaker, J., Mahl, D., & Schäfer, M. S. (2020). News media coverage of climate change in India 1997–2016: Using automated content analysis to assess themes and topics. Environmental Communication, 14(2), 219–235. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032. 2019.1643383 Koteyko, N., Nerlich, B., & Hellsten, I. (2015). Climate change communication and the internet: Challenges and opportunities for research. Environmental Communication, 9(2), 149–152. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2015.1029297 Leiserowitz, A., & Thaker, J. J. (2012). Climate change in the Indian mind. Yale Project on Climate Change Communication in collaboration with GlobeScan Incorporated. Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.. https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/201 6/02/2012_08_Climate-Change-in-the-Indian-Mind.pdf Maiti, S., Jha, S. K., Garai, S., Nag, A., Chakravarty, R., Kadian, K. S., Chandel, B. S., Datta, K. K., & Upadhyay, R. C. (2015). Assessment of social vulnerability to climate change in the eastern coast of India. Climatic Change, 131(2), 287–306. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-015-1379-1 Neuman, W. R., Guggenheim, L., Jang, S. M., & Bae, S. Y. (2014). The dynamics of public attention: Agenda-setting theory meets big data. Journal of Communication, 64(2), 193–214. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12088 Nicholls, R. J., & Small, C. (2002). Improved estimates of coastal population and exposure to hazards released. Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, 83(28), 301–305. https://doi. org/10.1029/2002EO000216 Nirmala, T. (2019). Newspaper coverage of environmental issues in Tamil Nadu. Doctoral dissertation, Anna University. http://hdl.handle.net/10603/303415 Nirmala, T., & Aram, I. A. (2018). Environmental images in Indian newspapers. Asia Pacific Media Educator, 28(1), 38–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/1326365X18768135 Office of the Registrar of Newspapers for India. (2021). Press in India 2020–21: Press in states and union territories (chapter 9). Retrieved from http://rni.nic.in/pdf_file/pin2020_21/pin2020_21_ eng/Chapter%209.pdf Patil, R. (2019). Here’s why everyone must listen to the ‘Bhoorameya Bisiyusiru’ radio show on climate change airing every Sunday. Retrieved from https://www.edexlive.com/happening/201

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9/jul/20/heres-why-everyone-must-listen-to-the-radio-show-on-climate-change-aired-on-everysunday-7073.html Patnaik, U., & Narayanan, K. (2009). Vulnerability and climate change: An analysis of the eastern coastal districts of India. Munich Personal RePEc Archive (Paper No. 22062). Retrieved from https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/22062/1/ Penrod, H. (2021). Media consumption effects on climate change beliefs. Murray State’s Digital Comms: Honors College Thesis. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/ honorstheses/103/?utm_source=digitalcommons.murraystate.edu%2Fhonorstheses%2F103& utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages Pralle, S. (2009). Agenda-setting and climate change. Environmental Politics, 18(5), 781–799. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644010903157115 Prem Nivas, G. C., Arul, C., & Aram, A. (2016). Framing of climate change issues in Indian television news channels. Journal of Media and Communication Studies, 8(4), 31–42. https:// doi.org/10.5897/JMCS2015.0479 Rabbani, M. G., Rahman, A. A., & Islam, N. (2010). Climate change and sea level rise: Issues and challenges for coastal communities in the Indian Ocean region. In Coastal zones and climate change (pp. 17–29) https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/resrep10902.8.pdf Rajan, S. M. P., Nellayaputhenpeedika, M., Tiwari, S. P., & Vengadasalam, R. (2019). Mapping and analysis of the physical vulnerability of coastal Tamil Nadu. Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: An International Journal. https://doi.org/10.1080/10807039.2019.1602752 Rajeevan, M., & Nayak, S. (Eds.). (2017). Observed climate variability and change over the Indian region. Springer. Ramachandran, A., Saleem Khan, A., Palanivelu, K., Prasannavenkatesh, R., & Jayanthi, N. (2017). Projection of climate change-induced sea-level rise for the coasts of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, India using SimCLIM: A first step towards planning adaptation policies. Journal of Coastal Conservation, 21(6), 731–742. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11852-017-0532-6 Ray, B., & Shaw, R. (2019). Water insecurity in Asian cities. In B. Ray & R. Shaw (Eds.), Urban drought. Disaster risk reduction (pp. 17–32). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-108947-3_2 Sakellari, M. (2014). Cinematic climate change, a promising perspective on climate change communication. Public Understanding of Science, 24(7), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0963662514537028 Salagrama, V. (2012). Climate change and fisheries: Perspectives from small-scale fishing communities in India on measures to protect life and livelihood. International collective support of fishworkers. http://hdl.handle.net/1834/27415 Saleem Khan, A. S., Ramachandran, A., Usha, N., Aram, I. A., & Selvam, V. (2012). Rising sea and threatened mangroves: A case study on stakeholders, engagement in climate change communication and non-formal education. International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology, 19(4), 330–338. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504509.2011.650230 Saleem Khan, A., Sabuj Kumar, M., Sudhir Chella, R., & Devdyuti, B. (2020). Chennai city and coastal hazards: Addressing community-based adaptation through the lens of climate change and sea-level rise (CBACCS). In W. Leal Filho, G. Nagy, M. Borga, P. Chávez Muñoz, & A. Magnuszewski (Eds.), Climate change, hazards and adaptation options: Handling the impacts of a changing climate (pp. 777–798). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03037425-9_39 Sarmmah, S. (2019, June 19). Eco Serial on AIR in 19 languages. Deccan Herald. Retrieved from https://www.deccanherald.com/metrolife/metrolife-on-the-move/eco-serial-on-air-in-19-lan guages-741455.html Schäfer, M. S., Ivanova, A., & Schmidt, A. (2014). What drives media attention for climate change? Explaining issue attention in Australian, German and Indian print media from 1996 to 2010. International Communication Gazette, 76(2), 152–176. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1748048513504169

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Sekovski, I., Newton, A., & Dennison, W. C. (2012). Megacities in the coastal zone: Using a driverpressure-state-impact-response framework to address complex environmental problems. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 96, 48–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2011.07.011 Senapati, S., & Gupta, V. (2014). Climate change and coastal ecosystem in India: Issues in perspectives. International Journal of Environmental Sciences, 5(3), 530–543. http://dspace. stellamariscollege.edu.in:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/5915/climate.pdf? sequence=1&isAllowed=y Shankar, D., Rehman, N. A., Sankar, S., Banu, A., & Sandhya, M. (2021). Chennai water crisis— Data analysis. In S. S. Dash, S. Das, & B. K. Panigrahi (Eds.), Intelligent computing and applications (pp. 617–627). Springer. Similarweb. (n.d.). Anandabazar.com. Retrieved February 16, 2023, from https://www.similarweb. com/website/anandabazar.com/#overview Statista. (2022). Leading Tamil publications in India 2019-2020 by readership (Tanushree Basuroy). Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103352/india-leading-tamil-pub lications-by-readership/ TERI. (2021, August 27). TERI launches The BulBul, a pan Himalayan network of climate change journalists. Retrieved from https://www.teriin.org/blog/teri-launches-bulbul-pan-himalayannetwork-climate-change-journalists Thaker, J., & Leiserowitz, A. (2014). Shifting discourses of climate change in India. Climatic Change, 123(2), 107–119. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-014-1059-6 The Hindu. (2019, April 26). 17% jump in The Hindu’s readership. The Hindu. https://www. thehindu.com/news/national/17-jump-in-the-hindus-readership/article26959245.ece Vinney, C. (2019, October 23). Cultivation theory. ThoughtCo. Retrieved from https://www. thoughtco.com/cultivation-theory-definition-4588455

Devendraraj Madhanagopal (Ph.D.), Assistant Professor I, School of Sustainability, XIM University, Odisha, India. Lisha Samuel, M.A. in Communication with a Strategic Public Relations and Social Media Concentration from Monmouth University, USA.

Mediated Politics and the Environment: A Case study of Odd-Even Scheme to Curb Air Pollution in Delhi Arvind Das

In the popular perception globalisation has made the environment a public good. However, in the Indian context contemporary globalisation, which was heralded by liberalisation and privatisation of the Indian economy in 1991, started a new debate in the public sphere about environmentalism. It is mainly a development vs. environment debate, but at the same time, a consciousness among the middle class about the environment has also emerged in the twenty-first century India. In the last decade, a new political party, namely, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), was born out of a popular movement against corruption and promised an alternative politics. Among other things, it discussed environmentalism. In this essay, using my experiences as a professional journalist, I have tried to map out the history of environment coverage, concerns and issues of environmentalism, and political discourse in the English press taking the ‘odd-even scheme’ in Delhi as a case study. Although the life and work of Mahatma Gandhi have a great influence on the contemporary environment movement in India, it was his close associates like J C Kumarappa, an economist and social scientist, and Mirabehn, the daughter of an English Admiral who joined Sabarmati Ashram in 1925, whose nature writings bear the imprint of environmental journalism in India. The environment reporting began in 1920 when the Tatas were building a dam on a river in the Western Ghats near Lonavala, which resulted in a protest, as the dam was going to displace around 15–20 villages in the region. The agitation was prominently covered in newspapers like Times of India and the Bombay Chronicle.1 After independence in 1947, India’s tryst with development took the path of industrialisation and the 1950s and 1960s were the ‘age of ecological innocence’.2 Fifty years ago, with Chipko movement in April 1973 (where Himalayan women launched a movement to hug the trees as 1 2

Yadav and Malik (2019). Guha (2016).

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timber producers engaged in persistent felling of trees in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand) environment reporting gained a new impetus which was also visible in anti-dam protests like Narmada Bachao Andolan (save Narmada movement) and its coverage in the mainstream English and language media. Also, the Bhopal gas tragedy in 1984 got widespread coverage in regional, national, and international media and thus made environmental concerns the headline news. However, the real change in environment journalism took place post 1991 when the Indian economy embraced the process of privatisation and liberalisation. Accompanied by an increase in literacy and emerging market inflow of advertisement transformed the English and regional language mediascape in India. Before the liberalisation, most companies did not take out advertisements in regional language newspapers because of a language ideology that positioned English as a language of social mobility and the language of political and educated elites who had higher purchasing power.3 The pages of newspapers were drastically increased, while supplements started coming out regularly. They opened a new window to issues like pollution, climate change, green energy, etc. This had brought a new consciousness regarding environmentalism among the emerging new middle class especially in metropolitan cities. Moreover, global technologies like computers, mobile phones, faxes, etc., opened up new vistas for the Indian language press to flourish in the liberalised economy of India. Language media made inroads into the remote parts of the nation thanks to these newfound technologies and the volatile politics in the Hindi heartland. During the last two decades, a plethora of 24x7 news channels and penetration of the Internet enabled by mobile phones have affected news production and dissemination of news and views drastically. It must be said that the ownership and management structures of the Indian media industry have greatly changed the practices of journalism in the post-liberalisation period. The focus of newspaper proprietors is making content local, dividing it into up-market and down-market news targeting different socio-economic groups. Needless to say, the environment falls in the ‘down market’ category. Commercialisation too has come to play a big role in the dissemination and production of news. Market forces have commodified the news coverage in India. As noted, although Hindi and English both newspapers have been giving space to news and analysis related to the environment since the 1970s, there is still a bias in environmental reporting which largely favours the corporate interest. Barring exception, there is still a near absence of environment beat in the regional language newsrooms which holds true for press and TV news industry. As Ram Awtar Yadav and Kanchan K. Malik (2019: 250–251) have noted: Environment journalism got a boost with the formation of the Forum of Environmental Journalists in India (FEJI) in the 1980s. However, with the advent of liberalization in India in the 1990s, the predominance of economic concerns led to a shrinking of space for environmental issues in news reports. While India, even today, grapples with serious environmental concerns—climate change, deforestation, air and water pollution, increasing frequency of

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floods, droughts, and hailstorms, and so on—media coverage of these subjects appears to have dwindled.4

In the last decade, the environment has become part of the school curriculum but 20 years ago, when I was a student of journalism at India’s premier media institute, Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Delhi, we were eager to cover politics, sports, or entertainment but seldom discussed environmentalism in the classroom. Needless to say, environment was not part of our curriculum. Twenty years later, the environmental beat is still not in vogue. As Hridayesh Joshi, a senior environment journalist and author says, ‘in the TV news industry, even today, the environment is not taken seriously. Those who write on environmental issues do so for online websites. You will find the environment beat only in the English press. When it comes to the Hindi press, those who write on other issues also write on environment.’5 Most of the time journalists cover the environment ministry along with several other ministries. They invariably cover the news related to environmental clearances and the proceedings of Supreme Court of India and National Green Tribunal. Also, international seminars like Conference of Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change routinely get space in the mainstream media. As they say in Hindi—Khabrein yani maut ki khabrein (News means news of death and destruction)—it holds true for environmental coverage too. Most of the time news pertaining to floods, drought, and natural disaster hog the pages and screens of television news channels in India. Economic reforms coupled with globalisation changed the nature of the Indian state and made a profound impact on the society. There has been an upsurge in the economic growth rates in the last three decades, however, it leaves much to be desired in terms of social justice and equality. Environmental hazards which came with development policies affects people who are on the margins more than affluent sections of the society. In this period, unprecedented changes took place in the realm of media, which reinvented the public sphere, and thus changed the popular perception about Indian democracy. Robin Jeffrey (2000) has termed this period as ‘India’s language newspaper revolution’, while Nalin Mehta (2008) has rightly noted the ‘growth of satellite channels in 90s in India has created new “publics” and news channels have “altered the political matrix” of contemporary India’.6 News media play an important role in political communication and make a positive impact on the political participation in a democracy. This is manifest when we look at the role old and new media have been playing in Indian politics since the last decade. In 2011, a popular anti-corruption movement, spearheaded by an organisation named ‘India against Corruption (IAC)’, under the leadership of an old Gandhian, Anna Hazare, drew huge attention of the mainstream media and public at large. It was a fine example of mediated politics and IAC used media for political mobilisation. I vividly remember when I was a part of Star News (now ABP news) in the news room it was 4

Rao (2019). Personal Communication, 30.06.2022. 6 Jeffrey (2000) and Mehta (2008). 5

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discussed as the ‘second independence movement’ and covered accordingly wall-towall with great fervour. Ditto for the newspapers! It should be stated that this movement was meticulously planned targeting Indian youth and their online and offline presence.7 Later, in 2012, this movement transformed itself into a political party—‘Aam Aadmi party (Common Man’s Party)’. It was the institutionalisation of a movement into a political party. Briefly, AAP has started its political campaign mostly on social media using Internet extensively and later going into electoral arena in Delhi Assembly election in December 2013. Contesting in all 70 seats, AAP won 28 seats, emerged as the second largest party, and garnered 30% vote. AAP formed the government which just lasted for 49 days. In the 2015 Delhi Legislative Assembly election, AAP won 67 of the 70 seats in the assembly. And again, in the 2020 Delhi Legislative Assembly election, the Aam Aadmi Party formed a government in Delhi, winning 62 out of the 70 seats. It was amply clear during the elections that AAP operated in a political imaginary which was not driven by ideology. As historian Prathama Banerjee has rightly noted (Indian Express, January 30, 2020): The AAP, it seems, is a sign of a new and emergent form of post-ideological politics, which we may call, though rather provisionally, a politics of infrastructure. . . .

Unlike Germany, in India, political parties do not discuss environmental issues in their election manifestos. Delhi is one of the most polluted cities in the world. For the first time, AAP in its 2015 election manifesto had promised, ‘a Delhi that is pollution free’. Following this, in the 2019 during Lok Sabha election, for the first time ‘climate change’ has featured in the manifestos of India’s two major political parties, namely, the Indian National Congress (INC) and Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP). To curb the air pollution in Delhi, the Delhi governmnet launched an odd-even scheme for 15 days in January 2016 (from 1 January to 15 January) for the first time which was followed subsequently. The odd-even scheme of the Delhi government was a traffic rationing measure under which private vehicles with registration numbers ending with an odd digit were allowed on roads on odd dates and those with an even digit on even dates. This scheme was widely covered in the press, TV, and online media. When the Delhi government first decided about the scheme in a meeting, The Hindu on 5 December 2015 carried many reports. One report titled ‘Odd, even number cars on alternate days soon’, said that Delhi governmnet had taken a slew of ‘path breaking steps to tackle rising air pollution in the capital’. It mentioned that odd-even was just one of them. Another report titled ‘Capital is out of choices, it has to take immediate steps’ carried views of Anumita Roychowdhury, member of Centre for Science and Environment: ‘Desperate times call for desperate measures and Delhi has simply run out of choices.’ She emphasised on other measures like ‘building a robust public transport network, tax on second cars, hike in parking cost and bring in measures to regulate residential parking’. The Hindu also carried a

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report on how there was no clarity on enforcement of the scheme. Finally, the paper published a long report about how other countries around the world tackle the car problem. Titled as ‘Pollution check or added chaos for city residents?’, this report also mentioned how a day earlier a ‘Delhi High Court compared living in the city to being inside a gas chamber’. It was like an emergency situation which English and Hindi press followed with blanket coverage for the entire period of the ongoing scheme. Arguably, while news reports dealt with viability of the scheme, the analysis which appeared in newspapers dealt at length with the ecological concerns and the necessity of the measure. Business Standard on 7 December 2015 wrote an editorial titled: ‘At odds and evens’, in which citing World Health Organization figures it noted that ‘Delhi has the highest concentration of particulate matter of less than 2.5 microns-PM 2.5 globally, at 153 microgrammes’. It further said: ‘Air Pollution is already the fifth-largest killer of Indians, according to the Centre for Science and Environment. Clearly, Delhi faces a public health emergency, and it is good that the Delhi government has chosen to respond.’ On 16 December 2015, the Indian Express newspaper had carried a piece by Prof Dinesh Mohan where the headline termed it as ‘an odd policy’. He wrote: ‘Only a few cities in the developing world have experimented with this idea and all have failed.’ In his views the scheme was being enforced without any evidence or cost-benefit analysis. Reports which appeared in the newspapers largely centred on whether policy will be a success or flop? Will it succeed in reducing pollution levels in the city? It also raised the questions why two wheelers and women drivers were exempt from the scheme as two-wheelers contribute 34% to vehicular pollution compared to just 10% by cars. Also, newspapers reported (The Hindu and Hindustan Times, 8 December 2015) that there are 5.8 million two-wheelers compared to only 2.7 million private cars. When the scheme was over, there again appeared many reports and analysis in the newspapers. On 19 Jan 2016, the Indian Express published a piece on its edit page by Michael Greenstone, Santosh Harish, Anant Sudarshan, and Rohini Pandey titled: ‘Yes, Delhi, it worked’. In this piece, while writers have acknowledged this fact that it was difficult to answer the question whether the scheme was successful, they went on to conclude that ‘the odd-even pilot reduced hourly particulate air-pollution concentrations by 10–13%’. Likewise, The Hindu on 31 Jan 2016 had reported (Govt tied in knots over odd-even data) using data from Shri Ram Institute for Industrial Research: ‘No lessons were learned; in fact, it is unlikely that any can be learned from the Delhi government odd-even experiment earlier this month as air quality data from the 15-day period has thrown up inconclusive results.’ Similarly, the Times of India on 24 Jan 2016 had reported (Pollution trend unclear during trial: CPCB): ‘Wide fluctuations in concentrations of pollutants and lack of any clear trend during the much-discussed odd-even experiment suggests that no single action can substantially reduce air pollution levels in the capital, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has said in a report.’ Clearly, newspapers were not guided by AAP’s political agenda. They critically raised questions and sought answers from the government. Also, India’s past environmental movements were people’s movement

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where journalistic activism came in to play a great role.8 Odd-even scheme was just a policy measure of an elected government. Delhi is still one of the most polluted cities in the world and the jury is out on the odd-even scheme. IIT Delhi in a study, co-authored by Professor Dinesh Mohan, found that air pollution reduced by 2–3% when the scheme was first introduced in January 2016.9 While one done by researchers from several institutions, including the ministry of earth sciences, published in Current Science in March 2018, ‘conclude(s) that the odd-even rule policy measure did not result in reduction in primary traffic emissions. Instead, it appears that there was an overall increase in traffic emissions’.10 There is no denying that the odd-even scheme had generated a lot of curiosity among public and was duly covered by the press. To go a step further, it can be safely concluded that the environmental discourse had entered the middle-class drawing rooms. But as senior Journalist, Pranav Priyadarshi says: ‘in fact, media coverage was forced by the people because there was no way of escaping pollution in Delhi. It affected one and sundry. It’s become deadly.’11 Again odd-even scheme returned in Delhi the same year in April and later in the year 2017 and 2019. Seven years after the first odd-even scheme, we notice that now environmental concerns are making headlines in national dailies which was unheard of in the last century and even in the first decade of twenty-first century.12

References Das, A. (2013). Hindi Mein Samachar. Antika Prakashan. Das, A. (2021). Writing Khush Khabar: Hindi newspapers in neoliberal 21st-century India. South Asia Chronicle, 2021(11), 141–166. https://www.iaaw.hu-berlin.de/de/region/suedasien/ publikationen/sachronik/09-focus-das-arvind-writing-khush-khabar-hindi-newspapers-in-neo liberal-21st-century-india.pdf Guha, R. (2016). Environmentalism: A global history. Penguin Books. Jeffrey, R. (2000). India’s newspaper revolution: Capitalism, politics and the Indian language press. Oxford University Press. Mehta, N. (2008). Indian on television: How satellite news channels changed the way we think and act. Harper Collins. Neyazi, T. A. (2018). Political communication and mobilisation: The Hindi media in India. Cambridge University Press.

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Poornananda (2022). See, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/odd-even-scheme-will-do-littlegood-without-minimizing-exemptions-experts/articleshow/71113613.cms 10 See, https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/114/06/1318.pdf 11 Personal Communication, 02.07.2022. 12 How earlier environment was missing form headlines, see Das (2013). 9

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Poornananda, D. S. (2022). Environmental journalism: Reporting on environmental concerns and climate change in India. Sage. Rao, S. (2019). India journalism in a new era. Oxford University Press. Thakur, M. N., & Rai, D. (2013). Democracy on the move? Reflections on moments, promises and contradictions. Aakar Books. Yadav, R. A., & Malik, K. K. (2019). Covering the green beat: Environmental journalism in India. In S. Rao (Ed.), India journalism in a new era (pp. 250–267). Oxford University Press.

Arvind Das is a journalist and researcher, currently working as a Producer at Infotainment Television (ITV), New Delhi, which produces current affairs programmes.

Part II

Environmental Politics, Mobilisations and Media

State’s Commitment to Environmental Governance in India: Struggle Between Developmental Pressure and Sustainability Challenges Sarada Prasanna Das

Introduction In the past half-century, the environment has emerged as one of the most controversial topics in politics and economy. Environmental consciousness developed largely in response to the emergence of widespread societal attention to environmental problems in early 1960s and 1970s. There was a minor interest in environmental topics prior to the 1970s consisting primarily of research on natural resources by social scientists. This resource scarcity issue contributed to the emergence of environmental thinking by increasing awareness that the environment was more than just another social problem and environmental problems could affect society in the future. In this process, the widespread attention centered around resource distribution, allocation and scarcity. Then some social scientists paid more attention to environmental problems to the underlying relationships between modern industrialized societies and the physical environment (Dunlap, 1997, 2002; Glodblat, 1996; Hannigan, 2006; Munsi, 2000; Sharma, 2009). Most of the early works on the environment are focused on environmental movements, public attitudes toward environmental issues, environmental policymaking and the development and environmental quality as a social problem. However, later environmental governance has become a matter of concern in the local, national, as well as global levels (Dunlap, 1997, 2008; Singh & Meenawat, 2012). In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a dramatic increase in the environmental issues measured by environmental activism, media attention, public opinion and policymaking in almost every part of the world. In this time scholars and journalists write on the issues of local environmental problems. This time the problems differ

S. P. Das (✉) Initiative on Climate Energy and Environment (ICEE), Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, India e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Briesen, S. P. Das (eds.), Media, Politics and Environment, Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31252-6_10

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from earlier1 ones such as litter, loss of natural areas and air and water pollution in a number of critical respects. First, the scale of such problems has increased from typically localized problems to the regional level and even global level. Second, localized problems such as contaminated water supplies and inadequate solid waste management systems reported in media with enough frequency add to the sense that environmental deterioration is pervasive. Third, environmental problems are increasingly recognized as often having origins that are poorly understood and consequences for the health and welfare of humans as well as for the species and some of these impacts may be irreversible. In short, environmental problems appear to have increased in frequency, scale and seriousness (Dunlap, 1997, 2002). In India, although constitutional provisions were there from the beginning, increasing environmental activism and several international conferences and resolutions on environmental protection in the 1970s and 1980s contributed to the main foundation of the environmental governance. In a country like India, environmental governance deals with several challenges because here the issue is not only about the protection of natural resources and maintaining ecological stability but also about the protection of the rights to access these resources of impoverished communities for their livelihood. In this context, the paper has outlined the evolution of environmental governance with the development of environmentalism in India. With the development of environmentalism, the paper has also examined the framing of environmental governance by the state. The paper has also highlighted the politics and un-politics in the different spheres (air, water, forest) of environmental decision making. It has argued that balance in the environment-development trade-off is necessary to meet growth objectives and the enforcement measures do not necessarily obstruct the growth. Further, more public engagement as well as creative politics are required for better environmental decision making.

Environment in Pre-colonial India The trajectories of ecological thoughts and activism in the Indian sub-continent are not very new and it has evolved and changed its forms in different periods of history. Long before the Silent Spring, 2 Stockholm, 3 Rio, 4 Brundtland

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Earlier the environmental degradation often seemed like an aesthetic issue. ‘Silent Spring (1962)’ is a book by American biologists Rachel Carson (1907–1964). The book talked about environmental problems caused by synthetic pesticides. 3 In 1972 (5–16 June) the United Nations conference on Human Environment was organized in Stockholm to consider the need for a common outlook and for common principles to inspire and guide the people of the world in the preservation and enhancement of the human environment. 4 Rio summit/Earth Summit in 1992 (3–14 June) by the United Nations (Conference on Environment and Development) was organized in Rio de Janeiro where 172 governments participated in and discussed several environmental issues like fossil fuels and climate change, poisonous waste, scarcity of water, etc. 2

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Commission, 5 Green Peace and World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), 6 the ancient religious ethics of India provides a special space for the environmental ethos. In pre-colonial India mostly, land (primarily fertile river valleys) and forest were acquired and controlled by the elites for agriculture as well as for the conservation of the wildlife that kings and traders used for their hunting and trade purposes. It is evident from the archival records that in ancient India the Mauryan state was more organized in its efforts in the deliberate colonization of river valleys of the hilly tracts. These are reflected in the activities of the Mauryan state as recorded especially in Kautilya’s 7 Arthashastra. 8 Later influenced by Buddhism, Mauryan emperor Ashoka also framed several regulations for the protection of various animal species and various elements of the landscape such as groves and ponds (Gadgil & Guha, 1992: 84–87; Rangarajan & Sivaramakrishnan, 2011). Apart from the rules and regulations of the pre-colonial kingdoms on the access and use of natural resources, there are instances of local environmental management. There are instances which suggest that different caste groups had different responsibilities including guarding and monitoring different local natural resources like village ponds and forests (Gadgil & Malhotra, 1994). There are also studies around mythologies of resource use (Sacred Groves) and management by different local communities for their livelihood. So, we can see there are discussions ranging from caste system to the sacred grove, the mode of resource utilization and preservation has been governed in different forms by different local entities. Even today abounds of examples of such traditional governance of the natural resources are quite evident. The traditions of environmental governance have played a significant role in influencing the pattern of utilization of biological resources in Indian society over the last several centuries, especially until the arrival of European colonial power.

Formally it is ‘World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED)’, known by the name of its Chair Gro Harlem Brundtland, it was convened by the United Nations in response to the 1983 General Assembly Resolution A/38/161—‘Process of preparation of the Environmental Perspective to the Year 2000 and Beyond’. In A/38/161, the General Assembly: The Report of the Brundtland Commission, Our Common Future, was published by Oxford University Press in 1987. 6 Green Peace and World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) are international NGOs working toward the conservation and restoration of the natural environment. 7 Chanakya (350–283 BC) was an adviser and a prime minister to the first Maurya Emperor Chandragupta (c. 340–293 BCE). He is considered as the Master of Diplomacy and the pioneer of the field of economics and political science. In the western world, he has been referred to as ‘The Indian Machiavelli’, although Chanakya lived 1809 before Machiavelli. 8 Arthashastra is an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, economic policy, and military strategy which identifies its author by the names Kautilya, who are traditionally identified with Chanakya (350–283 BC). 5

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Colonial State and Environmental Governance in India India’s contact with Europe has an entirely different story regarding the pattern of resources (Gadgil & Guha, 1992). Europe was on the threshold of the industrial revolution at the time the British came to India. The British imposed much higher levels of demands on natural resources of the country to furnish the raw material for their economy. This had led to considerable impoverishment and often completes the collapse of the natural resource base sustaining many components of the Indian society (Das, 2011; Gadgil & Guha, 1992; Gadgil & Malhotra, 1994; Guha, 1990). For instance, much of the deforestation in many northern Indian states can be traced back to the nineteenth century when railway construction began in colonial India and there are also instances in south India where coffee plantations disturbed the selfsubsistent traditional tribal system and damaged the ecology in nineteenth century (Das, 2011; Saravanan, 2004). In colonial India, there are also instances of clearing forests for the creation of the new cultivatable land (Sangwan, 1999). The establishment of the forest department 9 by the colonial state for the control and protection of forest and natural resources and scientific forestry could be considered as the beginning of the environmental governance by the colonial state. 10 The first forest act in British India was passed in 1865 to back the forest department. The act was passed to facilitate the acquisition of the forest areas for the railway supplies. Further, the colonial administration realized that the act exercised only tenuous control over the forest estate and planned another stringent and inclusive piece of legislation. Indian Forest Act, 1878 was the product of that process that removed the ambiguity about the absolute proprietary right of the state (Guha, 1990). Under the provisions of the 1878 act, each family of right holders was allowed a specific quantum of timber and fuel, while the sale or barter of forest produce was strictly prohibited. This exclusion from forest management was both physical and social (Das, 2011; Gadgil & Guha, 1992; Guha, 1990; Madhu, 2008; Rao & Sankaran, 2003). So far, we can see the main aim of the forest policies of colonial India was exploitative in nature. Forest department worked as an extractive institution where the production of large commercial timber and the generation of revenue from other minor forest products were the main motives behind the forest policies.

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Forest department was established in 1864 and the colonial government appointed Dietrich Brandis as the first Inspector General of Forest. 10 The establishment of the forest department was not the actual idea of the colonial administration. The department in India was created when the British felt the need for raw materials to build their industries as well as their products. The British used Indian forest resources in both the World Wars.

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Post-colonial Environmental Framing and Environmental Governance The environmental framing in the Indian literature can be traced back to the ancient Sanskrit literature. However, the scholarly works using environment in their farming of the developmental issues could be seen from two different ways. First, the studies around the indigenous conservation systems and the effects of the new/state conservation (Agarwal, 1994; Danda, 1991; Gadgil & Guha, 1992; Gadgil & Malhotra, 1994; Gadgil & Vartak, 1994; Jodha, 1986, 1995; Mahanty, 2002; Naidu, 2009) and second, the studies regarding various types of natural resource conflicts (Bowen, 2000; Chakma, 2005; Duraiapah, 1998; Goulet, 1992; Jeffery & Sunder, 2003; Jodha, 1991; Nanda, 1994; Ramnath, 2008; Tejavath, 2004). In the 1970s, several protests for protection of livelihood issues were framed around the environmental angle and emerged as organized movements. These movements were mostly organized by the poor peasants who depend on the community natural resources for their livelihood. These movements broke the widespread notion that environmental framing to the social movements around livelihood and other issues are peculiar to the rich nations and urban centric with post materialist values (Guha, 2000). These mobilizations started questioning the developmental agenda as the negative effects of the process of industrial development, usually environmentally destructive. 11 In addition, the conditions of poverty and underdevelopment and rights over natural resources such as land, water, and forest were also debated due to their importance for the livelihood of the marginalized communities around the country. 12 Overall, the combined concern for environment, livelihood and right to use of local resources was framed around socio-environmental justice lenses (Guha, 2000; Krishna, 1996). Apart from it, the issues of rights and control over natural resources, some of these struggles and conflicts also bring the question of cultural autonomy and identity to the front, as they claim it is one of the important parts of their survival as individual and community (Jodha, 1991; Meher, 2003; Nadkarni, 2000; Shiva, 1991). The constant struggle of the poor and marginalized communities for their rights on local natural resources like forest and water has led to the emergence of Indian

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It includes industrial accidents like gas leak at Bhopal (3 December 1984), Madhya Pradesh (central state of India), and the Chipko movement (1970s) in the lower land of the Himalaya for the protection of the forest, which generates the growth of public consciousness about the ill effects of the industries as well as the state policies which are destructive for the local livelihood and forest. Then came different movements like Narmada Bacho Andolan, Save the Silent Valley Campaign, Chilka Bachao Andolan, Tehri Dam Campaign, Doon Mining, etc., as movements against state policies and industrial developments. 12 It includes Water-shed Movements in Maharashtra, Palamau, and Sukhmojori; Chhattisgarh Movement of Sankar Guha Neogi; Save the Western Ghats March in Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala; Save the Gandhamardhan and Niyamgiri Movement in Odisha; and Save the Soil Campaign in Madhya Pradesh. All these movements cited above are raised their voice against the loose of the livelihood of the local poor people and their rights to the local natural resources.

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environmentalism and environmental policy making. The competing claims of control and access to natural resources of people and the state over the first three to four decades of independence has shaped the ground for the idea of environment policy and decision making. Although the policy paradigm to govern the environment was mentioned in the earliest constitutional provisions made in the Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP), the true concern was absent in the early decades of the planned development (Bedajna, 2010). Before the Chipko movement (1973) in the western Himalayas and Bhopal Gas tragedy (1984), the aim of the post-colonial state was a planned development through the maximum utilization of the natural resources. The post independent India’s development option based on natural resource based heavy industrialization could be traced from the ideological debate between Gandhi and Nehru in the early years of independence. 13 In the early years of independence, extractive natural resources–based development was considered the panacea of the languishing economy of the country. In 1951 and up to 1970s, the policies were inclined toward higher industrial development and that was considered as the ultimate engine of growth and universal remedy to poverty alleviation (Baviskar, 1995; Das, 2014, 2017; Gadgil & Guha, 1992; Oommen, 2010; Prabhu & Rao, 2002). Although the country was following a socialist path of development, there was very limited concern about the environment. It would not be wrong to say that environmental concern was missing in all developmental policies and plannings. For instance, the early industrial legislations like Mines and Minerals Act, 1957, Factories Act, 1948 and Industries Act, 1951, were more focused on the human safety and health issues and did not provide any direction for environmental protection. Although few efforts were made for the prevention of the air and pollution, those proved to be not very effective. There was no institutional mechanism or governance structure for the effective monitoring of the pollution or the negative effects on environment of the industrial activities.

Environment in the National Political Agenda: Constitutional Amendments, Legislations and Judicial Interventions The environmental factor in particular has gained increased attention due to increasing debate around the development-technology and socio-environmental movements. These debates build a narrative of alternative development models around new socially responsible technology which could help in poverty reduction as well

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M. K. Gandhi’s vision was a self-sustained and self-reliance village economy. On the other hand, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s idea was to plan growth through heavy industrialization. Nehru was a firm believer in the modernization though industrial development by the stateowned enterprises. There are several letters exchanged between Gandhi and Nehru about their idea of post-colonial development and poverty eradication in India.

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as environmental destruction. In addition, the most important breakthrough in the context of environmental governance can be traced back to international conferences and resolutions in the 1970s. Environmental protection was first mentioned in the fourth 5-year plan (1969–1974), followed by the UN conference on Human Environment at Stockholm (June 1972). The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi expressed the concern of the inextricable goals of poverty alleviation and environmental protection in her speech in the UN conference at Stockholm. 14 The year 1972 could be considered as a turning point in the environmental debate in the national politics. This could be considered as the year when the environmental debate was introduced into the national political agenda. This growing concern over environmental issues has resulted in the constitutional 42nd amendment in 1976 which added one article pertaining to the protection of the natural environment and it was also added as a fundamental duty in the part-IVA of the constitution. This was the first time phrases like ‘natural environment’ or ‘protection and improvement of the environment’ were included in the constitution (Bedajna, 2010). This period is also marked by several important environmental legislations like the Wildlife Protection Act (1972), Water Act (1974), Air Act (1981) and Environmental (Protection) Act (1986). 15, 16 The three decades starting with 1970 can be seen as an important phase in the evolution of environmental policies in India. However, these three decades can be also seen as a battle ground of politics of environment and development. Although there were environmental policies and legislations in place, the idea of economic development or growth becomes more dominant and there was hardly any strong attempt to broaden the scope of environmental decision making (un-politics). However, during this time of environmental un-politics several judicial decisions helped in extending the scope of environmental legislations in the country. For instance, Maneka Gandhi vs. Union of India (AIR 1978 SC 597) case, Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra vs. State of U.P. (AIR 1988 Sc 2187) popularly known as Dehradun Quarrying Case, and M. C. Mehta vs. Union of India (AIR 1987 SC 1086) are worth mentioning. In the following years other constitutional amendments like the 73rd and 74th amendments on revitalization of the rural local and urban local body representation system also included several environmental aspects like soil conservation, water management, non-conventional energy sources, etc. In addition,

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Indira Gandhi’s (Prime Minister of India) Speech at the Stockholm Conference in 1972, Man and Environment, Plenary Session of United Nations Conference on Human Environment, Stockholm 14 June 1972 http://lasulawsenvironmental.blogspot.in/2012/07/indira-gandhis-speech-at-stock holm.html, accessed on 2 January 2015. After that her speech in the parliament of India in October 1976 ‘So far, the feeling of responsibility towards nature was absent all over the World. It was not absent in our own ancient books; but came about because we adopted the Western viewpoint. Now the time has come to go back to the source of strength of the human race and to try to preserve and revitalise them’ has in a sense turned the attention toward environmental policy making. 15 These acts/regulations have been amended several time in the last 40–50 years. 16 Some of these legislations are formulated during the period of National Emergency.

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other significant judicial interventions like Narmada Case (Narmada Bachao Andolan Versus Union of India & Others, 1994) and 2013 Supreme Court judgment on the Niyamgiri for the protection of the culture and religion of Dogria Konds is one of the glaring examples of the judicial intervention in the sphere of the environmental decision-making (Das, 2014, 2017, 2018; Sahu, 2008). 17

Institutional Environmentalism and Planning The concern for the environment was clearly absent in the early year of state planning. For the first time in the history of Independent India’s planning, the fourth 5-year plan (1969–1974) document raised and introduced the issue of environment and talked about the development in harmony with the environment. It also stressed on the forest-based economy and its link to the rural development. Apart from a call on including the environment in the planning and development, this is also a period when the foundation of several new environmental protection institutions was led. The first institutional initiative for the protection of the environment also began through the establishment of the National Committee on Environmental Planning and Coordination (NCEPC) in 1972 under the Department of Science and Technology. The NCEPC was an interdisciplinary committee consisting of experts from various disciples. It was entrusted the task to identify the activities that affect the environment and recommend programs to protect the quality of the environment. In addition, for the effective implementation of the water and air acts, Central and State Pollution Control Boards were also established during this period. Although the fourth 5-year plan introduced the environment in the Indian planning, the sixth plan essentially broadened the issue and explicitly recognized the ecological problems and its consequences by devoting a full section to environmental problems in India. In the history of India’s environmental governance, this is the period when the policy making considered environment as a non-separable aspect of developmental planning. Environmental Impact Assessment was made an integral part of the planning process to ensure the environmental compatibility of all the developmental projects (Bedajna, 2010). Further, the Government of India appointed a committee under the chairmanship of N D Tiwari, the then Deputy Chairman of the erstwhile planning commission to recommend legislative and administrative measures for the environmental protection. 18 On the

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Other significant cases which resulted positive enviornmental outcome are the Taj Trapezium case and use of CNG in the city public transport case in Delhi, etc. However, judicial interventions have given mixed results because the decisions are not always go in favour of environmental protection. For instance, the Sethusamudrum case court has mentioned that development should be given primary importance and in the case of the Narmada case, the court allowed the dam to be finished and given judgment in favor of increasing the height of the dam later. 18 The Tiwari committee recorded the failure of the India state to address the environmental degradation during the first developmental decades.

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recommendation of the committee, the Department of the Environment was created in 1980 in the Centre to provide explicit recognition to the environmental governance in the country. In the year 1985, the department of the environment was transformed into a full-fledged Ministry which is called the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF). Later the climate change is also added to it and presently it is called the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC). 19 In the following years, the state governments established their state environmental departments and to keep pace with the fast-increasing central policy initiatives. Other significant developments in the sphere of environmental governance in the following years, apart from the establishment of full-fledged ministry is the enactment of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. The act was enacted to take a holistic approach and to eliminate loopholes in the Air and Water Act. It is believed that the key driver of these two-important developments in this sphere is the rise of several environmental movements as well as industrial tragedies like the Bhopal gas leak of 1984 (Bedajna, 2010; Guha, 1994; Harashima, 2000). 20 After the liberalization of the economy, one of the significant developments in the sphere of institutional environmentalism is the Environment Impact Assessment Notification (EIA) (1994). 21 EIA is a compulsory requirement to ensure the environmental compatibility of any economic development project. Every project developer has to submit an EIA which mandates public hearing and environment management plan. This could be considered as a significant departure from the previous environmental governance system as the older environmental governance structure or legislations were not equipped for public participation and consent. In addition the notification of EIA, the eastablishment of National Environmental Tribunal (1995) and National Green Tribunal to handle and speedy disposal of the cases pertaining to environmental issues (Bedajna, 2010; Sharma, 2008) are some of the important institutional initiatives of the Indian state for the environmental protection. Apart from these institutions the regulations like Costal Area Regulations and Costal Area Regulation Zone Authority are some of important institutional and regulatory initiatives of the Indian state to strengthen environmental protection and governance in specific areas. As the planned and state control economy was replaced with market, the debate of environmentalism and environmental government became a controversial issue, specifically in the period of transition. The Five-Year Plans of the early twenty-first century set out strategies, which provided more importance to

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Presently the ministry has regional offices and different divisions for forest, climate change, wildlife, etc. It has also several boards, autonomous institutes, and tribunals to take care of different activities. The ministry has expanded its scope in different areas. 20 The eight 5-year plan (1992–1997) emphasizes the rights of common property resources and participation of the local people in forest management and other natural resources. The tenth 5-year plan (2002–2007) talks about sustainability as an imperative. The eleventh 5-year plan (2007–2012) talks about the protection of the environment to be a central part of any sustainable inclusive growth strategy. 21 Although the EIA provision was created in the late 1970s, the legal mandate was given to the process in 1994.

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rights for common property resources and participation of people in the forest and other natural resource managements. In addition, the principle of sustainability, sustainable development and climate change was also introduced explicitly to the agenda of national developmental plans and politics. However, the period of liberalization, also seen as a period of weakening of the environmental institutions, several times only worked as a clearance body to clear developmental projects.

Environmental Decision Making in India: An Appraisal The preceding discussion reflects the vast spectrum of mechanisms that evolved under the environmental governance in India. However, this wide structure of the governance system is always criticized because of poor execution at the local level. These approaches are also criticized because of their top-down nature, which are not always applicable to local conditions. Further, several environmentalists working in the policy domain have been criticizing the present model of environmental decision-making including the process of EIA (Harashima, 2000; Menon & Kohli, 2008, 2009). The process of EIA, which was supposed to be a critical tool in the environmental decision making, has been severely reduced its usefulness as an instrument due to inadequate impact assessment, poor public consultation, lack of transparency and credibility, insufficient independent appraisal, and lack of postclearance monitoring. This has also been severely criticized by the Supreme Court of India as well as various civil society organizations working in the domain of environmental protection and traditional rights of the local population. The government has already acknowledged deficiencies in the process of environmental governance and introduced some peripheral changes, but the institutional structure of the EIA has remained the same (Ghosh, 2011). The ministry (MOEFCC) explicitly claims that a credible environmental policy and adequate regulations are already in place for environmental governance, but the problem is essential with the administrative structure. The administrative structure is weak and there is no clarity about the roles, responsibilities and line of control. Although there is diversity in administrative structures, the environmental governance has not fully developed. The central government remains the most important actor and plays a strong role in environmental governance (Damodaran, 2012; Harashima, 2000; Olowu, 2007). After the completion of 22 years of the United Nationals Conference on Sustainable Development (held at Rio in 1992) and in the end of the millennium development decade in 2015, it is now clear that we need an articulated system of national environmental governance. It is also more intensified further by the idea of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will build upon the Millennium Development Goals and converge with the post-2015 development agenda which could help to move the world to a sustainable trajectory. However, constructing such a system in the present administrative environment and maintaining its efficiency could be a complicated issue. The difficulty in pursuing environmental governance at a national scale is compounded by the fact that there is no clear-cut institutional mechanism

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that could independently work for the protection of the environment and regulate the behavior of the market. In the absence of such an institutional arrangement, a fluid system persists in this domain. Here it is also important to note that the older institutions are also not working efficiently because of the absence of clear rules and regulations. The current system clearly reflects the dysfunctions of our political, legal, social, and economic institutions. It seems that the institutional frameworks designed in the past are not capable of dealing with present complexities. Therefore, we need to create new institutional frameworks to tackle the present problems (Beck, 1992). In this context, there has been a long-standing debate around the establishment of an independent regulator in India. The emergence of national and global environmental problems and the new plan of launching SDGs have scaled this debate further. However, there was no consensus on the creation of a new institution. While several experts believe that independent institution could work autonomously from other government institutions and industries for better management of natural resources and help the state to show its commitment to reforms and reduce investor risk and lead to market growth and innovation (Chakraborth & Chakraborty, 2007; Kathuria & Khan, 2002). However, a section of intelligentsia believes that environmental regulation harms India’s economy and the independent regulatory agency could add to that. They also believe that the emphasis on the sustainable development framework is a limit to growth. In addition, there are also certain questions related to the structure and mechanism of operation of the institution within the present institutional framework and meaningful interventions of the new institution to ensure environmental decision making. Several policy analysts and activists think that the problem is with the policy because there is lack of the clear set of implementable guidelines. The implementable guidelines do not clearly talk about about how choices between development projects, a concern of natural resource-dependent communities and broader environmental impacts are to be made (Bedajna, 2010; Lele et al., 2010). Further, there is a lack of a mechanism to address the conflict between broader environmental interests, local interests and national or commercial interests of a group. Overall there is a lot of ambiguity in the ‘sustainability’ efforts of the state as it problematizes the path to achieve optimal economic growth (Bedajna, 2010; Lele et al., 2010). In addition to that, particularly in the neo-liberal regime, it can be seen that there is a dilution of several environmental regulations. The gradual withdrawal of acts and laws reduced the legal enforceability (Bedajna, 2010; Kohli & Menon, 2021). In the recent years the discourse on the purposes, objective and forms of India’s environmental governance have seen several reforms but it seems that reforms are in several ways favoring and protecting the private investments, irrespective of their environmental implications (Kohli & Menon, 2021). The governance has been located between the emerging environmental concerns and powerful free-market economic growth by maximum utilization of the resources. Keeping in view of these issues, the next section will deal with the challenges and opportunities of environmental governance in India.

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Challenges and Opportunities of Environmental Governance in India In a country like India, the issue of environmental governance is both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenges are big because here it is not only the protection of the environment but also the protection of the rights of the several marginalized communities and their access to the natural resources. The core problems in India are several and they are all embedded in the larger debate on the environment, local livelihoods and development (Bedajna, 2010; Lele et al., 2010). Presently it constitutes a serious challenge because the country needs to deal with past mismanagements as well as take a balanced approach for the present economic growth and employment while minimizing adverse environmental impacts (D’Sa & Narasimha Murthy, 2006). The present institutional structure and its proponents strongly believe that environmental regulations cause undesirable economic consequences and it could seriously harm the country’s economy by reducing economic growth. However, it is not possible to argue that there should be zero use of natural resources for development. Economic growth has certain linkages with natural resources which also pose some conflicts in terms of control and allocation of these resources. Yet, there is a need of careful management of the resources with effective and environmental and economic policies. Lack of integration between environmental policy and economic planning is one of the biggest challenges of environmental governance in our country. It is important to know that the challenge of environmental governance lies in pursuing environmental goals within the overall fabric of a country’s political and institutional systems (Damodaran, 2012; Harashima, 2000). In India, several times, institutional failures and improper policies such as subsidies for the use of certain resources as part of the populist measures lead to environmental degradation rather than activities undertaken in the process of development. These things are often in conflict with each other and create a problem for effective governance in the environment sector (Bedajna, 2010; Damodaran, 2012; Harashima, 2000; Lele et al., 2010; Olowu, 2007). As discussed earlier, in a country like India, development objectives with providing basic infrastructure several times override the environmental concern. For instance, numerous homes in India have not yet been electrified and the government is planning to extend it to all the homes. The need to extend this facility around could override the environmental considerations if no step was taken in the sphere of environmental policy and governance. Apart from that, the financial constraint of the state is also adding up to the challenge of environmental governance. For instance, most of the industries are based on the older technology whose capital cost has been amortized and are operating at lower cost despite being more polluting. Replacing the older technology in every sector with a new environment-friendly technology is more expensive. It is very difficult for several of the financially constrained public-sector companies to afford this. In addition to that, the environmental compliance in the industries will put some additional cost to the products and services which people may be reluctant to pay in a developing country like India. This increasing cost might not be good for

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the government’s political commitments toward several of the products and services (D’Sa & Narasimha Murthy, 2006). As we have discussed in the preceding text, one of the biggest problems in the governance system is a weak administrative structure. It is the primary weak administrative and institutional mechanism that has failed to implement the existing regulations. Sometimes comprehensive legal framework for environmental regulation fails due to inadequate enforcement at the local level. For instance, most afforestation programs failed in the mining areas because of weak local enforcement. 22 Similarly, a large number of commercial small and medium industrial facilities (including unorganized sector) are unlikely to invest when environmental effects do not impinge on them (D’Sa & Narasimha Murthy, 2006; Harashima, 2000; Lele et al., 2010). The challenge can be converted into opportunity when due consideration is given to its essential ingredients. Present national and international political climate seems very favorable toward effective governance for environmental management. Discussion and debate on environmental issues have shifted from a narrow subset of India’s foreign policy and bureaucratic circle to a broader level in Indian society. All the spheres of Indian society such as business, media, environmentalists and local stakeholders have been drawn to the debate. While the debate has been joined by all the stakeholders, we are getting a clear answer about the need for the future of environmental governance. In addition to that, Indian civil societies and different issue-based groups through their activism have already created a space for the government for a new way of governance. People of the country are also quite aware of the environmental issues because of the activism of these organizations which could solve the earlier issues such as lack of meaningful participation and lack of information at the local level. The international treaties and conventions have provided an opportunity to organize our socio-economic and political institutions in an environment-friendly manner. These international efforts are also helping users in the area of technological advancement and new innovation (Chakraborth & Chakraborty, 2007; Kathuria & Khan, 2002). 23 In this context, the sustainable development goals (SDG) targets formulated in the year 2015 after the end of the Millennium Development Goals could be used as opportunities for the reform in the environmental governance in India. The urgency of this reform is because present human activity is pushing crucial global ecosystem functions past a dangerous threshold, beyond which the earth might well encounter potentially devastating outcomes for human well-being (Sachs, 2012). India should recognize this shift as an opportunity to manage the scarce resources to minimize the risks in the future. It is therefore important to seize the current opportunity to bring about real, if not radical, change.

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To see more on the afforestation program, see the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India on Compensatory Afforestation in India in its report no. 21 of 2013. 23 It is well evident from some of the sectors that the presence of clear regulation and regulatory authorities have not stifled the growth of the industries, rather they have complimented the industry’s efforts to innovate and remain competitive.

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Conclusion: New Agenda of Environmental Governance The environmental governance in India evolved and changed with the development of the state. In the beginning, it was a community governance system which was on the basis of religious and community ethics. Later, the pre-modern states saw very minimal regulation for their economic and war interests. However, in the colonial period, an organized effort of resource control mechanisms can be seen by the establishment of the forest department with strict regulations and curtailment of the traditional rights. After independence, the period could be divided mostly into two phases. In the first phase during the panned development period there were no concerns about environmental governance because the goal was to reach the maximum growth and alleviation of extreme poverty. Later, with the rise of environmentalism and further several conflicts over land, forest and water mostly in the form of agitations, dharnas and rasta rokos have been pressurizing the state to think about managing environmental resources in a proper manner. This period has seen environmental policies and regulations are mostly developed in response to the risks and hazards. The regulations were also strongly institutionalized through different national legislations. However, mostly the present environmental governance is based on a state-centric approach to the totality of environmental management. The governance has been always located between the environmental concerns and the powerful economic forces, gradually tilting toward the latter one. Presently India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. The rapid development could intensify the environmental problems the country is facing today. There is a growing recognition that India’s existing structures to enforce environmental laws are inadequate to tackle the scale of the environmental problems. A growing body of scientific evidence points to a changing pattern of hydrometeorological hazards as well as development choices and planning, which have increased exposure and given rise to a new risk regime. India has already reached a stage where environmental risks and hazards are evident and inevitable, scarce natural resources need to be distributed judiciously and conserved and the country needs to comply with many domestic and international obligations. There are debates about creating a new agency that would focus on environmental monitoring and enforcement. However, there are several other factors which need to be addressed for a better solution to this problem. As we have discussed, India’s environmental governance has to balance between local livelihood, developmental pressure and sustainability issues. There is a need for a greater commitment to the state in the matter of environmental issues. This is essential for the effective implementation of the environmental policy. In addition, there should be appropriate incentives to individuals and industries in different ways. Incentive programs that provide financial as well as technological assistance to resource-poor enterprises also help those enterprises reduce emission and meet environmental requirements. Further, there is a need to integrate the institutional setup and resource plans. For a country like India, it is very essential to plan for a multilevel governance system with the effective participation of all the stakeholders. Apart from that citizens and

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industries should be empowered through outreach programs. Now it is time to act on these issues of environmental governance to ensure sustainability.

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Sarada Prasanna Das is an Associate Fellow at Centre for Policy Research’s Initiative on Climate Energy and Environment (ICEE). He holds PhD, MPhil and MA degrees in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Environmental Resistance in India: Special Reference to Northeast India Arun Kumar Nayak

Immediately after the post-Second World War, a number of Afro-Asian countries got their independence and their first priority was how to grow their economy, and in such a case economic development was their main agenda of economic development and planning. As the increase in per capita income was considered by traditional economists to be a good indicator for development, many countries decided to accord a very high priority program, which could realize the maximum possible growth rates. The basic thrust of these plans was invariably on the sustained increase in GNP and per capita income. It was assumed that once economic growth was accomplished, other objectives, such as the elimination of employment, income inequalities, and poverty would be realized automatically (Kuznets, 1995: 1–28). In order to raise the economy, the availability of adequate infrastructure facilities is vital for the acceleration of the economic development of a country. Thus, governments across the world have given high priority to investment in sectors such as establishing industries, dam projects, railways, roads, power, telecommunications, ports, etc. Among all these projects, the construction of dams was the main priority of many nations, and it is considered as a symbol of development for its multipurpose utility. Such utility is the generation of electricity, irrigation, flood control, and navigation that contribute at large to the growth of a nation. Once, Indian Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said “Dams are the temples of development” and monuments to a nationalistic vision of modernization and economic growth (Joyce, 1997: 1050–1055; Bandhopadhyay et al., 2002: 4108). Development strategies based on the conventional view of development has no doubt raised the economic development of nations, as the outcome of the development was not holistic. It only benefited a few and neglected many others. The majority of the people still remain below the poverty line. It led to quantitative improvement but failed to bring qualitative upliftment. There is a measurable

A. K. Nayak (✉) Department of Political Science, Government Degree College, Santir Bazar, Tripura, India © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Briesen, S. P. Das (eds.), Media, Politics and Environment, Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31252-6_11

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improvement in the quantity of capital equipment and material goods but results in enormous environmental degradation. The scenic beauty of nature is destroyed, uprooted by the whole tribal population, depleted non-renewable resources, and polluted air, water, soil, and food. It undervalued the ecology in the wake of mega developmental projects and multi-purpose dams, where human beings have their highest stakes. Involuntary displacement caused by development projects becomes a major challenge for states to provide security to displaced people. The involuntary displacement caused by such projects makes enormous adverse implications for displaced people (Internal Displaced Monitoring Centre, 2019).1 A study made by the World Bank that, during the period 1986–1993, displacement found on account of development projects is just about 12.5 million. It is estimated that, during the 1990s, the construction of 300 high dams (above 15 m) displaced four million people (ibid). There are a number of studies that show that although development projects bring certain benefits to society at large, their construction leads to many significant social and human impacts, particularly in terms of displacement, and they lead to a broad range of “impoverishment risks” that include landlessness, joblessness, homelessness, marginalization, food insecurity, increased morbidity, loss of common resources, and social disarticulation, which results in a loss of socio-cultural resilience (Cernea, 2000: 3659–3678; Nayak, 2019). The preceding outcomes of developmental projects resulted in a number of protests and resistance by people against the state for either stopping, changing, or bringing certain reforms in the projects, which are especially known as environmental movements. In this context, the article will discuss the environmental movements in India in general and in North-east India (region) in particular.

The Objective of the Study The first objective of the study is to explain the nature of resource appropriation and the execution of large-scale industrialization and different developmental projects in India and how these projects have been leading to resource conflicts between the local inhabitants and the state in the forms of resistance, protests, and movements in the nation. Second, it will study the nature and character of environmental movements in India, and identify variables that play an important role in the success and failure of a movement in India in general and North-east India in particular. Third, it will study the role of global, transnational, and domestic ideologies, institutions,

1

At present, there are 68.5 million forcefully displaced people both within countries and across borders in the world, triggered by persecution, conflicts, or generalized violence. Of the 68.5 million forcibly displaced people, 40 million are internally displaced people (IDPs) and the remaining 25.4 million are refugees and 3.1 million are asylum seekers (Migration Data Portal, 2019). While forceful displacements caused by conflicts are 68.5 million, the number of people uprooted by development projects is much higher (Internal Displaced Monitoring Centre, 2019).

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networks, media, and civil societies and how they shapes the course of environmental movements in India in general and Northeast India in particular. First, the article has discussed the causes of involuntary displacement triggered by development projects across the globe and how it leads to environmental movements. Second, it has discussed the objectives of the study and explains the methods of the study. Third, it explains the nature of resource appropriations in India and how it leads to environmental movements, which covers the cases of the colonial, postcolonial, and post-economic reform eras. Fourth, similarly, with special reference to Northeast India, it has discussed the nature of resource appropriation and environmental resistance and movements, covering cases of colonial, post-colonial, and liberalized eras. At last, in its conclusion part, it has discussed the main findings of the study.

Methodology The study was conducted on the issue of environmental protests, resistance, and movements in India in general and Northeast India in particular. It aimed at assessing the nature and character of environmental movements and identifying variables that play an important role in the success and failure of environmental movements and suggesting measures and how to reduce the intensity of resource conflicts between state and people, which would help to sustain the sustainability of resource and environment. The study is historical and analytical in nature and uses primary and secondary data and related literature. Field visits had also been made to collect primary information and literature. I too consulted many NGOs, activists, and academicians, who are working on this issue in order to gather information for the fulfillment of the study.

Resource Appropriation and Environmental Movements in India To know about the environmental movements, understanding the Marxist concept of mode of production and resource appropriation is useful, which explains the genesis of environmental movements across the world in general and India in particular. Classifying society, using the Marxian perspective, society can be classified according to its technologies and relations of production. The concept of mode of resource use refers to the realm of production, which includes flora, fauna, water, and minerals. With respect to relations of production, it investigates the forms of property, management and control, and allocation and distribution, which govern the utilization of natural resources in different societies and historical periods. And with regard to productive forces, it analyses the varying technologies of resource

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exploitation, conversion, and transportation that characterize different social orders (Gadgil & Guha, 2003: 11–68). In this context, here, an explanation has been made of the nature and character of resource appropriation during the colonial, postcolonial, and post-economic reform era across the globe in general and India in particular. Colonial Period Looking at history, it is British colonialism and western imperialism that have profoundly altered the world ecology, which contributed to large-scale environmental degradation. It not only reshapes the social, ecological, and demographic characteristics of the habitats but also ensured that the ensuing changes would primarily benefit Europe. The worldwide control over natural resources contributed a lot to industrial growth. And, gradually they established their political hegemony over the non-European countries and captured the non-European market for their manufactured products (Guha & Gadgil, 1989: 141–177; Gadgil & Guha, 2003: 113–145). By around 1860, Britain had emerged as the world leader in deforestation, devastating its own woods and the forests of Ireland, South Africa, India, and the north-eastern United States to draw timber for shipbuilding, ironsmelting, and farming. The process of deforestation and resource appropriation greatly intensified in India in the early years of the building of the railway network after about 1853. The pace of railway expansion was made from 1349 km of track in 1860 to 51,658 km in1910 and it appropriated a large number of forest resources in India. Further, the British government formed the forest department in the year 1864, with the help of experts from Germany, the country which was the leading European nation in forest management. The main aim of the department was to check deforestation and forge legal mechanisms to assert and safeguard state control over forests and it brought the Indian Forest Act of 1865. But it was replaced 13 years later by a far more comprehensive piece of legislation, known as the Indian Forest Act of 1878, which provided the underpinnings for the “scientific” management of forests, and promotion of commercial timber production. Approximately 1.7 million cubic feet of timber (mostly teak) were exported annually between 1914 and 1919 from India by the colonial government to meet its different needs and large-scale deforestation was made in the remotest corner of the Himalayas and the Western Ghat (ibid). The British government further promulgated an act known as the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, and it justified the concept of “public domain,” by which the British Government was able to legitimize control over land. The main objective of the act was to acquire land for railways, expansion of trade routes, conversion of forests and pasture land into plantations of tea, coffee, rubber, and indigo, establishment of army cantonments and ordinance factories, construction of dams and canals, etc. In such cases, the worst victims were the displaced, mostly the forest-dwelling communities, tribes, and farmers and it brought a number of implications (Fernandes & Paranjpya, 1997: 8–9). At first, the promulgation of such policies asserted control over the forests of India and it represented an intervention in the day-to-day life of Indian village, which was unprecedented in its scope. Second, the colonial state radically redefined property rights and imposed a system of forest management and control,

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which resulted in conflict with the earlier system of local use and control. Finally, it altered the forest ecology by promoting commercial species (teak, pine, and deodar) in different ecological zones, which were invariable and of very little use to the rural population. Thus, colonial forestry and land acquisition caused the intensification of conflicts over forest land and the people began to protest and various movements were taken place in different parts of the country against the colonial government (Guha & Gadgil, 1989: 141–177; Gadgil & Guha, 2003: 113–145). The denial of forest rights provoked countrywide protests and several protests and movements were raised against colonial forestry—in Chottanagpur in 1893, in Bastar in 1910, in Gudem-Rampa in 1879–1880, and again in 1922–1923, in Midnapur in 1920, and in Adilabad in 1940. These movements were too extended to many parts of the country and thousands of villages were involved in these movements, but these movements are put down and suppressed by the armed forces of the colonial government (Guha, 2001: 213–238). Besides these movements, various organizations were too raising voices against the act. In 1878, the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, a nationalist organization in western India, vehemently opposed the Forest Act. The Sabha advocated a far more democratic structure of forest management than that envisaged by the colonial government. Jotirau Phule, a leading social reformer, too bitterly opposed the act, explaining the impact of the Forest Department on the livelihood of farmers and pastoralists in the Deccan countryside (ibid). A number of movements were also made in response to the commercial plantation of the colonial government and the state forest policy. The major peasant movements among those are in the years 1904, 1906, 1916, 1921, 1930, and 1942. But all these movements are suppressed by the British regime except the movement of Kumaun and Garhwal in 1921 (Guha, 1999: 35–48, 99–131, 2001: 213–238). In this movement, the concession was made by the colonial state, because it worried about losing control in a sensitive and strategically important border region. Kumaun hills are bordered by both Nepal and Tibet, which were not under British suzerainty, but had strong trading and political interests (ibid). Post-colonial Period Although India got independence from the colonial yoke in the year 1947, there was no change in the forest administration. The colonial forest acts still continued in post-independent India. Hence, the Indian Forest Act of 1865 and the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 established absolute control over the forests and land in the name of public goods and converted them into state property. The centralization of forest administration further extended the process of displacement of people, which affected their source of livelihood (Upadhaya & Upadhaya, 2002: 12, 19). Further, the enactment of the Forest Policy of 1962 and the Wild Life Protection Act of 1972, downgraded the “privileges” of the people to “concessions” given by the state. It continued ahead when the Forest Conservation Act of 1980 and the National Forest Policy of 1988 were enacted and it curtailed the existing concessions given by the state earlier (Saxena, 2005: 263–273; Gopalkrishnan, 2011: 62–69; Upadhaya & Upadhaya, 2002). Although the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act of 1996, commonly known as PESA, was enacted, which

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recognizes the rights of tribal people over natural resources, the act has not been implemented and the community management of forests remains a mere promise (Mathur, 2009: 163–192). However, to protect the tribal rights further, the Government of India enacted a new act in 2006, known as “The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006,” and this act fulfilled the long-overdue recognition of the rights of the Scheduled Tribes and forest dwellers (ibid). But, the spree of liberalization and large-scale Foreign Direct Investment (FDIs) in India during the post-economic reform era accelerated the pace of mining and industrial activities across the country and especially in states like Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, and Andhra Pradesh and it caused large-scale deforestation, displacement of people, and loss of livelihood (Saxena, 2005: 263–273; Meher, 2009: 457–480). During the period 1950–1991, it is estimated that 21,300,000 people have been displaced due to various development projects like dams, mines, industries, roads, etc. Among them, 70% are not resettled and rehabilitated yet (Fernandes & Paranjpya, 1997: 1–34). The majority of the displaced people belong to the poor and deprived section of society. Among them, 40% belong to Scheduled Tribes (STs) and 20% belong to Scheduled Castes (SCs). They remained marginalized and deprived of justice on account of negligence and incapacity to fight for their rights. Structural inequalities, cultural dissonance, discrimination, and economic and political marginalization are the main factors responsible for their marginalization (World Commission on Dams, 2000: 110). Such deprivation in the post-independence era, a number of environmental movements are made to redefine the model of development and replace the current resource-intensive one that has created severe ecological instability and devastated the sources of livelihood. During post-independent India, protests against Hirakud dam in 1947, Chipko Andolan in the 1970s, Save the Bhagirathi in the 1990s, and Stop Tehri project in Uttar Pradesh in the 1980s, Save the Narmada (Narmada Bachao Andolan) in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat in the 1980s, movements against mining in Gandhamardan Hills in Orissa in the 1990s, Appiko movement in the Western Ghats in the 1980s, the campaign against the Silent Valley project in Kerala in the 1980s, and opposition to Gumti dam in Tripura in the 1980s are some the major environmental movements in India (Karan, 1994: 32). It is generally believed that protests and movements contribute to the legitimacy of democratic governance, as they significantly enhance the interactive space between the rulers and the ruled. These act as modes of political participation, as they put pressure on the political authority, and in this context, it has been examined how the democratic regime of India has been addressing the environmental protests and movements and governing these issues. After studying carefully these abovementioned major environmental movements which took place in India, it was found that a number of factors play an important role in making success and failure of environmental movements and it varies from period to period. Although, there was huge local resistance in all the cases, be it during the early years of independence, be it during the 1970s and 1980s, and during the post-economic reform era, all these movements were not successful and all are not failures too.

Environmental Resistance in India: Special Reference to Northeast India Table 1 The growth of transnational non-governmental advocacy organizations

Issue areas Human rights Environment Development

1953 33 2 3

1963 38 5 2

1973 41 10 7

145 1983 79 26 13

1993 190 123 47

Source: Khagram (2004: 12) Growth of Transnational Non-governmental Advocacy Organizations 200 150 100

50 0

1953

1963 Human Rights

1973 Environment

1983

1993

Development

Fig. 1 Growth of transnational non-governmental advocacy organizations

During the early years of independence or in the 1960s, in the case of the Hirakud dam, it was seen that, although there was severe local resistance, this movement was suppressed by the state in the name of nation-building. But on the other hand, environmental movements which took place during the 1970s and 1980s like Chipko Andolan, Stop Tehri project, Save the Narmada, and the Silent Valley movement got huge successes, and the government was forced to either stop the project or brought reforms as per the demand of the people. This is largely due to movements that took place during the 1970s and 1980s getting huge support from transnational ideology, transnational institutions, and transnational networks, and it is clearly evident looking at Table 1 and Fig. 1, which shows the growth of transnational non-governmental advocacy organizations across the world since the 1970s. Although the nature of the domestic opposition to the Hirakud dam was strikingly similar to the domestic anti-dam struggle that emerged in greater numbers in India during the 1970s, it failed to prosper due to the absence of NGOs, transnational allied advocacy networks, legitimized global norms on human rights, indigenous peoples, and the environmental lobbies (Nayak, 2010: 69–73, 2015, 2016). Post-economic Reform Era The process of globalization has increased the number of displacements in India as Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) came to invest in sectors like mining and industries, especially in states like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, and in many more states. The number of displacements in the era of liberalization surpassed the displacement of earlier phases and it led to a democratic imbalance in tribal regions. The tribal population from Jharkhand dropped from 60% in 1911 to 27.63% in 1991 (Saxena, 2005: 266–267). In the wake of such huge displacement caused by the booming industrial

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and mining sector in the era of post-economic reforms, a number of environmental protests and movements were made, and similarly, these movements also got huge support from the local as well as transnational ideologies, institutions, organization, and international NGOs, human rights group, environmental groups, and activists, but the results are dissimilar. Studying the case of anti-mining and anti-industrial movements in Kashipur and Lanjigarh (Odisha), in the post-economic reform era, it shows that only those movements are getting success, where there is strong support from opposition political parties. On the other, the movement does not get success, where there is no support from opposition political parties and there is a nexus between the state and the Multinational Corporations (MNCs) (crony capitalism), it becomes very easy to suppress environmental movements by the state. Although the nature of protests and movements in the case of Lanjigarh and Kashipur is similar, the former got success and the latter failed to do so. The preceding case studies show that it is always a different form of capitalism, be it colonial capital during the colonial period, the state capital during the post-independence period, or crony capitalism in the era of liberalization, that has been suppressing environmental movements in India (Nayak, 2015).

Special Reference to Northeast India Here, in this exercise, the linkage has been made between state-sponsored development projects, resource appropriation, and their consequent displacement of the population in the specific context of a “non-mainstream” region of India, that is, Northeast India. This region consists of states like Assam, Tripura, Nagaland, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, and Mizoram. In fact, the entire Northeast India is a peripheral region and it is again a periphery within the larger global context. It is posited at the bottom of the hierarchy of peripheries. The region is far away from the center and economically highly dependent on it. However, this region is strategically very important for India, as it is surrounded by four countries—China, Myanmar, Bhutan, and Bangladesh. The region is connected with the rest of India through a narrow corridor and a precarious communication network. As a result, this region has remained as underdeveloped as compared to mainstream India (Hussain, 2008: 25–98). Northeast India is the home of innumerable nationalities, national minorities, and ethnic groups belonging to different races, colors, religious persuasions, and linguistic groups. All are standing at visibly uneven levels of socio-economic development. A very similar unevenness is also apparent in terms of their integration and identification with pan-Indian nationalism and the Indian nation-state. In the post-colonial period, it remained a politically sensitive, violent, and disturbed region, of course with periodic lulls. The region witnessed the execution of several state-sponsored developmental projects and it brought development in the region to a great extent. But, on the other hand, it led to large-scale resource appropriation, displacement of the population, and heavy environmental degradation. Development projects suffered severely because of their lack of attention to people and the environment (ibid).

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Colonial Period Moreover, the terminology “Northeast” is simply not a geographical one, rather it is a politically loaded terminology. Northeast holds a marginal position in the Indian political economy and political geography during both colonial and post-colonial periods. This place in its present form was created primarily by colonial policies. The British colonial government had kept this region secluded from the valley people, who belong to the non-tribal category of the population. Therefore, they were secluded from the influence of the people of the plains, and at the same time, their culture was not influenced by extraneous cultures. Hence, this area witnessed the spread of western education especially headed by different missionaries (Hussain, 2008; Bhaumik, 2008, 2009; Chowdhury & Kipgen, 2013). The main reason behind such political administration of the Northeast was to secure the turbulent border region, by making allies with the indigenous people staying there. In this process, it created psychological disaffinity between the tribal and non-tribal people. It is largely due to the British policy of segregation or prevention of free intercourse between them that led to “ethnicity” taking precedence over “nationalism” in the region. The “divide and rule” policy of the colonial government, and later, the negligence of the post-colonial Indian state toward the region further aggravated the situation. In addition to it, the independent nature of these hilly tribes, organized into separate clans under chieftainship made the nationbuilding process difficult for both sides. The region has become more fragile on account of its socio-economic complexities, associated ethnic conflicts, secessionist movements, struggle for autonomy between various armed groups, and increased incidences of violence and terrorism (ibid). On account of the geographical positionality at the frontier of the colonial British empire, this region has been largely neglected in the process of national integration and development. Even in the postcolonial Indian state, the region remained neglected in the process of national integration. The partition of India in 1947 and redrawing of borders further reinforced the seclusion of the Northeast from the rest of India. As the region is encircled by different international states, this region now acts as a “buffer zone” to keep the countries of Southeast and East Asia at bay (ibid). But, looking at the process of resource appropriation during the colonial era, the colonial government implemented a number of policies in the region which led to the extraction of natural resources, especially in the Brahmaputra and Surma valley. It too took a number of developmental activities, like the expansion of railways and the introduction of commercial agriculture like tea cultivation. In the name of the conservation of wildlife, the colonial government encroached onto the forestland and barred forest communities in forest management, and as a result, the region has witnessed a number of tribal movements for their land and forest rights like the Khasi Rebellion (1829–1833) and revolt by Kacha Nagas of Cachar district of Assam in 1882. But these movements were suppressed by the colonial government and institutionalized by the Forest Acts of 1878 and 1927 in India (Goswami, 2014). Postcolonial Period After independence, it is for the first time in 1972 that this region was recognized through the division of the erstwhile state of Assam into several small states. The Indian state was unable to develop a “hegemonic project” to

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allure these sub-nationalist currents into the mainstream pan-India nation-building project and hence the region remained a “peripheral” region. As a result, the region witnessed political and economic seclusion from the mainstream even in the postcolonial era. The post-colonial Indian state maintained an ambiguous relationship with this region. To manage the administrative aspects of the northeast, the Government of India has applied sixth-schedule administration and other constitutional provisions, which extend a certain degree of autonomy and self-management, including the management of natural resources and forests. However, in the Sixth Schedule, according to Articles 244 and 275, there are different provisions for the administration of the tribal areas for certain states, like Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Tripura. Not all the states of North-east India come under this mode of rule. The Government of India enacted the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA) in 1958 that provided special power to the army to make arbitrary arrests and shootings. As a result, the Indian state has not been able to create an amenable environment for peace and necessary development in the region (Hussain, 2008: 99–150). Contrary to the popular-post colonial expectation, the region Northeast did not receive much attention in the development agenda of the post-colonial state of India. Hence, it has become a major stumbling block in the integration of the Northeast with the rest of India. Northeast India witnessed several ethnic movements, and armed struggles, which emerged during the post-colonial period and halted the development process in the region. There was only a little development that took place and it significantly affected the region’s potential for autonomous growth. The incessant armed struggle in the region experienced the process of militarization and became a conflict zone (ibid). There are a number of opinions that the Northeastern states remain behind in the pace of development as compared to mainstream India. Soon after India’s independence, productive industries got a boost in the rest of India with the implementation of the Five Years Plan in 1951. But it began in the region of Northeast in the 1960s only after the completion of post-independence refugee resettlement. Some argue that the national security perception was the main reason for this delay, as India had to face three wars in the years 1962, 1965, and 1971. In the case of the 1962 and 1971 wars, the region Northeast is quite badly affected. Hence, development in this region is viewed from a security perspective, and there has been much investment in defense and transport, but very little in productive sectors. Lands were acquired after the partition for the rehabilitation of refugees. Further, there was the encroachment of lands by immigrants. As the region of Northeast India shares 80% of its border with foreign countries, land acquisition for security has become a major source of displacement. In nutshell, it can be said that the main causes of displacement in Northeast India are transport, security, and refugee rehabilitation, and all are related to East Pakistan and international borders. New roads and rail lines were made through North Bengal and Assam to replace the routes that passed through East Pakistan. Since new borders were created, a security apparatus was created in the region (Fernandes, 2017).

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Post-economic Reform Era However, during the post-economic reform era, the Government of India pumped huge funds into the development of the region. It has made a separate Ministry named Development of Northeast Region (DONER) at the Center to speed up development works in the region. Besides this, provisions have also been made to ensure that each ministry keeps some specific funds reserved exclusively for the Northeastern states. The Government of India also awards a “peace bonus” in monetary terms to an individual state of the region, if it succeeds in maintaining peace in the state (Hussain, 2008: 99–150). In recent years, development initiatives have been made by the Government of India to convert Northeast India into a powerhouse for India by tapping its hydropower potential to the maximum. In order to achieve this ambitious developmental goal, the central government has approved 145 dams to enhance and ensure India’s energy security in the future. About a dozen dams are already in the pipeline and a few have been completed. Among all Northeastern states, Arunachal Pradesh has the highest potential for generating hydropower. According to an estimate, Arunachal Pradesh is capable of generating 26,756 megawatts of electricity, which represents 84% of the total potential of entire Northeast India. Apart from it, about 65% of total hydroelectric projects meant for the Northeast will be located in Arunachal Pradesh alone (ibid, Fernandes, 2017; Vagholikar & Das, 2010). If these projects are implemented, then the state will have to acquire a massive 16,218.44 hectares of land for the reservoir and other related construction for the generation of electricity. In this scenario, displacement of the population is a must, and it will disrupt their livelihood and community life very significantly in addition to causing severe damage to fragile ecology and biodiversity. Northeast is recognized as one of the 25 biodiversity hotspots in the world and the region is also the home of a number of tribal populations. All these mega power projects are to be located mainly in the tribal area and it will definitely reduce their arable land. In addition to it, it will affect their source of livelihood, community structure, economy, and the Himalayan ecology negatively (ibid).

Popular Resistance to Mega Dams One may find that the region is in the way of gradual transformation of development by implementing a number of development projects, especially dam projects to mitigate India’s energy security. But, on the other side, one may find cases of involuntary displacement, and environmental degradation, which induces political conflict and raises the issue of rights and justice for the displaced people. Hence, the region witnessed several popular resistances against dam projects in different states of Northeast India, and it raises the issue of environmental sustainability and involuntary displacement. Among the popular resistance, here, the three most popular resistances have been discussed, the resistance against the Siang and Subansiri dams in Arunachal Pradesh, Tipaimukh Multipurpose Hydro-Power Project in Manipur, and the Pagladiya dam project in Assam (Hussain, 2008: 99–150).

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Siang Dam Projects Following the MoU signed between the Government of Arunachal Pradesh and the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) in 2000, a series of dams were planned to construct in the Siang district. Three such dams were planned, one at Pugging in the Upper Siang district, another at Ranging in the East Siang district, and the third one at Payum in the West Siang district. The Upper Siang project is aimed at generating massive 11,000 megawatts of electricity and once it gets complete, it would be the largest hydropower project in India. The height of the dam is 257 m and as per the MoU, the NHPC started their preliminary work to go ahead to start the ambitious projects. However, if the Upper Siang is commissioned, it will submerge around 200 villages inhabited by indigenous tribal people and displace about 200,000 people, which is 20% of the total population of Arunachal Pradesh. It would also adversely affect the fragile natural environment and rich biodiversity. Having such probable negative impacts, the local people strongly resisted the project and an organization was formed known as Siang Valley Bachao Aandolan (SVBC), which raised its voice against commissioning the mega projects in Siang districts. In spite of such resistance, it could not put any fruitful pressure on the government either to halt or bring some reform to the project. The project work is now at the stage of under construction and work is still going on, and it is about to complete very soon (Hussain, 2008: 99–150; Sharma, 2018; Hazarika, 2020). Tipaimukh Multipurpose Project The Tipaimukh Multipurpose Project (TMP) is one of the major and ambitious power projects in Northeast India, located in the state of Manipur. The project is in the pipeline since 1955, primarily located at the trijunction of Assam, Manipur, and Mizoram with an aim of hydropower generating capacity of 1500 MW. Once it gets completed, it will permanently submerge 275.50 km2 of the land surface. As per the estimate, it will completely submerge 16 villages and severely affect 51 villages. Besides it, the project would also submerge 60 km of the existing National Highway 53. With the submergence of a large tract of forests and agricultural land, the implementation of the TMP will lead to the displacement of 15,000 people, and among them, the Zeliangrong Nagas and the Hmars community will be the victims (Hussain, 2008: 99–150; Islam & Islam, 2016; Rahman, 2009; South Asia Network on Dams, River, and People, 2016). Hence, these two tribal groups vehemently opposed the construction of the TMP. They started to protest locally under the banner of the Committee Against Tipaimukh Dam (CATD), and since the early 1990s it got huge support from other organizations and major groups in Northeast India and they joined the protests. Such organizations are the Hmar Student Association (HAS), Zeliangrong Union (ZU), Naga Mothers Union, Manipur (NMUM), All Manipur United Club Organizations (AMUCO), Naga People’s Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR), Citizens’ Concern for Dams and Development (CCDD), Action Committee Against Tipaimukh Project (ACATP), United Naga Council (UNC), All Naga Students Association, Manipur (ANSAM), and Naga Peoples Organizations (NPO), etc. (ibid).

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It is also essential to understand that the Barak River flows downstream to join the Surma and Kushiara river systems in Bangladesh, and it is considered to be the lifeline of the Sylhet region in Bangladesh. Thus, experts are concerned and have voiced apprehensions that the proposed dam would cause colossal damage to Bangladesh’s economy, society, and environment, particularly contributing to drying up two important rivers—the Surma (length: 350 km) and the Khusiara (length: 110 km), which provide water for most of the north-eastern region of Bangladesh. It will severely affect the ecosystem of Bangladesh. The effects of the dam are not only confined to Bangladesh, as it is also of serious consequences for the people of the Indian states of Manipur and Nagaland as the Barak-Surma-Kushiara is an international river (Islam & Islam, 2016). After stiff opposition from Manipur, it too faces similar opposition in the neighboring state of Mizoram. The Mizoram-based human rights-based organizations vehemently protested against the dam and argue that it will adversely affect the local people and that this kind of developmental project is against the spirit of the constitution, where the lands of tribal are protected. In a similar way, the government of Manipur too supported people’s resistance and opposed the project on the ground of seismology and environmental aspects and the project was at a halt till 1998. On earlier occasions, The Manipur Legislative Assembly emphatically rejected it twice, however, with the passage of time, the Government of Manipur surprisingly signed an MoU with the North Eastern Electrical Power Corporation Limited (NEEPCO) in January 2003 to resume the project. The opinion on the TMP project is sharply divided. On the one hand, a large number of the non-tribal people in the plains of Manipur support the project, but on the other hand, the tribal peoples of the hill are opposing the project. Meanwhile, since its change of position, the Government of Manipur has been trying to convince the opponents to support the TMP project in the larger interest of the state and the government is determined to execute the project (ibid). But, from 2007 onward, the movement against the Tipaimukh dam project in both India and Bangladesh is phenomenal. There were a number of protests and movements in the Indian states of Manipur, Nagaland, and Assam citing the issue of largescale displacement and destruction of natural ecology and environment. In a similar way, in Bangladesh too, there were a number of protests against the Tipaimukh project. The protests and movements were also made in other countries and it became an international issue. The issue went to the United Nations and the growing environmentalism halted the project in 2007. In 2011, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between India and Bangladesh, which is known as the “Indo-Bangladesh Framework Agreement on Cooperation for Development,” which prevents India from taking any unilateral decisions to construct the Tipaimukh dam. However, it cannot be said that the movement is completely successful. Rather, it is partially successful, as this movement has only been able to halt the project, not completely stop the project. It will be difficult to say about the future of the Tipaimukh project and the course of the environmental resistance (Islam & Islam, 2016).

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Pagladiya Dam Project In Assam, the Pagladiya Dam Project (PDP) was proposed on the river Pagladiya quite long back in the 1970s to control floods. The Pagladiya river is an important tributary of the Brahmaputra, which originates in Bhutan and flows downward to the Assam plains on the northern bank of the river Brahmaputra. It was formally approved by the Planning Commission of India in the year 1971–1972 with an estimated cost of Rs. 12.60 crore and its costs escalated to Rs. 1136 crore in the year 2004. The Brahmaputra Board was entrusted with the implementation of the project, and as per the time plan, the project was scheduled to be completed in 2007. As per the plan, the dam would be 23 km long and 86 feet in height and is to be constructed on the river Pagladiya in Lower Assam’s Nalbari district at Thalkuchhi, a site near the Indo-Bhutan international border. Once it is constructed, and as per the estimate, it will protect 40,000 ha of land from flood, irrigate 54,125 ha of land, and generate 3 MW of electricity (Hussain, 2008: 99–150). However, on the other hand, the social cost of the project is incalculable. The proposed project will submerge 38 villages, and 12,000 families and displace about 105,000 people from their land and home. Hence, it raises the question of restoring the land and livelihood of those who will be displaced. The people who see themselves as the victim of PDP and resisted for the security of their lives and livelihood are what they call “Jivan Aru Jivkar Nirapatta.” To resist the project, a committee was formed known as “Pagladiya Bandh Committee” under the chairmanship of Mukundaam Medhi in 1968, and potentially displaced people convened general meetings to strengthen the movement. In 1987, another organization was formed named “Pagladiya Bandh Prokalpar Khatigrasta Alekar Sangram Samitee,” and it further strengthened the movement with the support of other various social organizations in the area. One of the most important organizations that supported the movement was the All-Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU) (ibid). With the passage of time, the popular resistance against the PDP gained momentum with the support and unity made by all the people of the area, including Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Asamiyas, Bengalis, and different groups like Nepali and Santhals, etc. The region is multiracial, multireligious, multilingual, multiethnic, and multicultural in its composition, and among them, demographically, Bodos are the largest group in this area. The collective effort of the people tightened the grassroots-level movement and resisted the state-sponsored project. But, on the other hand, the state agencies made every effort to suppress the movement to execute the PDP on time. But the situation changed when the area fell under the jurisdiction of the newly created Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District (BTAD), and it was a long pending demand of Bodos, which was drawn out from the Bodoland movement. The new political structure of BTAD is more decentralized and autonomous in nature as compared to non-tribal areas of Assam. Hence, it became difficult for the central as well as the state government to impose their dictates at will, and the movement became a great success in stopping the project to resume (ibid). The study of the preceding case studies shows that, in recent years, a large number of civil society organizations and NGOs have become very active in raising the issue of involuntary displacement and ecological devastation caused by dam

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projects in Northeast India. Grassroots resistance against displacement is gradually increasing in the region and they have also started to interrogate the entire development of hydropower infrastructural projects planned in India, which raises the question of environmental sustainability and involuntary displacement. They are slowly emerging as a significant force in the Northeast outside the conventional power/electoral politics. There are a number of civil society organizations like environmental groups, human rights groups, part of academia, and the media that have demonstrated some interest in development issues and are concerned with marginalized people. They are also trying to link their resistance movement with the resistance movement in similar situations that had achieved major success in mainstream India like Narmada Bachao Aandolan, Silent Valley Movement, Tehri Movement, etc. But this resistance and movement remains local in nature and does not get much support from the alliances of transnational organizations, transnational ideologies, and transnational networks of environmental groups and human rights groups. Apart from it, these movements do not get the proper attention of the national media, and as a result, they fail to make a significant influence on the government to bring any kind of changes and reforms to these projects. However, there is an exception in the case of the Tipaimukh project, as this implication is international in character, and got transnational support. In the case of the Pagladiya dam project, both the central and state government unable to suppress the movements on account of its administrative structure that was changed later on. As this region is situated in such a geostrategic location that it shares a border with China, Myanmar, Bhutan, and Bangladesh, and from a national security perspective, the region is most vital for India. It is well known that this region has already received major implications in the Indo-China war in 1962 and the India-Pakistan war in 1971, and these external powers had greater interference and involvement in promoting insurgency movements in this region in the past. India has a border dispute with China in this region and it has a heavy military presence in the border area for intrusion into Indian territory, and in this regard, many attempts had been made by China in recent years to do so. Probably, for this reason, the national media does not put any attention to any local resistance or movements, which might lead to the involvement of external powers in this region may escalate the national security concerns in the region, and adversely it will affect the national interest of the country. As a result, it becomes very easy for the central and state government to set aside these movements and execute these projects as per the planning.

Conclusion It is well known that development projects executed by governments across the globe cause large-scale involuntary displacement, environmental degradation, and loss of biodiversity and it raises the issue of human rights, social justice, and sustainable development. Such issues lead to environmental resistance and

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movements by the people against the government to either stop the projects or bring some reforms. In a democracy, generally, protests and movements are considered positive aspects, as it interacts between the ruler and the ruled, which enhances people’s participation and strengthens democracy. Taking the case of environmental movements in India, and analyzing the colonial, post-colonial, and liberalized eras, it shows that there is no such single variable that led to the success of environmental movements in India. Different variables work at different times. As discussed earlier, movements in India get successful when they get support from the alliances of transnational ideologies, transnational organizations, transnational networks, and sometimes the opposition political parties. On the other hand, in the absence of these preceding supports, environmental movements in India are always suppressed by the state triggered by the colonial capital, state capital, and crony capital in its respective period. Analyzing the case of Northeast India shows that none of the environmental resistance and movements did not get any support from the alliances of transnational ideologies, transnational organizations, transnational networks, and media. These movements remain local in nature and it got easily suppressed by the state during the colonial, post-colonial, and liberalized eras. Environmental resistance and movements in this region are not able to put considerable influence on the government on account of the geostrategic realities of the region and on the consideration of national security perspectives.

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Guha, R., & Gadgil, M. (1989). State forestry and social conflicts in British India. Past and Present, 123, 141–177. Hazarika, P. (2020). Dams do not mean development: The case of hydro-electric projects in North East India. Economic and Political Weekly, 55, 55. https://www.epw.in/engage/article/dams-donot-mean-development-case-hydraulic Hussain, M. (2008). Interrogating development: State displacement and popular resistance in Northeast India. Sage. Internal Displaced Monitoring Centre. (2019). Development induced displacement. Retrieved January 14, 2019, from http://idp-key-resources.org/documents/0000/d04384/000.pdf Islam, M. S., & Islam, M. N. (2016). Environmentalism of the poor: The Tipaimukh Dam, ecological disasters, and environmental resistance beyond borders. Bandung Journal of the Global South, 03(27), 2–16. Joyce, S. (1997, October). Is it worth a dam? Environmental Health Perspectives, 105(10). Karan, P. P. (1994). Environmental movements in India. Geographical Review, 84(1), 32–41. Khagram, S. (2004). Dams and development: Transnational struggle for water and power. Oxford University Press. Kuznets, S. (1995, March). Economic growth and income inequality. American Economic Review. Mathur, H. M. (2009). Tribal land issues in India: Communal management, rights, and displacement. In J. Perera (Ed.), Land and cultural survival: The communal rights of indigenous peoples in Asia. Asian Development Bank. Meher, R. (2009). Globalization, displacement and the livelihood issues of tribal and agriculture dependent Poor people: The case of mineral based industries in India. Journal of Developing Societies, 25(4), 457–480. Migration Data Portal. (2019). Forced migration or displacement. Retrieved January 14, 2019, from https://migrationdataportal.org/themes/forced-migration-or-displacement Nayak, A. K. (2010). Big dams and protests in India: A study of Hirakud Dam. Economic and Political Weekly, XLV(2), 69–73. Nayak, A. K. (2015, April). Development induced displacement and arms conflicts in Bangladesh. Conflict Studies Quarterly (11), 3–23. Nayak, A. K. (2016). Dams and development in India. Rawat. Nayak, A. K. (2019). Involuntary displacement and human security: A study of the Kaptai Dam in Bangladesh. Jadavpur Journal of International Relations, 23(2), 199–231. Rahman, M. Z. (2009). India, Bangladesh and Tipaimukh Dam. Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, 17th August (2945). New Delhi. http://www.ipcs.org/comm_select.php?articleNo=2 945 Saxena, K. B. (2005). Development as destitution. Alternative economic survey, India 2005–2006: Disempowering masses. Sharma, C. K. (2018). Dams, development and popular resistance in Northeast India. Sociological Bulletin, 67(03), 317–333. South Asia Network on Dams, River, and People. (2016). Citizen’ concern for dams and development: The voice of vulnerable honored with Bhagirath Prayas Samman at India River Week 2016. https://sandrp.in/2016/12/02/citizens-concern-for-dams-and-development-the-voice-ofvulnerable-honored-with-bhagirath-prayas-samman-at-india-rivers-week-2016/ Upadhaya, S., & Upadhaya, V. (2002). Handbook on environmental law, volume I: Forest laws, wild laws, wildlife laws and the environment (1st ed.). LexisNexis (A division of Reed Elsevier India Pvt Ltd). Vagholikar, N., & Das, P. J. (2010). Damming Northeast India. Kalpavriksh, Aaranyak, and ActionAid India. World Commission on Dams. (2000). Dams and development: A new framework for decision making. Earthscan.

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Arun Kumar Nayak He is presently working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, Govt. Degree College, Santir Bazar, Tripura. His wide interests in research include dynamics of development, marginalization, human rights, and social movements. He has been writing extensively on these issues and many of his articles were published in reputed journals such as Economic and Political Weekly, Social Change, Journal of Developing Societies, Conflict Studies Quarterly, World Affairs, Jadavpur Journal of International Relations, and Indian Journal of Public Administration.

Perspectives and Orientations of the Communist Party of Vietnam on Environmental Protection Nguyen Tuan Anh

and Dao Duc Thuan

Introduction This chapter discusses perspectives and orientations of the Communist Party of Vietnam on environmental protection from 1986 to present. In 1986, at the sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the Party officially launched the reform program (Doi Moi) in Vietnam. In the past 35 years (1986–2021), Doi Moi has been a comprehensive reform program, especially in economic, political, and other aspects of social life (Ðảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 1986, 1991a, 1991b, 1996a, 1996b, 2006b, 2011b, 2016a, 2016b, 2021b). The past 35 years have been a very important stage for the comprehensive development of Vietnam. In fact, through more than three decades of renovation, Vietnam has achieved great achievements in many aspects. From a poor country, Vietnam has become a middle-income country with a dynamic socialist-oriented market economy, strongly and deeply integrated into the global economic system (Nhóm Ngân hàng Thế giới and Bộ Kế hoạch và Đầu tư, 2016). However, besides many outstanding achievements, in the development process of Vietnam over the past 35 years, many problems have also arisen, negatively affecting many different areas of socio-economic life. Among those issues, environmental pollution and climate change are major challenges for Vietnam’s development process (Bộ Tài nguyên và Môi Trường, 2021; Quốc hội khóa XIV - Ủy ban Khoa học, 2017; Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2020). Facing environmental issues and the impact of climate change, the Communist Party of Vietnam has given directions and orientations for environmental protection and response to N. T. Anh (✉) Faculty of Sociology, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam D. D. Thuan Faculty of Archives and Office Management, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Briesen, S. P. Das (eds.), Media, Politics and Environment, Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31252-6_12

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climate change in Vietnam. These perspectives, orientations, goals, and solutions are concretized into laws and policies on environmental protection to be implemented in practice in Vietnam. This chapter will explore the perspectives, orientations, goals, and solutions of the Communist Party of Vietnam on environmental protection over the past three decades.

Key Points in the Communist Party of Vietnam’s Perspectives and Orientations of Environmental Protection over the Past 30 Years Since the country’s reform in 1986, the Communist Party of Vietnam has had eight national congresses. At each congress, the Communist Party of Vietnam has views, orientations, goals, and solutions to protect the environment in Vietnam. At the sixth National Congress of Deputies in 1986, the Communist Party of Vietnam emphasized “building and protection of forest” to “protect the living environment” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 1986). Thus, from the beginning of the country’s renovation in 1986, “protecting the living environment” has been an important guiding point of the Party. At the seventh National Congress of the Party in 1991, the Communist Party of Vietnam directed “strictly observe environmental protection and preserve ecological balance for present and future generations” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 1991a, 1991b). At the eighth National Congress of the Party in 1996, the Party continued to affirm its orientation: “economic growth is associated with improving people’s lives, developing culture and education, and making progress and social justice, environmental protection” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 1996a, 1996b). At the ninth National Congress in 2001, the Party affirmed the line: “protect and improve the environment” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 2001). At the tenth Party Congress in 2006, the Party directed: “Prevent acts of environmental destruction and pollution, and overcome environmental degradation in river basins, urban areas, industrial zones, and cottage industry villages, densely populated places with many economic activities. Step by step using clean technology, clean energy. Actively restore damaged environments and ecosystems. Continue reforesting bare land and bare hills, protecting biodiversity. Paying attention to investment in the environment sector, especially activities of waste collection, recycling and treatment. Completing laws, strengthening state management of protection and improvement of the natural environment” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 2006a). At the 11th National Congress of the Party in 2011, the Party directed “Raising awareness and responsibility of the whole society, first of all, of leaders at all levels on environmental protection. . . strictly handle agencies, organizations and enterprises that have caused pollution, remediate environmental pollution and improve the environment. Include environmental protection content into strategies, master plans and plans for development of sectors, fields, regions and investment programs

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and projects. New construction projects are required to strictly comply with environmental protection regulations” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 2011a). In the “Political Report of the 11th Party Central Committee at the 12th National Congress of the Party” in 2016, the Party determined the direction: “to attract more investment resources to develop the economy and protect the environment” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 2016a, 2016b). The Party also emphasized on “preventing and gradually overcoming the degradation of the natural environment caused by human beings, especially caused by economic development projects. Protecting the natural environment is both a content and a goal of sustainable development. . .Ensuring the harmony between the natural environment and the living environment in industrial, urban and residential zones” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 2016a, 2016b). Thus, from the sixth National Congress of the Party in 1986 to the 12th National Congress of the Party in 2016, the Communist Party of Vietnam always had specific views and orientations towards environmental protection in Vietnam. In addition to documents at the National Party Congresses, the Communist Party of Vietnam also has its own directives and resolutions on environmental protection. For example, on June 25, 1998, the Politburo issued Directive No. 36/1998/CT-TW on “Strengthening environmental protection in the period of industrialization and modernization of the country” (Politburo 1998). On November 15, 2004, the IX Politburo issued Resolution 41-NQ/TW on “Environmental protection in the period of accelerating industrialization and modernization of the country” (Political Department 2004). On June 3, 2013, Resolution 24-NQ/TW on “Actively responding to climate change, strengthening natural resource management and protecting the environment” was issued (Central Committee 2013). On August 23, 2019, the Politburo issued Conclusion No. 56-KL/TW on “Continuing to implement the 11th Central Resolution on proactively responding to climate change and strengthening natural resource management and environmental protection” (Central Committee 2019). The Communist Party of Vietnam’s views and orientations on environmental protection are conveyed in its congress documents as well as through various resolutions, directives, and conclusions issued during the periods between national congresses. In addition to documents at the National Party Congresses, the Communist Party of Vietnam also has its own directives and resolutions on environmental protection. For example, on June 25, 1998, the Politburo issued Directive No. 36/1998/CT-TW on “Strengthening environmental protection in the period of industrialization and modernization of the country” (Bộ Chính trị, 1998). On November 15, 2004, the IX Politburo issued Resolution 41-NQ/TW on “Environmental protection in the period of accelerating industrialization and modernization of the country” (Bộ Chính trị, 2004). On June 3, 2013, Resolution 24-NQ/TW on “Actively responding to climate change, strengthening natural resource management and protecting the environment” was issued (Ban Chấp hành Trung ương, 2013). On August 23, 2019, the Politburo issued Conclusion No. 56-KL/TW on “Continuing to implement the 11th Central Resolution on proactively responding to climate change and strengthening natural resource management and environmental protection” (Ban Chấp hành Trung ương, 2019). Thus, in general, the views and orientations of the Communist Party of

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Vietnam on environmental protection are reflected in the Party’s documents at congresses and in resolutions, directives, and conclusions in the periods between the national congresses of the Party. In 2021, after 35 years of the reform, the Communist Party of Vietnam held the 13th National Congress. At this congress, the Communist Party of Vietnam set out directions and tasks for socio-economic development in the 5 years from 2021 to 2025. This congress also determined the development goals and directions of Vietnam to 2030 and a vision to 2045, in which the views, goals, and solutions on environmental protection and response to climate change are presented in detail. The following sections will present more specifically the views and orientations of the Communist Party of Vietnam on environmental protection in Vietnam today and in the future.

Assessment of the Communist Party of Vietnam on Environmental Protection in Vietnam for the Period 2016–2021 At the 13th National Congress, the Communist Party of Vietnam assessed environmental protection in Vietnam from 2016 to 2021. These assessments are divided into two parts. The first is the results achieved in environmental protection. The second is the problems in environmental protection. Regarding the results achieved in environmental protection, the Communist Party of Vietnam has made the following specific assessments. First, the Communist Party of Vietnam affirmed: “the system of policies and laws regarding natural resources management, environmental protection and climate change adaptation has been further improved and enjoyed focused direction, hence effective realization” (Communist Party of Vietnam, 2021a: 24). This assessment of the Communist Party of Vietnam has been proven through the legal system on environmental protection in recent years in Vietnam. Specifically, the Law on Environmental Protection No. 72/2020/QH14 was approved by the National Assembly on November 17, 2020. This Law takes effect from January 1, 2022. This Law replaces the Law on Environmental Protection. No. 55/2014/QH13 was promulgated in 2013 and the laws supplementing and amending the Law on Environmental Protection were promulgated in 2013 (Quốc hội, 2020). Along with the Law on Environmental Protection promulgated in 2020, the Government has issued Decree No. 08/2022/ND-CP dated January 10, 2022. This Decree details the implementation of the Law on Environmental Protection (Chính phủ, 2022). In addition, the National Strategy for Environmental Protection to 2020, with a Vision to 2030, was issued in 2012 (Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2012a). In 2022, the “National Strategy for Environmental Protection to 2030, with a Vision to 2050” was issued (Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2022a). In addition, many other laws and policies related to environmental protection have also been promulgated in the period 2016–2020 (Bộ Tài

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nguyên và Môi Trường, 2021: 137–139). Thus, up to now, Vietnam has increasingly improved its policies and laws on environmental protection. These are important legal bases to improve the effectiveness of environmental protection in Vietnam. Second, the Communist Party of Vietnam affirmed: “Basic surveys and assessment of the potentials, reserves and economic value of resources have been actively conducted” (Communist Party of Vietnam, 2021a: 24–25). In fact, Vietnam has implemented the master plan on geological basic survey of minerals; investigated and evaluated potentials, reserves, economic values, current status and trends of mineral resources; strengthened the effectiveness and efficiency of state management over the protection and exploitation of mineral resources (Cổng TTĐT, 2021). Thus, Vietnam has basically completed the investigation, assessment, and planning in order to achieve reasonable, sustainable exploitation and effective use of land and mineral resources. This is an important success of Vietnam in the field of environmental protection that the Communist Party of Vietnam has affirmed. Third, the Communist Party of Vietnam affirmed: “Natural resources exploitation has been more stringently controlled and exports of raw minerals restricted” (Communist Party of Vietnam, 2021a: 25). In fact, on March 30, 2015, the Prime Minister issued Directive No. 03/CT-TTg on strengthening the enforcement of policies and laws on minerals (Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2015). After 5 years of implementing this directive, illegal mining activities have decreased. Many enterprises have focused on investing in mining and processing technology to increase the value of minerals after mining. Many enterprises have done well in environmental protection, environmental rehabilitation, and restoration after mining (Phan Thu Phương, 2020). Thus, one of the important observations of the Communist Party of Vietnam is that the exploitation of natural resources in Vietnam has been strictly controlled, toward environmental protection. Fourth, the Communist Party of Vietnam assessed: “More investments have been channeled to renewable energy development (Communist Party of Vietnam, 2021a: 25). In fact, Vietnam currently has the most comprehensive installed solar capacity in Southeast Asia, with 16,500 megawatts (MW) generated by 2020. Moreover, Vietnam is in the top 10 countries with the most installed solar capacity globally in 2020. Vietnam’s solar power capacity has increased from 86 MW in 2018 to about 16,500 MW in 2020. As a result, Vietnam has surpassed Thailand to become the second largest country in the world, and become the ASEAN country with the largest installed capacity of solar power (Khánh Minh, 2022). Thus, one of the important points in the field of environmental protection in Vietnam is the rapid development of renewable energy. This is a success that the Communist Party of Vietnam has affirmed. Fifth, the Communist Party of Vietnam affirmed: “Environmental inspection, supervision and control have been strengthened, with a number of grave environment-polluting cases strictly treated in accordance with the law. Importance has been attached to the living environment quality; basic supplies of clean water, healthcare services, and environmental sanitation services have been provided for the people, particularly in urban centers, industrial parks and rural areas” (Communist Party of Vietnam, 2021a: 25). In fact, in the period 2016–2020, at the central

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level, nearly 3000 organizations, enterprises, industrial zones, and industrial clusters have been inspected nationwide, thereby detecting and sanctioning about 1400 organizations violated, with nearly 200 billion VND. At the local level, more than 2100 environmental protection inspections have been carried out for 9100 organizations, enterprises, industrial parks, and industrial clusters, thereby detecting and handling administrative violations of 4100 organizations and enterprises with a total amount of up to 100 billion VND (Bộ Tài nguyên và Môi Trường, 2021: 146). In short, with such practical evidence, the Communist Party of Vietnam has affirmed that one of the important results of environmental protection in Vietnam is the inspection and examination to ensure the protection of the environment is taken seriously. Sixth, the Communist Party of Vietnam emphasized: “The National Program on climate change response and natural disaster prevention and control as well as many related solutions have been deployed in a proactive manner and produced initial outcomes. The capacity to adapt to climate change and ensure livelihoods for people living in areas prone to heavy impacts of climate change has been ramped up. International cooperation in environmental protection and climate change adaptation has been boosted” (Communist Party of Vietnam, 2021a: 25). In fact, Vietnam has developed scenarios for the impacts of climate change in different regions on the basis of hydrometeorological data and sea level in Vietnam. The work of warning and forecasting natural disasters, staff capacity, and warning equipment to help Vietnam respond to climate change has been significantly invested. Trillions of VND from foreign funding sources have invested in many projects to respond to climate change in Vietnam. These are investment projects to upgrade sea dykes, river dykes, anti-flooding, and saline intrusion. Activities to raise people’s awareness in response to climate change have also been implemented (Linh Minh, 2020). Thus, responding to climate change is one of the important outcomes of environmental protection in Vietnam. The preceding successes are reflected in detail in the summary of the Communist Party of Vietnam on 5 years of implementing the task of socio-economic development and environmental protection from 2016 to 2020 as follows: “Proportion of people in urban areas provided with clean water through the centralized water supply system by 2020, about 90%, the proportion of people in rural areas using hygienic drinking water is estimated at 90.2%, a sharp increase compared to 2015 (86.2%). The rate of industrial parks and export processing zones in operation with centralized wastewater treatment systems meeting environmental standards by 2020 is 90%. The forest coverage rate by 2020 is about 42%, reaching the planned target” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 2021a: 50–51). Taken as a whole, these data show the overall achievement of environmental protection, contributing to the achievement of sustainable development goals in Vietnam. Despite many achievements in environmental protection, the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam pointed out limitations and shortcomings in environmental protection. Among the limitations and shortcomings that the Party has pointed out, some specific limitations and shortcomings are as follows.

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First, “Environmental incidences with grave consequences have been allowed to occur” (Communist Party of Vietnam, 2021a: 51). In fact, in recent years, many environmental incidents have taken place in Vietnam. The most serious environmental incident is an environmental incident in the coastal areas of four central provinces of Vietnam. In April 2016, in the coastal areas of 4 central provinces of Vietnam (Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri, Thua Thien-Hue) a serious environmental incident occurred, causing unusual deaths of seafood, causing great damage on socio-economic and marine environment, adversely affecting people’s life, security, social order, and safety. The cause of this incident was the Hung Nghiep Formosa Ha Tinh Iron and Steel Company Limited-FHS discharged into the sea toxins Phenol, Cyanide, and Iron Hydroxide in excess of the permitted levels (Minh Hà - Đông Sơn, 2016). Besides, many environmental incidents also took place in other areas (Bộ Tài nguyên và Môi Trường, 2021). Thus, environmental incidents that have a great impact on Vietnam’s economy and society reflect one of the limitations and shortcomings of environmental protection activities in Vietnam. Second, “sanctions to prevent and address violations have failed to be deterrent and efficient. State governance over natural resources, the environment and climate change adaptation in certain aspects has remained loose” (Communist Party of Vietnam, 2021a: 51). Evidence for this statement is that many violations of the law on environmental protection still take place. Specifically, in the period 2016–2020, there were nearly 113,000 cases of violations of the law on environmental protection; 113,800 subjects violated the law on environmental protection (Bộ Tài nguyên và Môi Trường, 2021: 147). This shows certain shortcomings in the state management of environmental protection. Third, “the quality of planning, assessment and valuation of natural resources has been limited” (Communist Party of Vietnam, 2021a: 51). For example, the forecasting of land use demand in some sectors and fields has not been consistent with master plans and plans on land use at all levels. Some local authorities have not paid attention to planning and land use plans, so when investment projects are implemented, they are still passive (CTTĐT, 2021). In addition, regulations on land valuation methods are not practical. The land price set by the State is only 20%–30% of the market land price. This leads to inadequacies in the implementation of socio-economic projects because it is difficult for the Government to acquire land for project construction. In addition, revenue for the state budget from land is being lost due to unscientific land valuation (Bùi Thị Cẩm Ngọc, 2021). In short, the quality of planning, assessment, and valuation of resources is still limited. Fourth, “the environment quality in certain places has seen continued degradation; and adaptation to climate change has been passive and confused” (Communist Party of Vietnam, 2021a: 51). In fact, surface water pollution in river basins, especially Nhue – Day, Bac Hung Hai, Cau, Vu Gia – Thu Bon, and Dong Nai – Saigon rivers, is serious and continues to evolve in the bad direction. The amount of urban wastewater generated is increasing day by day, mostly untreated, discharged directly into the environment, polluting surface water in urban areas and residential areas. Wastewater collection and treatment infrastructure has not met the requirements. Many rivers are no longer capable of self-cleaning and are turned into waste

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water reservoirs (TG, 2021). Air pollution, especially dust pollution (PM10, PM2.5) is becoming an alarming problem in Vietnam, directly affecting health, causing psychological insecurity and anxiety for people. Air pollution in recent years in some localities tends to increase due to the increase of pollutants from economic activities. The air quality in urban areas and densely populated areas (especially in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City) has seriously declined (TG, 2021). Environmental pollution in industrial parks, industrial clusters, and craft villages is at a worrying level. Solid waste is a hot and urgent problem that needs to be prioritized for investment and settlement in Vietnam today, with tens of millions of tons of domestic waste, industrial solid waste, hundreds of thousands of tons of harmful waste, and plastic waste generated every year. Meanwhile, most solid waste has not been classified at the source, the collection capacity is still limited, most of solid waste is treated by burial, many landfills are unsanitary, causing frustration for the public. Pollution in the East Sea is complicated and there is no effective response, including the problem of plastic waste (TG, 2021). These are important evidences for the assessment of the Communist Party of Vietnam: environmental quality in some places continues to deteriorate. Fifth, “natural biosystems and biodiversity have continued to decline” (Communist Party of Vietnam, 2021a: 51). In fact, natural ecosystems continue to be destroyed and fragmented, and degraded at an alarming rate, losing the habitat of many species of wildlife. Biological resources are being over-exploited, especially aquatic products, seafood, timber, and non-timber forest products. The number of species and individuals of wild species has decreased sharply, many species are illegally hunted, exploited, traded, and consumed, so the risk of extinction is high (TG, 2021). By 2017, Vietnam has identified 1211 species of wild animals and plants that are threatened in the wild and proposed to be included in the Red Book of Vietnam in the coming time; about 100 species of plants and nearly 100 species of animals are at risk of extinction (TG, 2021). These are proofs for the Communist Party of Vietnam to affirm: In Vietnam, natural ecosystems and biodiversity continue to decline.

Vision, Goal Orientation, and Solutions to Protect the Environment in the Period 2021–2030 The 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam set out the vision and goal orientation for the period 2021–2030 in the field of environment as follows: “To proactively and efficiently adapt to climate change, prevent, combat and mitigate natural disasters and epidemics; and administer, harness and use reasonably, economically, efficiently and sustainably natural resources; to consider protection of the living environment and the people’s health as a primary objective; to determinedly get rid of environmentally polluting projects while ensuring the living environment quality, protecting biodiversity and the ecosystem; and to build an environmentally

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friendly green economy and circular economy” (Communist Party of Vietnam, 2021b: 218). The vision and orientation for environmental protection in the 2021–2030 period set out by the Communist Party of Vietnam in the 13th National Congress thus shows the consistency in the views and orientations on environmental protection of the Communist Party of Vietnam in the past few decades. Specifically, on June 25, 1998, the Communist Party of Vietnam issued Directive No. 36/1998/CT-TW on “Strengthening environmental protection in the period of industrialization and modernization of the country.” The directive emphasized: “Protecting the environment is the cause of the whole Party, people and army; Environmental protection is an integral part of socio-economic development guidelines, policies and plans of all levels and sectors, an important basis for ensuring sustainable development, successfully implement the cause of industrialization and modernization of the country.” On November 15, 2004, the IX Politburo issued Resolution 41-NQ/TW on “Protecting the environment in the period of accelerating industrialization and modernization of the country.” This resolution affirms: “Environmental protection is one of the vital issues of mankind; is a factor ensuring the people’s health and quality of life; making an important contribution to socio-economic development, political stability, national security and promoting international economic integration of our country.” “ Environmental protection is both a goal and one of the basic contents of sustainable development.” On June 3, 2013, Resolution 24-NQ/TW on “Actively responding to climate change, strengthening natural resource management and protecting the environment” was issued. This resolution clearly states: “Proactively responding to climate change, strengthening natural resource management and protecting the environment are issues of special importance, having great influence, determining the sustainable development of the country.” After 5 years of implementing Resolution 24-NQ/TW, the Politburo issued Conclusion No. 56-KL/ TW dated August 23, 2019, on “proactively responding to climate change, strengthening governance resource management and environmental protection,” “protection of people’s health as the top goal.” Thus, protecting the environment, strengthening resource management, proactively preventing and combating natural disasters, and responding to climate change are always issues of concern to the Communist Party of Vietnam. In particular, the Party especially emphasized: protecting the living environment and people’s health is the top goal. From the vision and orientation of environmental protection in the development process of Vietnam in the period of 2021–2030, the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam also determined the objective orientations to 2025 as follows: “By 2025, 95–100% of urban dwellers and 93–95% of rural residents to access clean water and hygienic water; 90% of urban solid domestic waste collection and treatment to be standardized and standard-compatible; 92% of operating industrial zones and export-processing zones to have a concentrated waste water treatment system that is environmentally standardized; 100% of serious environmental institutional polluters to be sanctioned; and the rate of forest coverage to be stably maintained at 42%” (Communist Party of Vietnam, 2021a: 85–86). Thus, the specific objectives of the Communist Party of Vietnam in the coming time focus

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on the use of clean water and hygienic water of the population in urban and rural areas; collect and treat urban daily-life solid waste up to standards and regulations; industrial parks and export processing zones in operation have a centralized wastewater treatment system up to environmental standards; institutions causing serious environmental pollution are handled and the forest cover rate is kept. These are important objectives to ensure the improvement of people’s quality of life. The realization of these environmental objectives is also an important basis for socioeconomic development in Vietnam. To achieve the preceding objectives, the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam has proposed many solutions. Specific important solutions are as follows. First, the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam directed: “Strengthen propaganda, education, raise awareness, responsibility and improve the efficiency of law enforcement on resource management and environmental protection and respond to climate change” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 2021a: 142). In fact, this orientation of the Communist Party of Vietnam has been implemented by the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and socio-political organizations such as the Vietnam Fatherland Front and the Vietnam Women’s Union. For example, the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment signed Decision No. 420/QD-BTNMT promulgating the Plan on propaganda, training, and dissemination of the Law on Environmental Protection and documents detailing the implementation of the Law on Environmental protection (Bộ Tài nguyên và Môi Trường, 2022). The plan to propagate, train, and disseminate the Law on Environmental Protection and documents detailing the implementation of the Law on Environmental Protection has many contents such as: developing and issuing propaganda materials; developing documents for training and dissemination; organizing conferences, training seminars, disseminating regulations, and policies of the Law on Environmental Protection and documents detailing its implementation; organizing propaganda conferences; building multimedia communication products; talk show program; developing news, articles, and propagate; and disseminating legal provisions on environmental protection in newspapers, electronic magazines, and printed newspapers and magazines (Bộ Tài nguyên và Môi Trường, 2022). Thus, the guiding view of the Communist Party of Vietnam on strengthening propaganda, education, awareness raising, and responsibility for resource management, environmental protection, and response to climate change has been implemented. Second, the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam directed “Protection and sustainable development of natural ecosystems, conservation of nature and biodiversity, protection of wetland ecosystems” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 2021a: 142–143). This guiding point of view has been implemented in practice by the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. One of the examples is that on January 28, 2022, the Prime Minister approved the National Strategy on Biodiversity to 2030, with a vision to 2050 (Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2022b). The overall objective of this strategy is “Increasing the area of protected and restored

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natural ecosystems and ensuring their integrity and connectivity; biodiversity is preserved and used sustainably in order to contribute to socio-economic development in the direction of a green economy, proactively adapting to climate change” (Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2022b). The main points in the specific objectives of the strategy are to expand and improve the efficiency of management of the system of natural heritages and nature reserves; effectively conserve wild species, especially endangered, precious, and rare species prioritized for protection; no more wild species to go extinct; the value of biodiversity and ecosystem services is assessed, maintained, and enhanced through sustainable use; and limiting negative impacts on biodiversity (Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2022b). Thus, the guiding viewpoint of the Communist Party of Vietnam on protection and sustainable development of natural ecosystems, conservation of nature, and biodiversity has been implemented in practice. Third, the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam directed “Ensure water security, safety of reservoirs and dams and prevent deterioration of water resources, especially fresh water; step up cooperation with upstream countries and international organizations in the protection and effective use of water resources in the basins of transboundary rivers, especially the Mekong and Red Rivers” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 2021a: 143). With the importance of water security and safety of dams, on June 23, 2022, the Politburo concluded on ensuring water security and safety of dams and reservoirs until 2030, with a vision to 2045 (Ban Chấp hành Trung ương, 2022). The overall objective in the conclusion is “Ensuring the quantity and quality of water for people’s daily life in all situations; meet the demand for water use for production and business of all sectors and fields, especially important and essential economic sectors; All people, all subjects have access to and use water fairly and reasonably. Actively storing and regulating water sources, exploiting and using efficiently in parallel with ensuring the safety of dams and water reservoirs; effectively respond to disasters, water-related disasters, adapt to climate change; protect the environment, overcome degradation, depletion and pollution of sources” (Ban Chấp hành Trung ương, 2022). The main points of specific objectives in this conclusion include the following—By 2025: Complete the formulation of the national sectoral planning; 95% of households in urban areas and 60% of households in rural areas have access to standard clean water. By 2030: Enough water to serve people’s lives and socio-economic development; 100% of households in urban areas and 80% of households in rural areas have access to standard clean water. By 2045: Availability of water to serve people’s lives and socio-economic development (Ban Chấp hành Trung ương, 2022). Thus, ensuring water security, safety of reservoirs and dams, and preventing the decline of water resources are especially important for Vietnam’s development. Fourth, the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam directed “Building a roadmap, mechanism, policy and law to form and operate a circular economy model” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 2021a: 143). Following this directive of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the Government issued Decision 687/QD-TTg dated June 7, 2022, approving the Circular Economy Development Scheme in

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Vietnam. In this, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is assigned to coordinate with the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to research, develop, and finalize the criteria system on the circular economy; building circular economic models promoting sustainable production and consumption, economical and efficient use of energy. Important points in the specific objectives include: contributing to concretizing the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emission intensity per GDP by at least 15% by 2030 compared to 2014, toward the emission target net to “0” by 2050; increasing awareness and investment interest of domestic and foreign enterprises and investors in the circular economy; promoting the application of the circular economy model to promote the greening of economic sectors; the circular economy model supports building a green lifestyle, encourages waste segregation, and promotes sustainable consumption; the circular economy model makes an important contribution to improving the quality of life and people’s resilience to climate change (Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2022d). Thus, the guiding viewpoint of the Communist Party of Vietnam on the circular economy has been implemented by the Government in practice. Fifth, the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam directed “Preventing and reducing plastic waste, controlling environmental pollution and restoring marine ecosystems” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 2021a: 144). In fact, all localities have had drastic changes in production methods and habits of using single-use plastic products and plastic bags that are difficult to decompose with environmentally friendly products and packaging. In major provinces and cities, most supermarkets have committed to limit and move toward not using plastic bags from 2020 at the call of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment continues to develop: (1) project to establish the International Center for Ocean Plastic Waste; and (2) project on strengthening plastic waste management in Vietnam (CTTĐT, 2020). Thus, this directive of the Communist Party of Vietnam has continued to promote activities to prevent and reduce plastic waste that have been implemented in practice. Sixth, the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam directed “Actively prevent, combat and limit the impact of high tides, floods, landslides, saltwater intrusion caused by sea level rise on coastal areas, especially Mekong Delta, Red River Delta, Central Coast, flash floods, mountain landslides in midland and mountainous areas” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 2021a: 144). Disaster Management is always an area of special importance in Vietnam. Vietnam has the Vietnam Disaster Management Authority under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Vietnam also has a National Committee for Disaster Response and Search and Rescue. Recently, the prime minister approved the project “Enhancing public awareness and community-based disaster risk management until 2030” (Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2022c). Thus, natural disaster prevention is always a priority issue of Vietnam. The guiding viewpoint of the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam on preventing and limiting the

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harmful effects of certain types of natural disasters has promoted disaster prevention activities in Vietnam. Seventh, the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam emphasized “actively monitoring and effectively responding to climate change; developing a green, low-waste, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, and low carbon economy” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 2021a: 144). In fact, Vietnam has actively implemented climate change response activities, oriented the development of the economy toward low carbon, green growth, and increased implementation of mitigation measures (Nguyễn Hoàng, 2022). The Government considers responding to climate change as a matter of vital importance. Adaptation, mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, and efficient and sustainable use of natural resources are not only the responsibility of the Government, but also the responsibility of businesses and the whole community. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission mitigation measures for the period 2021–2030 are identified for the energy, agriculture, land use and forestry sectors, waste management, and industrial processes. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of Vietnam has submitted to the Prime Minister a draft Decision to identify large institutions that need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (Nguyễn Hoàng, 2022). On April 26, 2022, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) held a workshop to consult on the draft of the National Strategy on Climate Change for the period up to 2050. The point of view of the draft of the National Strategy on Climate Change is to adapt to climate change and the “zero” net emissions target is an opportunity for sustainable development (Thu Cúc, 2022a). At COP26, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh made a strong statement about achieving “zero” net emissions by 2050, demonstrating the determination and political commitment of the Party and State in accelerating economic transformation to contribute to solving the climate crisis (Thu Cúc, 2022b). In order to adapt to climate change, Vietnam has spent billions of dollars on prevention and recovery from natural disasters caused by climate change such as floods, storms, and droughts (Nguyễn Hoàng, 2022). Thus, the guiding view of the Communist Party of Vietnam on effectively responding to climate change; the development of a green, low-waste, mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, and low carbon economy has been strongly implemented in practice. Eighth, the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam affirmed: “Focus on dealing with institutions causing serious environmental pollution. Safe control and treatment of environmental pollution caused by war consequences” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 2021a: 145). The Government of Vietnam has been active in dealing with institutions causing serious environmental pollution. For example, in early 2022, the Deputy Prime Minister requested Chairpersons of People’s Committees of provinces and centrally run cities to allocate resources and funds from local budgets and attract other financial sources to completely deal with institutions causing serious environmental pollution in the area before December 31, 2022, and strictly handle organizations and individuals that are slow to

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implement this directive (Tuấn Kiệt, 2022). For the safety control and treatment of environmental pollution caused by war consequences, up to now, many activities of investigation, survey, collection, and treatment of toxic chemical residues after the war have been carried out. These activities will continue to be promoted in the future. In particular, the Chemical Army closely cooperates with agencies, units, and localities in investigating, assessing, detecting, and promptly handling areas contaminated with residual toxic chemicals after the war (Hà Văn Cử, 2021). In short, the guiding viewpoint of the Communist Party of Vietnam at the 13th congress on handling institutions causing serious environmental pollution and dealing with environmental pollution caused by war consequences continues to be realized. Ninth, the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam directed: “Effectively implementing the sustainable development goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 2021a: 143). In fact, Vietnam is a country that is strongly committed to the implementation of sustainable development goals through the issuance of the Vietnam Strategic Orientation for Sustainable Development in 2004 (Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2004), Strategy sustainable development in Vietnam for the period 2011–2020 (Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2012b). The recent document is the National Action Plan for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2017). Vietnam has nationalized the global 2030 Agenda into a National Action Plan to implement the 2030 Agenda with 17 sustainable development goals and 115 specific objectives in line with conditions and priorities of the country (Bộ Công Thương Việt Nam, 2021). Thus, Vietnam has issued plans, programs, and strategies for sustainable development. The view of the Communist Party of Vietnam at the 13th National Congress emphasized that Vietnam must work to achieve the sustainable development goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Tenth, the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam directed: “Strengthening international cooperation in resource management, environmental protection and response to climate change” (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, 2021a: 144–145). In fact, international cooperation in resource management, environmental protection, and response to climate change has been strongly deployed by Vietnam. International organizations and partners are ready to accompany and support Vietnam to fulfill its commitments at COP26 on climate change adaptation, opening up many opportunities for cooperation for sustainable development (Báo TNMT, 2021). In short, one of the important directives of the Communist Party of Vietnam in environmental protection and climate change response is to strengthen international cooperation. This guiding view has been and is being realized through many cooperations between Vietnam and international partners.

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Conclusion The preceding sections provide an overview of the views and orientations of the Communist Party of Vietnam on environmental protection in Vietnam since the Party advocated for reform since 1986. Some key points can be emphasized as follows. Firstly, after 35 years since the Communist Party of Vietnam implemented the policy of the reform, a system of views on environmental protection of the Communist Party of Vietnam has been presented through many different documents of the Party. Such documents include documents at Party congresses; directives, resolutions and conclusions of the Party in the time between congresses. At the congresses of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the Communist Party regularly summarizes, supplements, and develops views to suit each development context of the country and the times. For example, at the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam in 1986, the Party’s guiding position emphasized forest protection. Ten years later, at the Eighth Party Congress in 1996, the Party’s guiding viewpoint focused on economic growth associated with environmental protection. Twenty years later, at the tenth Congress in 2006, the Communist Party of Vietnam emphasized the prevention of acts of destruction and environmental pollution and restoring damaged environments and ecosystems. Thirty years later, at the 2016 Congress, the Communist Party of Vietnam emphasized: environmental protection goes hand in hand with sustainable development. Secondly, the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam in 2021 has a comprehensive guiding view on environmental protection in Vietnam in the coming time. In this, the Party emphasizes adaptation to climate change; prevention and mitigation of natural disasters and epidemics; manage, exploit, and use resources reasonably, economically, efficiently, and sustainably; eliminating projects that cause environmental pollution; protect biodiversity and ecosystems; build green economy, circular economy. The Communist Party of Vietnam especially emphasizes ensuring the quality of the living environment, taking the protection of the living environment and people’s health as the top goal. Also at the 13th National Congress, the Communist Party of Vietnam has proposed many solutions to protect the environment in Vietnam in the coming time. Of these, ten solutions are particularly important. These solutions relate to many different fields, from raising awareness among officials and people about environmental protection to managing environmental pollution, promoting sustainable development of natural ecosystems, preserving nature and biodiversity, coping with climate change, and developing a circular economy.

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Thu Cúc. (2022a). Chủ động thích ứng với biến đổi khí hậu. Báo điện tử Chính phủ. https:// baochinhphu.vn/chu-dong-thich-ung-voi-bien-doi-khi-hau-102220426135538595.htm. Truy cập ngày 20 tháng 07 năm 2022. Thu Cúc. (2022b). Thúc đẩy triển khai các cam kết về ứng phó biến đổi khí hậu. Báo điện tử Chính phủ. https://baochinhphu.vn/thuc-day-trien-khai-cac-cam-ket-ve-ung-pho-bien-doi-khi-hau102220717103257785.htm. Truy cập ngày 20 tháng 07 năm 2022. Thủ tướng Chính phủ. (2004). Quyết định về việc ban hành Định hướng chiến lược phát triển bền vững ở Việt Nam (Chương trình nghị sự 21 của Việt Nam). Thư viện Pháp luật. https:// thuvienphapluat.vn/van-ban/Bo-may-hanh-chinh/Quyet-dinh-153-2004-QD-TTg-Dinh-huongchien-luoc-phat-trien-ben-vung-Viet-Nam-Chuong-trinh-nghi-su-21-Viet-Nam-52318.aspx#: ~:text=b%E1%BA%A3n%20k%C3%A8m%20theo).-,%C4%90%E1%BB%8Bnh%20h% C6%B0%E1%BB%9Bng%20chi%E1%BA%BFn%20l%C6%B0%E1%BB%A3c%20ph%C3 %A1t%20tri%E1%BB%83n%20b%E1%BB%81n%20v%E1%BB%AFng%20%E1%BB%9F %20Vi%E1%BB%87t,Vi%E1%BB%87t%20Nam%20v%E1%BB%9Bi%20qu%E1%BB%91 c%20t%E1%BA%BF. Truy cập ngày 20 tháng 07 năm 2022. Thủ tướng Chính phủ. (2012a). Quyết định phê duyệt Chiến lược Bảo vệ môi trường quốc gia đến năm 2020, tầm nhìn đến năm 2030. Cổng thông tin điện tử Chính phủ. https://vanban.chinhphu. vn/default.aspx?pageid=27160&docid=163495. Truy cập ngày 05 tháng 04 năm 2022. Thủ tướng Chính phủ. (2012b). Quyết định phê duyệt Chiến lược Phát triển bền vững Việt Nam giai đoạn 2011–2020. Cổng thông tin điện tử Chính phủ. https://vanban.chinhphu.vn/default.aspx? pageid=27160&docid=157753. Truy cập ngày 20 tháng 07 năm 2022. Thủ tướng Chính phủ. (2015). Chỉ thị về việc tăng cường hiệu lực thực thi chính sách, pháp luật về khoáng sản. Thư viện pháp luật. https://thuvienphapluat.vn/van-ban/Tai-nguyen-Moi-truong/ Chi-thi-03-CT-TTg-2015-thuc-thi-chinh-sach-phap-luat-ve-khoang-san-269809.aspx. Truy cập ngày 20 tháng 07 năm 2022. Thủ tướng Chính phủ. (2017). Quyết định về việc ban hành kế hoạch hành động quốc gia thực hiện chương trình nghị sự 2030 vì sự phát triển bền vững. Thư viện Pháp luật. https:// thuvienphapluat.vn/van-ban/Thuong-mai/Quyet-dinh-622-QD-TTg-2017-Ke-hoach-hanhdong-quoc-gia-thuc-hien-Chuong-trinh-nghi-su-2030-348831.aspx. Truy cập ngày 26 tháng 07 năm 2022. Thủ tướng Chính phủ. (2020). Quyết định về việc ban hành Kế hoạch quốc gia thích ứng với biến đổi khí hậu giai đoạn 2021–2030, tầm nhìn đến năm 2050. Báo điện tử Đảng cộng sản Việt Nam. https://tulieuvankien.dangcongsan.vn/Uploads/2020/8/8/4/1055.signed.pdf. Truy cập ngày 22 tháng 11 năm 2021. Thủ tướng Chính phủ. (2022a). Quyết định phê duyệt chiến lược bảo vệ môi trường quốc gia đến năm 2030, tầm nhìn đến năm 2050. Tổng cục Môi trường. http://vea.gov.vn/Chien%20luoc%20 QH%20KH/450.Q%C4%90-TTg.2022.pdf. Truy cập ngày 20 tháng 7 năm 2022. Thủ tướng Chính phủ. (2022b). Quyết định phê duyệt chiến lược quốc gia về đa dạng sinh học đến năm 2030, tầm nhìn đến năm 2050. Thư viện pháp luật https://thuvienphapluat.vn/van-ban/Tainguyen-Moi-truong/Quyet-dinh-149-QD-TTg-2022-phe-duyet-Chien-luoc-quoc-gia-ve-dadang-sinh-hoc-den-2030-502106.aspx. Truy cập ngày 20 tháng 07 năm 2022. Thủ tướng Chính phủ. (2022c). Quyết định phê duyệt đề án "Nâng cao nhận thức cộng đồng và quản lý rủi ro thiên tai dựa vào cộng đồng, đến năm 2030″. Thư viện pháp luật. https:// thuvienphapluat.vn/van-ban/Tai-nguyen-Moi-truong/Quyet-dinh-553-QD-TTg-2021-Nangcao-nhan-thuc-cong-dong-ve-thien-tai-den-nam-2030-470018.aspx. Truy cập ngày 20 tháng 07 năm 2022. Thủ tướng Chính phủ. (2022d). Quyết định phê duyệt đề án phát triển kinh tế tuần hoàn ở Việt Nam. Thư viện pháp luật. https://thuvienphapluat.vn/van-ban/Thuong-mai/Quyet-dinh-687-QD-TTg2022-De-an-phat-trien-kinh-te-tuan-hoan-o-Viet-Nam-516231.aspx. Truy cập ngày 20 tháng 07 năm 2022.

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Tuấn Kiệt. (2022). Xử lý dứt điểm các cơ sở gây ô nhiễm môi trường nghiêm trọng trước 31/12. Tạp chí Tài chính Doanh nghiệp. https://taichinhdoanhnghiep.net.vn/xu-ly-dut-diem-cac-co-so-gayo-nhiem-moi-truong-nghiem-trong-truoc-31-12-d27344.html. Truy cập ngày 20 tháng 07 năm 2022.

Prof. Dr. Nguyen Tuan Anh, VNU University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi, Faculty of Sociology, Vietnam Dao Duc Thuan is an associate professor at the Faculty of Archival Studies and Office Management, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam

Environmental Concerns in Sri Lanka: A Political Perspective M. A. M. Fowsar

Introduction Sri Lanka is a tropical island in the Indian Ocean. The total population of the country is around 22 million. A large number of people engage in activities directly related to the environment. About 25% of the country’s total population lives in urban and semi-urban areas. Others live in rural areas (Geekiyanage et al., 2015). Sri Lanka was under the control of European colonialists from 1505 until independence in 1948. During British rule, Sri Lanka’s agricultural economy, which was the primary economic system, declined, and plantation farming was introduced. Urbanization also began to increase with the new system of cultivation. The governments that came to power in Sri Lanka after independence carried out political development programmes. Initially, independent governments took steps to build new settlements. Through this, on the one hand, development activities were started, and on the other hand, such activities were harmful to the environment. Geographically, Sri Lanka is an equatorial island located approximately 90 degrees north of the equator. The exact location of Sri Lanka on Earth is 80–81 degrees east of the Greenwich Line and 6–10 degrees North of the equator (Geekiyanage et al., 2015). Since Sri Lanka is located in the equatorial region of the Earth, the temperature here is slightly higher. And there is a mean temperature throughout the year. The ambient temperature increases near the coast and decreases as one moves inland from the coast towards the central regions of the island. However, rainfall is more in the central regions of the island than in the other areas. Regarding the topography of Sri Lanka, there are various topographical features such as plain lands, hilly areas, hills and highlands. Thus, different

M. A. M. Fowsar (✉) Department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts and Culture, South Eastern University of Sri Lanka, Oluvil, Sri Lanka © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Briesen, S. P. Das (eds.), Media, Politics and Environment, Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31252-6_13

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ecosystems are located in Sri Lanka due to different climatic factors and topographical features. In terms of forests, dense forests and sparse forests are found. As far as these ecosystems are concerned, the highest biodiversity is found in the rainforests, and they are found in the lowland wetlands and montane wetlands of Sri Lanka. However, equatorial montane forests are the most common in the central highlands. Most of the forests found in Sri Lanka are tropical monsoon forests. These are also known as dry hybrid forests. These forests can also be found in some parts of the Yala and Wilpattu National Forests. However, most of these forests are surrounded by ionospheric forests. Sawanna forests are found in some areas. Grasslands can be classified as upland grasslands and lowland grasslands. Moist and dry grasslands are found in the highlands. Waterfalls, rivers, mudflats and ponds are included in the wetland ecosystems. Riparian forests are found along the riverbanks. Coastal ecosystems are very different. These include lagoons, mangroves and coral reefs. All of the above are naturally occurring ecosystems. However, some man-made ecosystems are also found in Sri Lanka. These include artificially constructed ponds, farmlands and home gardens.

Key Environmental Issues Sri Lanka is facing various environmental problems as follows (Athukorala & Karunarathna, 2018; Senarath & Visvanathan, 2001). At the time of independence, 48% of Sri Lanka’s total land area was covered by forests, but the current natural forest cover of the country is less than 27% of its total land area. In the 1800s, 80% of Sri Lanka’s land area was covered by natural forests. But in later times, the wild forests were rapidly destroyed due to the introduction of plantations and increased human settlements. This trend started to intensify after independence. Deforestation is thus one of the most acute crises facing independent Sri Lanka. This deforestation has led to soil erosion, flooding, fauna and flora degradation and has threatened human survival and property. Rainforests have also been destroyed for plantations (Ranagalage et al., 2020; Ileperuma, 2000; Biodiversity Sri Lanka, 2017; The World Bank, 2017; Chiran et al., 2019). Dry zone forests have been cleared for various settlement projects and cultivations. Forests have also been extensively cleared for firewood, chena cultivation (type of seasonal cultivation), Gal Oya Development Project and Accelerated Mahaweli Development Programme (Ileperuma, 2000). Air pollution is a significant problem in Sri Lanka. Colombo and Kandy, the main cities of Sri Lanka, are facing the problem of air pollution. Increased use of motor vehicles is a significant factor in air pollution in these areas. The use of diesel vehicles, three-wheelers and motorbikes, which cause increased air pollution, has also increased to an unprecedented level in Sri Lanka. As a result, it can be observed that the traffic jams are increasing, and the vehicles are carrying heavy loads and emitting polluted air to the environment (Biodiversity Sri Lanka, 2017; Ileperuma, 2000). Since the factories are located in the urban areas of Sri Lanka, their smoke and

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dust pollution pollute the river. In Sri Lanka, electrical power products also play a significant role in polluting the river. There are conditions for pollution in rural areas where there is less ventilation. As a result of air pollution, Sri Lankans are facing respiratory diseases. Sri Lanka has been moving towards rapid industrialization since the early 1980s. Between 1985 and 1995, per capita income increased. With the economic liberalization that took place during this period, energy consumption also increased significantly. In 1985, 90% of Sri Lanka’s energy demand was met by hydropower. Due to the increase in energy demand for domestic and industrial use, hydropower can supply only a tiny percentage of the country’s energy needs (Ileperuma, 2000). Meanwhile, water pollution is also increasing rapidly in Sri Lanka nowadays. Water pollution is caused by urban, domestic and industrial wastes, agricultural chemicals, sewage, runoff, oil spills from ships, etc. Several rivers and streams in Sri Lanka are polluted (Chiran et al., 2019; United Nations Environment Programme, 2001). Kelani Ganga is the most polluted river in Sri Lanka. A lot of waste from the city of Colombo is mixed in the Kelani Ganga, causing massive water pollution. Chemicals used in plantations pollute the Mahavali Ganga. Groundwater contamination has also increased in Sri Lanka (United Nations Environment Programme, 2001). It can also be observed that people living in many areas of Sri Lanka are suffering from kidney disease due to such water pollution. Along with the above environmental issues, Sri Lanka is also facing the effects of climate change. Inadequate rainfall, drought, floods, etc. are the significant crises Sri Lanka faces due to climate change. Moreover, polyethene, widely used in Sri Lanka, is causing environmental damage. The Sri Lankan government is not taking any constructive steps to ban the usage of polythene although it is a key environmental issue in contemporary Sri Lanka.

Environmental Governance Environmental law in Sri Lanka is a blend of common and civil law derived from Roman-Dutch and English legal sources. Thus, there are diverse justice and institutional system concerning the environment. Judicial institutions have also shown interest in creating environmental laws. The Second Republic Constitution of 1978, currently in effect in Sri Lanka, consists of many contextual provisions. According to this, the constitution states that the government has to protect, maintain and improve the environment for the benefit of society. Article 28(f) of the constitution states that every citizen must protect nature and preserve its reserves. The National Environment Act No. 47 of 1980 is the primary environmental legislation in Sri Lanka. This act has introduced the procedures of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Environmental Protection License (EPL). Apart from this, many other laws and regulations describe practices that include environmental considerations during development activities in Sri Lanka’s resources. The full implementation of Sri Lanka’s environmental laws has been hampered by Sri Lanka’s nearly two-and-

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a-half decades of civil war (Simon and Associates, 2022). But now, the war is over. The time has come for the government and people to be more involved in environmental protection. Development activities in Sri Lanka have increased environmental concerns. In the post-war period, much attention was paid to highway development. Highway development has affected many resources. Highway construction is becoming one of the leading causes of deforestation and severely impacts environmental management. Although this issue is seen as one of the crucial directions in the development platform, it has been heavily criticized from an environmental point of view. A separate Ministry of Environment also functions in Sri Lanka for environmental governance. The ministry is committed to managing the country’s natural resources and environment, maintaining a balance between rapid economic development and the fundamentals of utilizing natural resources. The socioeconomic behaviour of the increasing human population has posed a massive threat to achieving these goals. The ministry has laid down the main principles to be followed in managing the country’s natural resources and environment. These policies are implemented with the participation of stakeholders, including government, state agencies, non-governmental organizations and communities. The ministry has been tasked with developing comprehensive policy plans for environmental protection (Ministry of Environment, n.d.). The Central Environment Authority is under the administration of the Ministry of Environment. The creation of this authority is a significant milestone in environmental regulation in Sri Lanka. The Central Environment Authority was established in August 1981 under the provisions of the National Environment Act No. 47 of 1980. The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, established in December 2001, has full responsibility for matters related to the Central Environment Authority to integrate environmental considerations into the country’s development process. Under the National Environment (Amendment) Act No. 56 of 1988 and Act No. 53 of 2000, detailed regulatory principles have been provided to the Central Environment Authority. The Central Environment Authority functions based on the objectives of environmental protection, management and improvement, regulation, maintenance and control of environmental quality, prevention and mitigation and control of pollution (Central Environment Authority, n.d.). Forestry environment management in Sri Lanka involves signing international agreements, implementing environmental laws, providing space for the activities of environmental non-governmental organizations and creating environmental awareness among people. Various laws are enacted and implemented from time to time regarding the protection of national forest resources. In such a way, the 1907 Forest Resources Act, 1924 Flood Protection Act, 1935 Land Development Act, 1951 Protection of Logging Act, 1960 Cooperative Forestry Scheme, 1979 Agricultural Extension Scheme, 1988 National Wilderness Conservation Act, 1995 National Forest Policy, National Environmental Action Plans carried out after the 1990s, etc. are significant. Mahaweli Multi-Purpose Projects, Forest Bio Conservation Schemes, Sinharaja Rain Forest Scheme, Forest Area Development Scheme,

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Department of Forest Bio Conservation and National Environment Action Plan are being developed and implemented for environment management. The role of the Sri Lankan courts in implementing environmental laws is essential. Courts have also been involved in making many decisions related to environmental law. Recently, there has been an increase in the number of contextual cases taken to the courts, issues like industrial pollution, disposal of city waste, removal of illegal buildings, etc. (Simon and Associates, 2022). Currently, the environmental laws in force in Sri Lanka are managed mainly by government agencies, and environmental management has been primarily devolved to subsidiary agencies. Thus, Sri Lanka is also facing crises in terms of ecological integration. In this case, there is a need to formulate new laws and policies to protect the environment. Such policy should be implemented so that environment and development can be integrated.

Environment and Politics Sri Lanka occupies a strategic position in the South Asian region in terms of biodiversity. It is estimated that 140 endemic species of amphibians are found in Sri Lanka. But Sri Lanka is currently facing major environmental issues. According to a report by Conservation International, only 1.5% of Sri Lanka’s forests remain. Most of the deforestation took place during British colonial rule. These deforestation activities were carried out for the production of rubber, coffee and tea. As Sri Lanka’s civil war intensified in the 1980s and early 1990s, insurgents turned to forests as their refuge. In this situation, the government forces started clearing the forests considered as the rebels’ shelters. This type of deforestation has caused damage to the environment and has significantly impacted the livelihoods of people who rely on forests for agricultural activities (Social Watch, 2012). Studies indicate that between 1990 and 2005, Sri Lanka’s deforestation rate increased by 18%. Deforestation also took place in Sri Lanka for construction projects. According to a report, 2.5 million palm trees were destroyed for construction. In the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami disaster, massive amounts of forest were cleared for reconstruction. It is also significant that there have been tremendous changes in Sri Lanka’s climate due to deforestation. Sri Lanka’s seasonal rainfall is also in crisis. In some cases, floods occur due to heavy rain, and drought prevails due to a lack of rain. This has affected food production and has led to food shortages in the country. Many reservoirs have also been affected by this critical siltation. The government has to spend a lot on their rehabilitation. Changes in soil fertility are also taking place through soil erosion. It has forced the government to increase the use of artificial fertilizers. There has been an increase in the price of food products, which has hit the economically weaker sections of society worst (Social Watch, 2012). In 2009, the Sri Lankan government militarily defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which had been fighting for a separate state in Sri Lanka’s north and eastern provinces. With this, a sort of temporary peace prevailed in the

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country. However, the government carried out land grabbing through the development and other activities in those areas. It has also caused dissatisfaction among those who have settled in those areas. Sri Lanka is one of the countries with the wealthiest natural forest resources in Asia. As mentioned above, Sri Lanka has natural resources that ensure biodiversity. But in recent times, the threat to Sri Lanka’s forests and natural resources has been seriously increasing. Although Sri Lanka ranks high in promoting environmental education in the Asian region, the political will and commitment to protecting the environment are very low. In this way, the most critical issues are land degradation, poor water resource management, loss of biodiversity, sea erosion, water pollution, deficiencies in sewage systems and declining agricultural production (Social Watch, 2012). A such vulnerability has had the worst adverse effects on Sri Lanka’s economic development. Increasing demand, in line with rapidly increasing population growth, has significantly impacted natural resources and their richness. The government’s role in a country’s environmental management is significant, and it has to formulate straightforward policy programs. In the case of Sri Lanka, various policy projects have been carried out by successive governments for the successful advancement of environmental management. As mentioned earlier, a separate environment ministry has also been created for environmental management. It can be observed that policy procedures are being carried out to regulate environmental issues under that ministry. In order to facilitate the programs of the Ministry of Environment, another organization called the Central Environment Authority works (Central Environment Authority, n.d.; Ministry of Environment, n.d.). In this way, while institutional mechanisms for environmental management are implemented, there are cases where political machinery is also the cause of environmental destruction. An important allegation that has been made recently in Sri Lanka’s environmental management is that politicians are the cause of environmental destruction. The involvement of politicians in investment programs like setting up hotels, establishing toilets and building roads for hotels has a massive impact on environmental governance. It is widely alleged that the actions of such political actors are responsible for the depletion of the country’s forest resources and, thereby, Sri Lanka’s environmental problems in the future. There has also been a marked increase in cases where the political elites are involved in deforestation for their profit-making activities. Such deforestation has led to flooding in many places, disrupting the ecological balance and affecting biodiversity. In Sri Lanka, in recent times, many development work projects carried out by the government for political reasons have led to various ecological concerns. For example, extensive deforestation was carried out to construct Mattala Airport in the Hambantota district. Despite the anticipated socio-economic benefits, the airport has resulted in a considerable environmental loss. The establishment of the airport has had a massive impact on maintaining the area’s biodiversity. It can also be observed that many concerns about it have been discussed in Sri Lanka’s political sphere in recent times. Deforestation and other environmental damage in this area have led to the migration of animals. Especially the elephants that used to live in this area have moved to other places, and the elephant-human conflict has increased. As a

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result, the movement of elephants into residential areas in the South-East has risen to an unprecedented level, thereby threatening the livelihood of the people in these areas and causing massive damage to agricultural activities. It can be observed that these issues are getting media attention from time to time. However, it can be observed that environmental issues are expressed in social media as personal messages. Such environmental problems do not receive much attention in public and private media in general. In some cases, political connections and pressures on the media have caused the media to avoid criticism of the government.

Recent Tragedy Studies also point to Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s waning popularity and eventual resignation in 2019 due to environmental mismanagement (Rodrigo, 2022). The economic crisis contributed to his resignation, as did his tendency to implement various unsuccessful environmental policies. His government saw unrestrained exploitation of natural resources, land acquisition reforms and mishandling of environmental concerns, including sand mining. In his election manifesto, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa made various pledges to protect the environment and make sustainable use of natural resources. His election campaign was also a carbonfree one, making President Rajapaksa popular as an environmentalist. But within days of his inauguration, he abolished the permit system for sand mining. Although it was seen as a move to speed up construction activities, mining mineral soil destroyed riverbanks and posed a serious threat to water conservation. It also threatened the lives of some rare aquatic species. Due to this, widespread environmental protests against the government also emerged. As part of it, an environmental people’s organization called Wildlife and Nature Protection Society (WNPS) lobbied the slogan “Stop Ecocide” and showed opposition to the government’s environmental policy. It also contributed to raising awareness about deforestation in Sri Lanka (Rodrigo, 2022). Environmentalists have also pointed out that the government has sometimes violated environmental laws. During this period, the minister responsible for environmental protection and other officials were appointed based on political agenda. In this case, there were various conflicts between the environment minister and the environmental protection officials. In some cases, there were allegations that security officials were being asked to engage in illegal activities by the circle. Environmentalists have pointed out that some environmental norms were violated when the President’s plan to negotiate with villagers was implemented. A road construction project was also carried out in the Sinharaja Forest, designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. It is also noteworthy that this matter has been brought to the media’s attention. In this way, the environmental policy implemented by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was heavily criticized by environmentalists (Rodrigo, 2022). President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s plan to ban chemical fertilizers is central to his environmentally conscious efforts. Chemical fertilizers are widely used in

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agricultural activities in Sri Lanka. Chemical fertilizers have been widely used because of their high yield, easy availability and ease of handling. It was only after the 1960s that agricultural chemicals became commonly used in the country. Although there was an increase in production through this, it seriously affected people’s health conditions. There was a danger that the food produced would turn from being toxic to a pathogen that would slowly kill the human organism. Due to the increase in the use of agricultural chemicals across the country, there has been a massive increase in the number of kidney patients. Agricultural chemicals have affected soil fertility and created massive crises in access to safe drinking water. Kidney disease, which was initially detected in the North-Central part of the country, has spread to many parts of the country. Doctors have pointed out that one of the main reasons for the spreading of the disease is agricultural chemicals. Apart from kidney disease, agricultural chemicals have led to the spread of diseases such as respiratory disorders, cancer and internal organ degeneration (Kulatunga, 2021). Sri Lanka has also been found to be the country that uses the most chemicals per hectare of agricultural land in the world. It is actually dangerous. In this situation, a decision was taken to ban chemical fertilizers. Although using agricultural chemicals gives a good harvest, it causes more harm to humans. Similarly, the balance of the environment is affected a lot. Lakes, rivers, ponds and groundwater are affected by such agricultural chemicals. Many non-human land and water species are becoming extinct. The health of the land is affected, and the sustainable use of the land is in question. The use of agrochemicals affects many industrial activities, including freshwater fisheries. In general, using agricultural chemicals pollutes the natural environment and destroys the health that nature provides to humans. Environmental damage has also led to the rapid spread of many non-species infectious diseases among living organisms (Kulatunga, 2021). In this way, the government’s policy regarding using organic fertilizers was to be welcomed from an ecological point of view. Anyone who wants to protect the earth will agree with this policy. But this program has had harmful consequences in Sri Lanka, which is in the worst economic crisis. It has pushed the country’s economy further back and has led to food shortages. Even key government ministers have come to accept that the government’s plan to ban chemical fertilizers is wrong. Although the government later recovered the ban on chemical fertilizers, the country has been unable to fully recover from the damage caused to Sri Lanka’s agricultural economy by the ban. In this way, political influence has increased its impact on Sri Lanka’s environment. For political parties, development projects including various construction activities are essential for capturing and maintaining power, so they are very concerned about it. They do not pay much attention to the ecological crisis during these activities (Amarasuriya, 2020). Meanwhile, officials directly involved in environmental management activities cannot act independently due to the increased political interference. In some cases, environmental protection agencies conflict with each other, and due to constraints imposed by environmental protection laws, they could not act quickly. Informal forces such as the media can provide increased protection. But due to the politicization of environmental issues in Sri Lanka,

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informal organizations could not effectively contribute to environmental protection. The political power relations that have permeated Sri Lanka’s socio-political structure have created a situation where it is impossible to protect natural resources and ensure sound environmental management. Although the political power structure leads to environmental policy formulation, on many occasions, it contributes to the widespread violation of environmental laws (Mahees, 2010). Various ecological people’s movements have emerged in connection with the various development projects undertaken in Sri Lanka. Many ecological people’s actions are connected with the development projects, including the Eppawala Phosphate mine, Iranawila radio station, Kandalama Hotel, Meepe Garbage disposal site and the Colombo-Matara highway. These activities were very effective in creating environmental interest in Sri Lanka. The Nurochcholai movement based on Nurochcholai thermal power generation became the most crucial influencing force in the people’s livelihood and socio-political platform (Mahees, 2010). Meanwhile, Sri Lanka is currently highly vulnerable to climate and environmental change. As mentioned above, a large amount of biodiversity on the island of Sri Lanka has been destroyed due to development activities. It also led to drought, floods, landslides, cyclones and sea erosion. Unplanned agricultural activities, unsustainable investment projects and pollution of marine areas through marine disasters have led to various environmental crises in Sri Lanka in recent years (Jayaram, 2022). Suppose Sri Lanka is to recover from this. In that case, there is a need to take strategic measures such as introducing sustainable food production practices, establishing a renewable energy infrastructure and mitigating climate change.

Conclusion Since global environmental changes significantly affect Sri Lanka, the country needs to pay more attention to environmental concerns. However, the changes in the political structure of post-independent Sri Lanka are rooted in the traditional political and economic platform. This has led to the implementation of development projects based on the expectations of the political power, while the interests of the environment have been neglected. There have been allegations that environmental impact assessments are not properly carried out while planning several development projects. In some cases, environmental impact assessments are not given attention for political reasons when development activities are carried out. As a result, the political awareness of Sri Lanka's environmental concerns is not substantial. In particular, there is an argument that environmental concerns have not been sufficiently considered during recent highway, port, airport, and other infrastructure projects carried out in Sri Lanka. The three decades of civil war in Sri Lanka also significantly impacted Sri Lanka's environmental governance. The civil war was an obstacle to properly enforcing environmental laws in the country, and there were critical situations where Sri Lanka's environmental law could not be properly enforced in areas controlled by

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rebel groups. As a result, Sri Lanka experienced widespread environmental destruction during the war. However, political attention to the environment is also minimal in the current post-war situation. Although there are some programs to create environmental awareness at the community level, questions are raised about their successful contributions to environmental protection. The informal environmental protection mechanisms, including the role of the media, also need to be strengthened in Sri Lanka. Regarding the media, although they cover some issues that may be of environmental concern, their coverage needs to be further expanded. In terms of ecological attentiveness, it is also evident that the private sector media is providing more coverage about the effects of the government’s development projects on the environment. However, political pressures on both state and private media hinder their independence. It is a fact that environmental changes significantly impact human life, and human beings depend on the environment. Human beings can be protected only by protecting the environment. Hence, the Sri Lankan government should focus on precise environmental policy formulation and ensure successful implementation.

References Amarasuriya, H. (2020). The politics of environmental movements in Sri Lanka. Polity, 8(1&2), 21–28. Athukorala, W., & Karunarathna, M. (2018). Environmental challenges and the sustainable development goals: A study about the emerging environmental issues in Sri Lanka. Applied Economics and Business, 2(2), 38–51. Biodiversity Sri Lanka. (2017, February 01). Environmental protection and sustainable development in Sri Lanka. https://biodiversitysrilanka.org/environmental-protection-and-sustainabledevelopment-in-sri-lanka/ Central Environment Authority. (n.d.). Government of Sri Lanka. https://www.cea.lk/web/index. php/en Chiran, D. M. O., Ranaraja, C. D. M. O., Udara, S. P. R., Arachchige, U. S. P. R., & Rasenthiran, K. (2019). Environmental pollution and its challenges in Sri Lanka. International Journal of Scientific and Technology Research, 8(7), 417–419. Geekiyanage, N., Vithanage, M., Wijesekara, H., & Pushpakumara, G. (2015). State of the environment, environmental challenges and governance in Sri Lanka. In S. Mukherjee & D. Chakraborty (Eds.), Environmental challenges and governance (pp. 116–132). Routledge. Ileperuma, O. (2000). Environmental pollution in Sri Lanka: A review. Journal of the National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka, 28(4), 301–325. Jayaram, D. (2022, August 31). Unravelling the environmental dimensions of the Sri Lankan crisis. Climate and diplomacy. https://climate-diplomacy.org/magazine/environment/unravellingenvironmental-dimensions-sri-lankan-crisis Kulatunga, H. (2021). Effects of chemical fertiliser on human health and environment. Sunday Observer. https://www.sundayobserver.lk/2021/07/04/news-features/effects-chemicalfertiliser-human-health-and-environment Mahees, M. T. M. (2010). Environmental movements in Sri Lanka: A case study of grassroots action against a coal power plant. VDM Verlag Dr. Muller GmbH & Co. KG. Ministry of Environment. (n.d.). Government of Sri Lanka. https://www.env.gov.lk/

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Ranagalage, M., Gunarathna, M. H. J. P., Surasinghe, T. D., Dissanayake, D., Simwanda, M., Murayama, Y., Morimoto, T., Phiri, D., Nyirenda, V. R., Premakantha, K. T., & Sathurusinghe, A. (2020). Multi-decadal Forest-cover dynamics in the tropical realm: Past trends and policy insights for Forest conservation in dry zone of Sri Lanka. Forests, 11(8), 836. https://doi.org/10. 3390/f11080836 Rodrigo, M. (2022, July 19). Sri Lankan environmental policy failures helped fuel people power revolution. Sri Lankan environmental policy failures helped fuel people power revolution. Mongabay. https://news.mongabay.com/2022/07/in-sri-lanka-environmental-policy-failureshelped-fuel-a-people-power-revolution/ Senarath, U., & Visvanathan, C. (2001). Environmental issues in brackish water shrimp aquaculture in Sri Lanka. Environmental Management, 27(3), 335–348. Simon and Associates. (2022, October 03). Environmental Challenges in Sri Lanka. https://www. simonas.net/environmental-challenges-in-sri-lanka/ Social Watch. (2012). People and the environment should be first. https://www.socialwatch.org/ node/14025 The World Bank. (2017, June 19). Community support key to protecting Sri Lanka’s biodiversity and resources. https://www.worldbank.org/ta/news/feature/2017/06/19/community-supportkey-to-protecting-sri-lankas-biodiversity-and-resources United Nations Environment Programme. (2001). State of the environment: Sri Lanka. United Nations Environment Programme.

M.A.M. Fowsar, Professor in Political Science, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts and Culture, South-eastern University of Sri Lanka.

Environmental Policy in Indonesia from the Post-New Order Era to the Present: Positive Adjustments and Limitations Thanh T. Ho and Abdul Fikri Angga Reksa

Introduction During the New Order period (1966–1998), the Indonesian economy achieved relatively high growth but depended on the exploitation of natural resources. Under the authoritarian regime, Indonesia pursued a policy of focusing on economic growth without regard to environmental damage and ecosystem degradation (Dick et al., 2002). Not only were environmental laws and regulations not comprehensive and systematic, but poor enforcement of environmental laws had resulted in massive environmental pollution and ecosystem destruction in Indonesia. For instance, forest degradation and deforestation have rapidly accelerated since the 1970s due to development activities, the export-oriented log production industry, and global demands (Tsujino et al., 2016). However, after the collapse of the New Order regime (May 1998), a series of important political reforms were carried out in Indonesia that aimed at democratizing the country. On the basis of the argument that democratization tends to promote the change of social policies in a more positive direction, this chapter seeks to understand whether this democratization process in Indonesia promotes the government to adjust its environmental policy in a positive way. If yes, what has been the progress? Have there been any limitations in environmental policy in Indonesia to date? Has environmental policy adjustment helped improve the environmental status in Indonesia for this period compared to the environmental state in the New Order era? What have environmental policy constraints impacted the environment in Indonesia? T. T. Ho (✉) VNU, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi, Vietnam e-mail: [email protected] A. F. A. Reksa Research Center for Area Studies, National Research and Innovation Agency, Jakarta, Indonesia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Briesen, S. P. Das (eds.), Media, Politics and Environment, Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31252-6_14

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To answer those questions, we employ critical literature review and policy analysis methods. First, this article analyzes the changes in the Indonesian government’s environmental policy as reflected in a number of key laws and regulations, programs, and the President’s statements and decisions on the environment which have been promulgated from the post-New Order period (after 1998) to the present. In addition, some information and data on the environmental issues are collected to assess the environmental status in Indonesia under the impact of environmental policies over the past two decades. Furthermore, this chapter evaluates the role of environmental policy in environmental protection as well as the relationship between politics, socioeconomic situation, and the environment in Indonesia. Finally, this article aims to present some perspectives on promoting environmental protection and sustainable development issues in Indonesia.

Background of Environmental Policy Adjustment Since the End of the New Order Regime In 32 years of existence, the New Order regime in Indonesia had earned a reputation for its dictatorship, corruption, collusion, and nepotism. President Suharto as the highest leader of the New Order government had gradually consolidated his power by awarding lucrative business projects or empowering the management and exploitation of natural resources of the country to generals and government officials in exchange for their allegiance to himself and the New Order regime. Thereby, a patronage mechanism was established, including a system of government officials, military generals, and businessmen who closely linked, protected, and exchanged benefits for each other from the central to the local levels. In this network of power and interest relations, Indonesia’s environment and natural resources had become a huge piece of the cake divided among President Suharto‘s family, his close friends, government officials, generals, and their business associates. For instance, for forest resources, since 1966, “forest logging concessions (HPH) have been awarded to generals who had supported his (President Suharto’s) assumption of power and to other well-connected entrepreneurs” (Thompson, 2001, Forests, para. 4). The New Order government itself had enacted environmental laws, such as the Forest Law of 1967, the Mining Law of 1967, the Law of the Environment of 1982, and many other specific regulations; however, the lack of rigor in many provisions of these laws and regulations resulted in the environment being easily damaged and destroyed in practice. Under the influence of environmental NGOs that had been fighting for many years against the government to demand adjustment of environmental policies as well as the pressure of environmental incidents and the opposition of the local communities against mining and manufacturing companies whose activities had damaged the environment, the New Order government had to amend a number of laws related to natural resources and environment, notably Environmental Law No. 23/1997. This law was much more advanced than Environmental Law

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No. 4/1982; however, it was only applied less than a year when the New Order regime collapsed. In general, the lack of strictness of laws and regulations related to the environment, combined with the collusion of interest groups are the main causes leading to the overexploitation of natural resources, environmental pollution, and especially deforestation in Indonesia. After 32 years of the New Order regime’s existence, according to Toha, “about 40 million hectares of natural forest are thought to have been lost and a much larger area of forest remains in a state of degradation” (as cited in Barr, 2001, p. 19). During this period, some manufacturing and mining companies such as Indorayon company (a pulp and paper company in the northern province of Sumatra), or the mining company PT Freeport Indonesia (in Grasberg, Papua province), severely damaged the ecosystem and badly affected local people’s livelihoods and health (Nomura, 2009, pp. 269–271). Despite the protests of local communities and the objections of environmental NGOs and the media, these companies with the backing of government and military forces should continue to operate and wreak havoc on Indonesia’s environment. In 1997–1998, when the economic crisis spread in Indonesia, movements against the regime of social forces, especially students, flourished. Especially under the pressure of the street protest movements and the military’s refusal to continue to support President Suharto in power, on May 21, 1998, President Suharto was forced to resign, which marked the collapse of the 32-year existence of the New Order in Indonesia (1966–1998). Later, Vice President B.J. Habibie, who became Suharto’s replacement president, advocated for important political reforms. During his brief tenure in power, several essential reform laws were enacted, such as laws on human rights and regional autonomy, which further paved the way for Indonesia’s democratization. The new law on human rights of the Republic of Indonesia No. 39 of 1999 declares the rights of all Indonesian citizens to have “a good and healthy environment” (Article 9, Paragraph 3), the right to seek and impart information (Article 14), the right to assemble and establish social organizations (Article 24), or the right to express opinions in public places (Article 25). These rights are reaffirmed in Article 28 of the 1945 Constitution of the Public of Indonesia as amended to 2002 such as everyone has the right to “express thoughts and attitudes, according to his conscience”, “to freedom of association, assembly and expression,” and “to have a good and healthy living environment and have the right to obtain health services”. The affirmation of these rights in legal documents coupled with the atmosphere of democratic reform that pervaded the country in the early years of the post-New Order era encouraged Indonesians to act and speak out more strongly to protect the environment and, at the same time, inspired the establishment and active operation of many environmental protection organizations in Indonesia. Many environmental organizations that were born in the New Order period or those that were newly formed in the reform era such as the Indonesian Forum on Environment (Wahana Lingkungan Hidup—Walhi), Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL), the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM), etc. have contributed to increasing environmental awareness in the community. In addition, enjoying the right of freedom of expression as proclaimed in the 1999 Human Rights Law and in

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the amended Constitution in 2002, the media also had more freedom to speak up on environmental issues. The media and environmental organizations, therefore, became important forces in environmental protection activities in Indonesia after the end of the New Order regime. The improvement of people’s rights as well as the weakening of the government and the military, along with the trend of democratization has also encouraged communities that are already suffering the negative effects of environmental degradation to stand up to fight more strongly against natural resource extraction and manufacturing companies that are the culprits causing environmental pollution. This can be seen in the case of the struggle of the community in Porsea (North Sumatra province) against the pulp and paper company PT Indorayon Utama in the early years of the post-New Order era (Nomura, 2009, p. 273). Supporting the Porsea community’s protests were the media and non-governmental organizations such as WALHI, ELSAM, and YLBHI (Silaen, 2005). Especially, the media covered these events continuously, making their protest nationally known, therefore putting great pressure on the government. This event made President Habibie—the first President of the post-New Order era—decide to suspend the operations of PT Indorayon Utama company to investigate its activities. After that, at the time when the fourth President Abdurrahman Wahid was in charge (1999–2001), his Ministry of Environment, Alexander Sony Keraf, also “tried to strengthen communication with communities” (Nomura, 2009, p. 276) in Porsea to look for ways to solve the environmental crisis in this region. Since then, environmental NGOs, media, and the community have continued to play an active role in environmental protection activities in Indonesia. For instance, in a study on the relation between media and the issue of reductions in emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+), Cronin et al. (2016, pp. 59–62) showed the number of 649 articles published in three Indonesian national newspapers, namely, Kompas, Media Indonesia, and Republika, from 2007 to 2012 referring to the issue of REDD+. This reflects the considerable concern of the media on environmental issues as well as its role in increasing the public’s environmental awareness. Meanwhile, environmental organizations continue to work to promote environmental protection in Indonesia. In a recent study, Susanto and Thamrin (2021, p. 157) mentioned some typical environmental organizations in Indonesia such as WALHI and Greenpeace that “use social media to express its criticism of the government, especially when the government applies the wrong policy.” They not only “held a press conference that condemned the government to immediately revoke specific policies because they endangered the environment and society” but also use Twitter to mobilize the masses, and then “jointly go down the road to encourage the government to create better environmental management” (Susanto & Thamrin, 2021, p. 158). It can be seen that democratization in Indonesia after the end of the New Order regime has motivated many social forces to participate in environmental protection activities, typically environmental organizations, the media, and local communities (besides other social forces such as intellectuals, students, even a small part of the elite, etc.). These forces’ activities have helped increase people’s awareness of

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environmental protection, supporting communities that are negatively affected by environmental degradation in regaining their right to live in a safer environment, while putting pressure on the government to adjust its environmental policy in a more progressive direction, serving Indonesia’s sustainable development goals. While social forces had been trying to put pressure on the government and stakeholders to solve environmental problems, the post-New Order government itself also tended to seek a new face for environmental policy to distinguish it from the old regime. By showing its progress on environmental policy, the government may attract more public support. The convergence point between the demands of social forces and the government would make a definite adjustment to Indonesia’s environmental policy from the end of the New Order period up to the present. Looking at Indonesia’s overall environmental policy in this process of democratization, our study suggests that there is an adjustment in Indonesia’s environmental policy. This is reflected in many laws, regulations, President’s statements, and decisions as well as development programs relating to environmental issues. In the context of an increasingly degraded environment and global climate change, the democratization process in Indonesia has been an important condition driving the adjustment of Indonesia’s environmental policy towards the goal of sustainable development. However, the pressures of economic development, as well as population growth in Indonesia, would make this adjustment to go to what extent is an issue that needs to be considered and evaluated.

Positive Environmental Policy Adjustments In 1997, the New Order government issued Environmental Law No. 23/1997 as an attempt to deal with environmental problems. The substantial improvement of this law resulted in its continued use by the new government during the democratic reform era for another decade after the collapse of the New Order regime. However, while Environmental Law No. 23/1997 was still in effect, the government in the democratic reform period enacted Law No. 22/1999 concerning administrative and then Law No. 32/2004 on regional government, which represented an environmental policy adjustment in enhancing the environmental management role of local people and authorities. Thereafter, the adjustment of environmental policy became clearer with the enactment of Environmental Law No. 32/2009 and a number of other laws and regulations as well as development programs, President’s declarations, and decisions concerning the environment. Our study of these documents shows that there has been a certain shift in the environmental policy of the Indonesian government during the democratization period that it has partly concerned with the benefit of the environment, taken the first step towards sustainable development, and especially not pursued the view of economic development at all costs as in the New Order period. Overall, the positive changes in environmental policy in Indonesia over the past two decades are reflected in specific issues such as enhancing the participation of the people and local authorities in environmental protection,

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intensifying procedures and systematizing processes for environmental management, increasing the level of administrative and criminal sanctions for environmental violations, and committing to the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build a green environment. These adjustments have made environmental policy in Indonesia much more systematic and progressive than it was during the New Order era.

Enhancing the Role of People and Local Authorities in Environmental Management Right from the beginning of the democratic reform period, a series of regional government laws were promulgated such as Law No. 22/1999 and Law No. 32/2004 affirming the right to manage and protect the environment (including natural resources) of local authorities and people. This right is declared in Article 1 (p), Article 7(2), Article 11(2), etc. in Law No. 22/1999 and Article 2 (5; 7), Article 14 (1j), Article 17 (b), Article 18, Article 21(f), etc. in Law No. 32/2004. In 2014, Law No. 23/2014 regarding regional government continued to be promulgated, replacing Law No. 32/2004. This law stipulates in more detail the rights and obligations of local governments, including the right to exploit natural resources and the obligation to protect the environment. Article 12(2e) states that regional governments are required to perform environmental duties. Compared with Law No. 32/2004, Law No. 23/2014 stipulates in detail the division of tasks of resource management, including forestry, marine, and energy and mineral resources (Article 14). The decentralization of environmental management and protection rights to localities has been a task in accordance with the Constitution; it has not only improved the rights to exploit local resources but also had the purpose of protecting the environment more effectively. The enactment of these laws thus represents a positive regulatory aspect of environmental policy in the post-New Order era. Though the implementation of this policy has had many shortcomings, since local governments have not prepared well the conditions in terms of human resources, facilities, and a number of other issues, the nature of the policy has important implications for increasing democracy in environmental policy. Moreover, it has been also the initial step to transferring the role of environmental management to local people, especially customary law communities. When Environmental Law No. 32/2009 was enacted, the role of the people in environmental protection was emphasized more clearly. It shows that Indonesia’s environmental policy has been improving according to international progressive criteria as community participation in environmental decision-making had been recognized as one of the main principles of environmental governance in the 1992 Rio Declaration. Article 70 Paragraph (1) of Law No. 32/2009 states that “communities have the equal and broad right and opportunity to participate actively in environmental protection and management.” The objectives are to (a) generate

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awareness of environmental protection and management b. enhancing independence, the capability of communities, and partnership, (c) develop capability and pioneer of communities, (d) develop emergency responses of communities to social control, and (e) develop and preserve local culture and wisdom in the conservation of environmental functions. Besides, Article 25 (item c) of Environmental Law No. 32/2009 also stipulates that an environmental impact analysis (AMDAL) document must have “public recommendation, input as well as response to business and/or activity plan.” In particular, the community may object to the AMDAL document (Article 26, Paragraph 4). Because AMDAL is the first basis for a committee to be established to assess the feasibility of a business/activity, it will lead to whether the government will issue an approval license for that business/activity. Thus, Article 26 shows that Indonesia’s environmental policy in the post-New Order period has strengthened the participation of the people in environmental protection in Indonesia. In addition, community involvement in environmental protection is also manifested in several policies which are related to Environmental Law No. 32/2009. The laws regulate environmental protection in different ecosystems and topography such as forests, mountains, marine, coastal, wetlands, etc. As an example, Law No. 18/2013 about Prevention and Eradication of Forest Destruction illustrates the pivotal role of community participation. Article 4 Law No. 18/2013 mentions the scope of prevention and eradication of forest destruction includes active participation of the community and protection of witnesses, reporters, and informants. Articles 58 and 59 also elaborate on the rights and obligations of the community in forest management. In general, the law guarantees the right of the community to undertake social control over forest destruction and legal protection. Furthermore, it empowers the community and raises awareness about the importance of forest conservation and the negative impacts of forest destruction (Article 61 item c). This law is quite opposite of the forestry law in New Order era when the government issued Law No. 5/1967 concerning Basic Forestry Provisions which promoted that many corporations to compete for forest concession licenses (Hak Pengusahaan Hutan—HPH). In the 1967–1980 period, Suharto’s New Order was recorded as issuing 519 HPHs with a concession area of approximately 53 million hectares (as cited in Suwarno, 2017, p. 20). In the ocean and coastal ecosystem, Law No. 32/2014 about marine states that marine operations are carried out based on the principle of community participation (Article 2 item g). In more detail, Article 22 Number 2 explains the management and utilization of marine resources are to strengthen the participation of the community and government institutions as well as to encourage community initiatives in the direction of coastal resources and small islands to achieve justice, balance, and sustainability and to increase the social, economic, and cultural values of the community through community participation in the utilization of coastal resources and small islands. In terms of marine tourism development, it must be carried out by taking into account the interests of local communities and local wisdom and must pay attention to the area’s water conservation (Article 28 item 2). So, this law

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emphasizes the collaboration between central government, local government, and community to realize sustainable coastal and small island regions. The policy of strengthening the role of people in the management and protection of the environment is not only reflected in the environmental laws mentioned above, but also in the other national development programs issued by the Indonesian government in the democratization era. For instance, Programs for Enhancing the Role of Communities in Natural Resource Management and Preservation of Environmental Functions were launched. The goal of the programs was to promote the availability of facilities for the community in natural resource management and preservation of environmental functions from the process of policy formulation and decision-making, planning, and implementation to supervision. These programs not only show that Indonesia’s environmental policy has become more humane and democratic but also help increase the effectiveness of environmental protection in practice.

Intensifying Procedures and Systematizing Processes for Environmental Management Another significant adjustment in environmental policy during the period of democratic reform in Indonesia has been the intensifying of procedures and systematizing process for environmental management. During the New Order period, the laws and regulations on environmental management procedures were not specific and systematic. For example, in Environmental Law No. 23/1997, the regulations on environmental impact analysis are quite brief (only include Paragraphs 1 to 2 of Article 15). After the end of the New Order regime, Environmental Law No. 32/2009 are revised, which covers much more provisions that make environmental protection processes and procedures more specific and systematic. This law stipulates that the environmental protection process must comply with regulations on environmental inventorying (Article 6), environmental protection and management plan (RPPLH) (Articles 9–10), a strategic environmental assessment (KLHS) (Articles 15–19), quality standard of the environment (Articles 20–21), environmental impact analysis (AMDAL) (Articles 22–33), and environmental management and monitoring programs (UKL-UPL) (Articles 34–35). In particular, each issue is more concretized, such as the issue of environmental quality standards being specified as standards for water, wastewater, seawater, air, emissions, and other relevant quality standards in accordance with scientific and technological development (Article 20). In the matter of waste discharged into the environment, this law clearly requires that it must comply with environmental quality standards and get a securing license from the Minister, governors, or regents/mayors by virtue of their authority. Similarly, Article 21 refers to the Standard Criteria for Environmental Damage, specifying the components of the ecosystem that can be damaged such as soil for biomass production, coral reef, forest or land fire, mangrove, lawn, peat, karst, and other ecosystems in

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accordance with developments of science and technology. At the same time, Article 21 defines criteria for environmental damage resulting from climate change based on parameters of temperature rise, sea level rise, storms, and drought. In the issue of AMDAL, this law includes 12 articles (from Article 22 to Article 33), which is much more detailed in comparison with just an article mentioned on this issue in Environmental Law No. 23/1997. Provisions on AMDAL in Environmental Law No. 32/2009 set forth the criteria for which an environmental impact analysis must be submitted (Articles 22, 23) stipulate the AMDAL document as the basis for determining environmental feasibility decisions (Articles 24) and specify what information is covered in AMDAL (Article 25), require the compilation of AMDAL be participatory (Article 26), state that the compiler of AMDAL can ask for help from other parties (Article 27), and must have an AMDAL certificate of competence (Article 28). Besides, Law No. 32/2009 also stipulates membership of the AMDAL appraisal commission (Article 30) and the decision of the Minister, governor, or regent/mayor on the feasibility or infeasibility of businesses/activities based on the judgment result of the AMDAL appraisal commission (Article 31). Article 32 states that the government and regional government shall help the formulation of AMDAL for businesses and/or activities of economically weak groups having a substantial impact on the environment. The law also notes that Articles 22 to 31 are regulated in a government regulation (Article 33). Thus, the provisions on environmental impact analysis on projects/enterprises’ activities in Law No. 32/2009 are much more specific and detailed than those of Law No. 23 of 1997. In addition, Law No. 32/2009 stipulates that every business and/or activity excluding from the criteria for undertaking AMDAL compulsorily as referred to in Article 23 Paragraph 1 shall be obliged to have environmental management and monitoring efforts (UKL-UPL) (Article 34). In general, compared with Environmental Law No. 23/1997 as well as Environmental Law No. 4/1982, the Law on Environment No. 32/2009 provides more specific and systematic provisions on the issue of environmental protection. In 2020, in the law on Job Creation No. 11/2020, the AMDAL and UKL-UPL regulations are slightly revised, mainly emphasizing these documents as “standards” and “prerequisites” for the issuance of business decisions for business/activities (Articles 11 and 12). In addition, Law No. 11/2020 also specifies regulations on environmental feasibility. Article 24 of this law specifically addresses issues such as the use of AMDAL as the basis for environmental feasibility assessment and that this assessment would be conducted by the central government environmental feasibility assessment agency. Based on the assessment results, the central or regional government will decide the feasibility of that business/activity as a basis to issue a business license. On the one hand, the agency could intensify its efforts on environmental protection. On the other hand, it is also prone to abuse of power by the authority which will be elaborated in the limitation section. In addition, this law contains a provision determining the businesses/activities that are not required to be equipped with UKL-UPL must commit to the ability to manage and monitor the environment according to government regulations (Article 35, Paragraph 2).

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In addition to Law No. 32/2009 and Law No. 11 of 2020, laws and regulations in other areas related to the environment such as forests, marine, emission standards, etc. were also revised in the direction of supplementing, strengthening, concretizing, and systematizing procedures and processes in resource exploitation management, thereby helping the law enforcement process become more convenient and efficient. The above descriptions show that Indonesia’s environmental policy since the end of the New Order period has been adjusted in the direction of adding provisions on environmental procedures and processes to make them more rigorous and complete in terms of environmental management compared to the previous one. The specificity and detail in Law No. 32/2009 and Law No. 11 of 2020 on environmental quality standards, environmental impact analysis, environmental approvals, etc. make the environmental policy more systematic, positive, and reasonable than those in the New Order period.

Supplementing Regulations on Minimum Administrative and Criminal Penalties While Increasing Fines for Environmental Violations For more than a decade after the end of the New Order regime, Indonesia still applied provisions on administrative and criminal penalties for environmental violations under Environmental Law No. 23/1997. However, in the context of environmental pollution and ecosystem degradation that continues to increase, revising the provisions on handling environmental violations with more specific and heavier penalties is the right choice for the Indonesian government. One of the changes in administrative fines and criminal penalties in the Law on Environment No. 32 of 2009 is to specify the minimum prison and fine levels for certain environmental violations. Environmental Law No. 23 of 1997 only stipulates maximum prison years, including up to 3 years, 5 years, 6 years, 9 years, 10 years, or 15 years in prison, and fines up to 100 million rupiahs, 150 million rupiahs, 300 million rupiahs, 450 million rupiahs, 500,000 million rupiahs, and 750 million rupiahs for each specific violation. Since Law No. 32 of 1997 only stipulates the maximum fine, not the minimum, it can create a loophole in deciding the fine level for a particular violation. For example, individuals or businesses may be subject to administrative or criminal penalties much less than their environmental violations or crimes. Therefore, it is necessary to supplement the minimum prison sentence and increase the severity of the criminal sanctions laws. These regulations are not only aimed at properly punishing environmental violations, but also a condition for creating a deterrent effect of the law. In addition, the fines specified in the 1997 Environmental Law are no longer commensurate and deterrent to environmental crimes if placed in the context of the Indonesian economy in the post-New Order period, when the rupiah currency depreciated greatly after the political and economic crisis in 1997–1998. Hence, it is also necessary to increase the fine level to make the law suitable for the new socioeconomic context in Indonesia.

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Environmental Law No. 32 of 2009 has overcome these shortcomings, thus creating the positives of Indonesia’s new environmental policy since the New Order period. Provisions (Articles 98, 99, 101, 102, 103, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109) deal with acts that pollute or destroy the environment, or affect the health and life of humans (directly caused by individuals or businesses), all add a minimum sanction in addition to the maximum sanction. According to these provisions, depending on each crime, the minimum prison sentences are set from 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, or 5 years, while the maximum prison sentences can be 3 years, 6 years, 10 years, 12 years, or 15 years. Similarly, fines are also adjusted with the minimum stipulation of 1 billion rupiahs, 2 billion rupiahs, 3 billion rupiahs, 4 billion rupiahs, or 5 billion rupiahs, while the maximum fine is 3 billion rupiahs, 6 billion rupiahs, 9 billion rupiahs, 10 billion rupiahs, 12 billion rupiahs, or 15 billion rupiahs. These fines are much higher than the fine issued in the Environmental Law in 1997. Law No. 32 of 2009 only stipulates the maximum but not minimum fines/penalties for offenses including compiler of environmental analysis documents (AMDAL) without AMDAL proficiency certificate, authorized public officials failing to perform environmental monitoring responsibilities, or people who give false information about the environment or prevent the implementation of environmental monitoring. Besides, compared with the Environmental Law promulgated in 1997, Environmental Law No. 32 of 2009 divides environmental violations into more categories with more detailed corresponding administrative and criminal penalties. In summary, the provisions dealing with environmental violations mentioned above in Environmental Law No. 32 of 2009 are more specific and stricter than those of Environmental Law No. 23 of 1997. These adjustments represent the updated characteristic and resolute stance against environmental encroachment in the current Indonesian government’s environmental policy.

Policy Towards the Goal of Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions During the first two decades of the twenty-first century, global climate change is occurring at a much faster rate than before. Based on the current report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world is close to reaching tipping points on climate change mainly due to human activities (IPCC, 2022). Meanwhile, Indonesia is a country with a high level of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), ranked sixth largest carbon emitter in the world (Dyarto and Setyawan, 2021). The use of fossil fuel energy has contributed to the most significant GHG in Indonesia besides land-use change and deforestation (Wijaya et al., 2017). Thus, reducing carbon dioxide is an urgent requirement set for Indonesia for its global responsibility. From the fall of the New Order regime until the present, the policy of reducing GHG has been increasingly emphasized in Indonesia’s environmental policy. In the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh in September 2009, Indonesia claimed a 26% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, or up to 41% with international

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assistance (Cronin et al., 2016, p. 59) compared to the business-as-usual scenario by 2020. In May 2011, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued a moratorium on new forest concession licenses. Then in 2015, President Joko Widodo released Presidential Instruction No. 8/2015 (“PI 8/2015”) which led to the suspension of new exploitation licenses for areas of primary natural forest and peat land located in conservation forests, protection forests, production forests, and some other areas. In particular, in 2016, the Indonesian government submitted Indonesia’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) which states: the enhanced actions and the necessary enabling environment during the 2015-2019 period that will lay the foundation for more ambitious goals beyond 2020, contributing to the concerted effort to prevent a 2°C increase in global average temperature and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. For 2020 and beyond, Indonesia envisions achieving archipelagic climate resilience as a result of comprehensive adaptation and mitigation programmes and disaster risk reduction strategies. (UNFCCC, 2016, pp. 1–2)

In October 2021, a Presidential Regulation No. 98/2021 on Economic Value of Carbon to Reach Nationally Determined Contribution’s Target and Control GHG Emission in National Development was enacted. The aim of this regulation is to provide an adequate living quality as mandated in the 1945 Constitution and to meet the Paris Agreement’s (2015) goal of limiting global temperature rise to less than 2° C. The regulation identifies a few trading mechanisms, including a “cap and trade” scheme between two business entities, a carbon offset scheme, and result-based payments. Carbon trading will be conducted via an Indonesian bourse, and levies will be charged on transactions. Next, on November 2021, President Joko Widodo attended the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, United Kingdom. The President announced the main goals of Indonesia’s greenhouse gas reduction policy. This statement represents the previous Government Regulation No. 79/2014 on the National Energy Policy, which set goals of restoration of 2 million hectares of peatland, rehabilitation of 12 million hectares of degraded lands by 2030 (UNFCCC, 2022, p. 6), achievement of at least 23% of new and renewable energy in the energy mix by 2025 and at least 31% of new and renewable energy in the energy mix by 2050, use of less than 25% of crude oil (petroleum) in the energy mix by 2025 and less than 20% of crude oil (petroleum) in the energy mix by 2050, use of a minimum of 30% coal and 22% of natural gas in the energy mix by 2025 and a minimum of 25% coal and 24% of natural gas in the energy mix by 2050, (UNFCCC, 2022, p. 7). It also reflects the Indonesian government’s previous commitment to reducing carbon footprint by 29% by its own efforts and by 41% through international support by 2030 (UNFCCC, 2016, p. 2). In addition to the statements, decisions, and regulations from the government and senior leaders mentioned above, the Indonesian government also issued a number of socioeconomic development plans, which emphasize green growth and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. One of the typical plans is the National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN) for 2020–2024, which included the program of “Green Recovery Roadmap Indonesia 2020–2024.” The Director of Environmental Affairs,

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Ministry of National Development Planning – Medrilzam – commented that “This is a big milestone for Indonesia as it is the first time that green aspects and indicators were included in our national development plan” (Ministry of National Development Planning, 2020, p. 1). The action plan is to be implemented over four phases from 2021 (respond), 2022 (recovery), 2023 (recovery and reevaluate), and 2024 (reward). Projects implemented during these phases include (1) providing preferential loans to 7500 micro-, small, and medium enterprises in the waste sector to improve waste management performance, (2) installing solar panels on the roofs of 70 government buildings with a total installed capacity of up to 14 MW, and (3) direct cash support to farmers to increase crop yield and improve income to reduce their small-scale deforestation activities. These projects are expected to help avoid more than 400 million tCO2e over 25 years (Ministry of National Development Planning, 2020, 4), reflecting that the Government of Indonesia is pursuing a policy of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, albeit to a certain extent. The commitments and greenhouse gas reduction programs that the Indonesian government has continuously made during the democratic reform period up to the present, especially since 2009, show that the Indonesian government is increasingly paying more attention to environmental protection. These commitments and programs are clearly much stronger and more specific than those during the New Order era. Even though the government in the New Order era enacted some laws and decrees in regards to climate change reduction such as Presidential Decree No. 48/1991 concerning the Ratification of the Convention of Wetlands, Law No. 5/1994 concerning the Ratification of the United Nations Convention On Biological Diversity, Law No. 6/1994 concerning the Ratification of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Presidential Decree No. 135/1998 concerning the Ratification of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, Law No. 41/1999 concerning Forestry, but these legal documents are not as specific and strict as those from the post- New Order period to the present. In fact, over the last two decades, corresponding to the period of the post-New Order, worldwide climate change is happening faster and more intensely, which posits an urgent need for countries around the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to protect the environment. As a high greenhouse gas emitter in the world, cutting down Indonesia’s emissions will be very important in protecting the environment and ecosystems on earth. Although it is not known whether Indonesia will succeed in reducing greenhouse gas emissions as planned, the issuance of statements, commitments, and programs on this issue, as mentioned above, also represents the adjustment of Indonesia’s environmental policy towards protecting the environment and fulfill Indonesia’s global responsibility. An overview of Indonesia’s environmental policy from the post-New Order period up to the present shows its positive changes in comparison with the environmental policy in the New Order era. However, it must be emphasized that these positives are being assessed on a comparative basis with the environmental policy of the previous New Order administration. Compared to an ideal environmental policy that totally aims to achieve sustainable development, Indonesia’s environmental policy currently still has restrictions that need to be further adjusted.

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Limitations in Indonesia’s Current Environmental Policy Besides the positive environmental policy adjustments, the environmental policies issued by the Indonesian government since the post-New Order period up to the present have still contained certain limitations. However, if not taking into account Law No. 11/2020 on Job Creation with many controversial provisions, the laws and regulations relating to environmental management are assessed as “sufficient” (Taufiqurokhman & Hafiit, 2020, p. 1208). The fact is that in the process of laws and regulations enacted in the past two decades, it was inevitable that some laws or regulations were incomplete. But then, the laws and regulations were revised and supplemented to become more reasonable. For example, the preliminary Regional Administrations Law No. 22/1999 was replaced by the more specific Regional Autonomy Law No.32/2004. Then in 2014, this law continued to be supplemented and concretized with Law No.23/2014 which comprises many provisions related to the rights and responsibilities of environmental management of local authorities and communities. The clarity and specificity of this regional government law have been greatly improved after more than a decade of experience of Law No. 22/1999. Nevertheless, the currently effective laws and regulations on forest, marine, management, or rights of indigenous people in environmental management at regional levels still have some shortcomings that have not been revised. If these deficiencies are corrected, it will help to further improve Indonesia’s environmental law. Besides, some other notable limitations lie in the new Law No. 11/2020 on Job Creation which was just promulgated in 2020. Some provisions of this law have the potential to make Indonesia’s environmental policy backwards, threatening to undermine the environmental policy advancements that Indonesia has achieved over two decades after the fall of the New Order regime.

Potential Deficiencies in Natural Resources Management and Lack of Integration in Customary Law Despite the rapid progress in regulating natural resources, several rules in the postNew Order era still have multiple interpretations and overlap from one law to another, as an example in forest management. Law No. 41/1999 concerning Forestry, Government Regulation No. 44/2004, Decree (SK) of the Minister of Forestry No. 32/2001, and Minister of Forestry Regulation No. 50/2009 suggest an uncertainty towards the definition of forest area. Hence, there are some possibilities for corporations or companies to abuse authority in forest management. Law No. 41/1999 does not clearly state the procedure of forest area determination so that the perpetrators of illegal logging and illegal forest mining escape prosecution. Besides, the forestry law does not cover corporate crime (Rompas, 2018). Albeit, systematic forestry crimes can be ascertained not only by individuals but also by company policies. In addition, issues of conflict with surrounding communities, community access rights in forest areas, uncertainty over management rights, legal

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and regulatory issues, and forestry institutions are still becoming the main challenges for the Indonesian government (Yasmi et al., 2009; McCarthy, 2012). In the most recent regulation concerning forestry management, the Indonesian government has enacted Government Regulation No. 23/2021, which attempts to address several existing problems. Nevertheless, this new regulation tends to provide business opportunities in forest resource management and at the same time to undertake forest conservation (Asmin, 2021). As one of the largest maritime countries in the world, Indonesia also has enormous marine resources. Likewise in the forestry sector, the regulation of marine natural resources is vulnerable to abuse of authority. It is proven by the many cases of exploitation of marine resources in Indonesia. Problems such as marine and coastal pollution, illegal fishing, marine debris, and habitat destruction continue to occur. Especially when it comes to the maritime sector, the ocean laws should cover the complexity of cross-border between countries. Problems are present starting from the determination of the boundaries of the sea area, the spatial planning of the sea, to the management of the resources in it (Satria & Matsuda, 2004). Actually, the government has comprehensively legalized some laws concerning marine resources such as Law No. 32/2014 concerning Marine Affairs, Law No. 27/2007 as amended by Law No. 1/2014 concerning the Management of Coastal Resources and Small Islands, Law No. 30/2004 as amended by Law No. 45/2010 concerning Fisheries, and Law No. 17/2008 concerning Shipping. Nevertheless, in spatial planning, a number of problems also arise, especially related to national marine spatial planning, preparation of marine space zoning plans, control of pollution and ecosystem damage, and the provision of social assistance/grants to the community. Those problems cannot be separated from a number of obstacles that arise related to the laws and regulations that have not been drafted, textual and contextual errors in the legislation, to the problem of the substance of the legislation (ACCH, 2014). In natural resource management, a marginalized community such as indigenous people is often forgotten in the development planning. Regarding environmental policies and laws, indigenous people are considered one strategic stakeholder. The 1945 Constitution Article 18B mentions that “the state recognizes and respects customary law community units and their traditional rights as long as they are still alive and following the development of society and the principles of the Republic of Indonesia, which are regulated by law.” Furthermore, the local government is responsible for establishing local and regional regulations for indigenous people, including customary land, customary forest, and their customary law. Unfortunately, only 21 regencies/cities and three provinces have included indigenous communities in their constitution (Arman, 2016). In fact, cases involving customary lands and corporations often occur in Indonesia. Many studies also reveal that the existence of indigenous people could ensure the sustainability of the land, forest, and ocean (Shepherd & Terry, 2004; Tamalene et al., 2014; Putraditama et al., 2019). At this moment, the House of Representatives (DPR) is still working on laws concerning indigenous people that could be a hope for thousands of indigenous communities to get legal certainty and protection.

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Law No. 11/2020 on Job Creation and the Risks of Exacerbating Environmental Degradation At the beginning of October 2020, the government and the House of Representatives (DPR) passed Law No. 11/2020 concerning job creation (UU Cipta Kerja). Controversial articles have emerged especially on environmental issues. While, on the one hand, this law contains a number of provisions that help improve environmental policy, on the other hand, it also enacts many provisions that are likely to accelerate the risk of environmental degradation in Indonesia. This paper argues that Law No. 11/2020 creates quite a lot of restrictions on Indonesia’s environmental policy, including the following key issues: reducing the community participation’s role in environmental protection, increasing the risk of environmental damage due to the simplification of business licenses, potentially reducing the area of protected forest, and supporting fossil energy mining activities. The enactment of the Omnibus Law with provisions relating to these issues causes Indonesia’s environmental policy less progressive. According to the community and activists concerned with ecological issues, the job creation law does not guarantee the preservation of nature (Sihombing & Hamid, 2020). The job creation law abolishes, changes, and stipulates new rules related to business licensing as regulated in Law No. 32 of 2009 concerning environmental protection and management (UU PPLH). One of the issues in the spotlight is the provision of the environmental impact analysis (AMDAL). Environmental protection and job creation laws have addressed the community’s role. However, the provisions in the job creation law narrow down the definition of community. The community referred to in the environmental protection law is the affected community, environmentalists, and those affected by all forms of decisions in the AMDAL process, while in the job creation law, the definition of the community is only the people who are directly affected (Article 26 item 2). Therefore, the law severely limits community participation in the environmental assessment process. According to the law, only those directly impacted by the project can object—a restriction that will hinder NGOs and other social groups (experts and potentially affected people) in protecting the environment. This new provision in the Omnibus law is a serious setback in terms of public participation in environmental protection. It shows a tendency towards economic growth rather than environmental protection. With this change, the Joko Widodo administration seems to be returning to the outdated and short-sighted approach to the environment of the New Order era. Under the Omnibus Law, the requirement to obtain an environmental permit is removed as this will be integrated into the business license. Companies are only required to obtain an AMDAL approval or to provide a statement letter undertaking to comply with the UKL-UPL standards before they can obtain a business license. However, the Omnibus Law does not stipulate that if companies change their business practices, whether they need to reapply for AMDAL approval or a statement letter undertaking to comply with the UKL-UPL standards. While this laxity

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facilitates investment and business, it makes environmental safety more vulnerable to breach. According to Law No. 41/1999, the main function of protected forests is for life support systems such as regulating water management, preventing flooding, controlling erosion, preventing seawater intrusion, and maintaining soil fertility. Hence, the use of existing protected forests is limited by the law. However, the amendment of Article 18, Paragraph 2, of Law No. 41/1999 concerning Forestry in the Job Creation Law has undergone significant changes. The paragraph mentions “the forest area that must be maintained as referred to in Paragraph 1 is at least 30% of the area of river watersheds and/or islands with a proportional distribution.” The Job Creation Law removes the minimum limit of 30% of forest area. Instead, it states that the central government is authorized to determine the extent of the forest area to be maintained (including designating areas for national strategic projects) in accordance with the physical and geographical conditions of the relevant river basins and islands. This leads to the risk that the forest area will be reduced to serve “national strategic projects” and shows that forest protection has not been prioritized compared to other socioeconomic development goals. Besides, permission to exploit the protected areas is becoming easier. In Law No. 41/1999 concerning Forestry, all types of permits for the use of forest areas are listed in full which consist of eight points of types of permits divided by function and forest designation (Article 28). Meanwhile, in the Job Creation Law, the licensing mechanism is simplified to only one type, namely, in the form of business licensing (Article 27). The ease of granting permits without considering the ecological aspect is very risky for the environmental impacts that will be caused in the future. The Job Creation Law threatens the existing utilization patterns in the protected forest. The type of use of protected forest which was originally only for environmental services and utilization of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) is in accordance with the mandate of Law No. 41/1999 and can be used more diversely because of the addition of a clause on the use of forest areas (Article 36). The existence of protected forest areas is very risky to be used for interests that tend to be exploitative, for example, conversion to mining, plantations, etc. This can clearly lead to the loss and destruction of protected forest which is valuable as permanent life support. Moreover, the role of the central government is increasingly centralized, so that with this centralized mechanism it can lead to inequality of benefits received between the center and the regions. The management of the mining business was previously regulated in Law No. 4/2009 concerning Mineral and Coal Mining. It was later changed to Law No. 3/2020 concerning amendments to Law No. 4/2009 concerning Mineral and Coal Mining. The authority to manage mineral and coal mining has shifted where when referring to Article 6, Article 7, and Article 8 of Law No. 4/2009 concerning Mineral and Coal Mining, in its management, it is divided into the authority of the central government, provincial government, and city district governments. However, after the enactment of Law No. 3 of 2020 concerning amendments to Law No. 4/2009 concerning Mineral and Coal Mining, the authority for mining management is centralized and the authority lies with the central government. In addition,

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amendments to Article 162 of the Mineral and Coal Law contained in the Job Creation Act are considered to be able to criminalize people who are considered to hinder or interfere with mining business activities that have permits. Article 162 mentions everyone who hinders or interferes with activities of mining business with permission holders based on law shall be sentenced to a maximum imprisonment of 1 (one) year or a maximum fine of IDR 100.000.000 (100 million rupiahs). Following Law No. 4 of 2009, mining companies are required to carry out all reclamation and post-mining activities as well as deposit reclamation and postmining guarantee funds. It is totally different from Law No. 3/2020 which decreases the responsibility of mining companies. As written in Article 96 of the Mineral and Coal Mining Law/2020, letter b, the company’s obligation to repair ex-mining land now only needs to do one of the repair obligations. Mining companies can freely choose between reclamation activities or post-mining activities. Not only that, companies that are proven to be negligent and do not carry out reclamation or post-mining activities can still extend their contract permits. In Article 128A of the Job Creation Law No. 11/2020 in lieu of the Minerba Law, it is explained that business actors who can increase the added value of coal will receive preferential treatment in the form of imposition of a royalty of 0%. However, so far the royalties determined by the government for mining entrepreneurs are part of state revenue and are included as regional income through the profit-sharing fund mechanism. It can be considered that the provisions of Law No. 11/2020 on Job Creation are a step backwards in the process of environmental policy adjustment in Indonesia over the past two decades. However, this is only a temporary setback and it is possible that the regulations will be revised in the near future.

Discussion The research results above show that from the collapse of the New Order regime until the present, Indonesia’s environmental policy has been adjusted in a progressive direction. Although this policy has some shortcomings, it is fundamentally more progressive than the environmental policy enacted during the New Order era. Theoretically, an improvement in environmental policy would normally result in better environmental and ecosystem quality. Nevertheless, advances in environmental policy adjustment do not seem to have improved environmental quality in Indonesia. Widianarko’s study (Widianarko, 2009, pp. 4–6) compiled data showing that during the first decade of the democratic reform period, water and air pollution in Indonesia occurred on a large scale, while forests and corals were destroyed, and marine biodiversity was severely reduced. Then, in the years 2011–2014, Indonesia’s environmental quality continuously declined. According to data published by the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry (IMEF) “environmental quality decreased nationally from 65.76 in 2011 to 63.96 in 2012 and 63.42 in 2014. Air and water quality, as well as forest cover, all showed a reduction.” About 70% of coral reefs and 64% of total mangrove forests (equivalent to three

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million hectares) suffered serious damage (as cited in Widodo et al., 2019, pp. 76–77). Since then Indonesia has been in the international public spotlight because of the various environmental damages. Recently, based on the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI), approximately 80% of Indonesia’s population is exposed to above-average air pollution concentration, and Indonesia is ranked fifth highest loss of life-years due to particulate pollution in the world (Greenstone & Fan, 2019). Besides, the Environment and Forestry Ministry (KLHK) mentioned that 59% of rivers in Indonesia are still heavily polluted (Indonesia Water Portal, 2021). The overall data on environmental quality shows that environmental policy has had a rather fuzzy impact on improving environmental quality. Therefore, it is necessary to find a fundamental reason to explain the asymmetry between the well-improved environmental policy and the low environmental quality in Indonesia. Putting Indonesia’s environmental policy in the economic, political, and social context of this nation over the past two decades, it can be seen that the poor environmental policy enforcement has been the main reason for low environmental quality in the country. The weak environmental policy enforcement stemmed from two main aspects: firstly, the low level of socioeconomic development in Indonesia (manifested in the weakness of both human resources and facilities for the management and protection of the environment) and, secondly, mechanisms of corruption and collusion that have been maintained since the New Order era. In a study on the limitations of environmental policy implementation in Sidoarjo (Indonesia), the group authors of Widodo et al. (2019) mentioned the state of lacking human resources to monitor compliance with environmental management regulations, the shortage of experts in environmental pollution impact analysis, the lack of supporting facilities (such as pollution detection devices and laboratory equipment, funding, etc.), and lack of community participation in the management and protection of the environment (due to inadequate awareness of the people about the dangerous level of environmental pollution and degradation to report to the authorities). These weaknesses lead to the environmental management process not being fully and effectively implemented. Besides, the state of pervasive corruption, bribery, and collusion in Indonesia from central to local levels has also contributed to the weak environmental policy enforcement. In many cases, businesses/individuals whose activities have a negative impact on the environment were not prosecuted, or just lightly handled due to their close relationship with the government. Moreover, some government officials have even abetted resource extraction activities. Regarding illegal logging, Dudley (2002, p. 25) observed: “In order to gain access to forestlands and avoid taxes, entrepreneurs conspire with local officials to carry out illegal logging.” The combination of weaknesses in human resources, facilities, equipment, and mechanisms of cover-up, corruption, and collusion has also made licensing for production or resource extraction project not always in compliance with regulations. For example, the implementation of the environmental impact analysis (EIA) as the basis for licensing can be done casually and “is more directed at fulfilling

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administrative requirements than at achieving substantive protection” (Widodo et al., 2019, p. 81). The policy of empowering local environmental management over the past two decades has exacerbated the quality of the environment in Indonesia. As mentioned, the nature of giving management authority to local governments is a positive, even constitutional, policy, but a heavily “collusive” and “corruptive” operating mechanism together with poor infrastructure, equipment, and human resources made the implementation of this policy a disaster. In the context of budget autonomy, localities have tried their best to exploit natural resources and expand production in order to increase local revenue. Without effective oversight from the central government, the decentralization process and the implementation of the policy of empowering local environmental management has aggravated environmental degradation in Indonesia during the first decade of democratization. Thus, low environmental quality has been mainly a consequence of poor environmental policy enforcement in Indonesia from the early years of the post-New Order era to the present. At the same time, ineffective policy implementation has almost nullified the positive values of environmental policy. However, an improved environmental policy still has its long-term effects. To a certain extent, it has formed the basis for transformation in environmental quality. In the process of environmental degradation, there have always been activities to protect the environment as environmental degradation directly affects daily life, even human destiny. These activities have still been going on in Indonesia led by environmental NGOs, affected communities, the press, academia, students, and even a small part of the elite. Activists have relied on regulations of environmental policy to ask for an end to activities that pollute the environment. They have also required investigation and prosecution of businesses/individuals responsible for such activities. The government, under pressure from the public, has had to gradually improve policy implementation. The overall picture of Indonesia’s environment over the past two decades has been a continued deterioration compared to the New Order period, but considering a specific part of the environment, such as forests, a certain improvement in the condition of the environment in Indonesia can be recognized. The data on deforestation over recent years show that destroyed forest area over the past 20 years has been decreasing. According to the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry, in the period 1997–2000 an average of 2.83 million hectares of forests were destroyed each year (as cited in Mina, 2016, p. 151). Then, in the period 2000–2006, with stricter control from both central and regional governments, deforestation slowed down to 1.08 million ha/year. From 2013 until now, deforestation has decreased significantly at 397,370 ha (2013–2014), 1,092,181 ha (2014–2015), 629,176 ha (2015–2016), 480,010 ha (2016–2017), 439,439 ha (2017–2018), and 462,458 ha/year (2018–2019) (Badan Pusat Statistik, 2022). Except for the unusual increase in the area of deforested forest in 2014–2015 of over one million ha, in the remaining years, deforestation has decreased significantly. Based on this data, our study suggests that improvement in environmental policy is an influencing factor in reducing the area of deforestation in Indonesia. It is the government’s increasingly positive attitudes and policies on forest protection (shown in the promulgation of

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stricter regulations on forest concessions, forest exploitation, handling of illegal logging, etc. as well as the increasingly strong educational propaganda about the importance of forest conservation to the people) that is the basis for the more effective implementation of forest policy. Although the area of cleared forest has still been high so far, but compared to about 10 years ago, it has decreased significantly. Thus, if considering a specific area of forest conservation and evaluating the environment policy in a long-term impact, the improvement of environmental policy has had a certain effect in improving environmental quality in Indonesia.

Conclusion and Recommendations The transition to democracy in Indonesia since 1998 up to the present has led to an adjustment of environmental policy, which includes both positives and negatives. Compared to the New Order era, this is a remarkable progress and it lays the groundwork for a long-term policy shift towards sustainability in Indonesia. However, Indonesia’s current environmental policy is not yet fully progressive in the sense that it is entirely in the service of sustainable development. Despite this, improvements in environmental policy have had initial impacts on the environment and ecosystems in Indonesia. This slow and relatively low level of impact is due to the impediment of the country’s socioeconomic and political conditions. Nevertheless, it reflects that the outlook for environmental quality will continue to improve if Indonesia is determined to pursue an active environmental protection policy. This study recommends that although the Indonesian government is in need of exploiting natural resources and promoting production to meet the country’s economic growth demands, the government should still pay more attention to the issue of environmental protection. First of all, the Indonesian government needs to invest in revising the existing shortcomings in the environmental regulations in order to make them specific and clear enough. Besides, the government should also amend some controversial environmental provisions in Law No. 11/2020 on Job Creation, which would help encourage investors in Indonesia to operate their businesses in a more environmentally responsible manner and thereby serve the sustainable development of the people and the nation. Simultaneously, the government should work with local authorities to strengthen the enforcement of environmental laws by continuing to support equipment and strengthen staff’s ability to inspect and monitor the environment and strictly handle environmental violations. Indonesia’s ambition to become a green economy and achieve sustainable development in the future can only become a reality if the Indonesian government from right now seriously pursues an environmental protection policy. Indonesia has committed to reducing the adverse impact of climate change and achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). Thus, Indonesia should enforce the principle “no one left behind” in environmental policies from planning to implementation. The stakeholders should include various actors such as scientists, private sector/business,

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media, NGOs, and the community. Lastly, Indonesia should consider vulnerable groups, for instance, the indigenous community, the poor, women, children, the elderly, and so forth, in every environmental policy to ensure inclusivity and social justice.

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Thanh Ho, Ph.D. VNU, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi, Vietnam Abdul Fikri Angga Reksa National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Jakarta, Re-search Center for Area Studies; Indonesia

Aspects of Civil Engagement, Media, and Environmental Issues in Japan Timo Mohr

Following on from previous chapters in this volume, this one will also show that concrete environmental topics are important national issues whose implementations vary from country to country. This is also true in the following example of Japan. Here, too, society and government institutions have their very own reactions to solve pressing environmental problems in the 2010s and 2020s. First to mention would be the nuclear disaster of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on March 11, 2011, and its still far-reaching consequences for social and political life in Japan. The aspect of this environmental disaster that is comparatively less prominent is its connection with last year’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, which were postponed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic posing too great of a health risk to athletes and spectators. Acknowledging that, anti-Olympic movements such as the anti-Olympic movement group Hangorin no Kai which also campaigns for environmental topics, tried to put pressure on the Japanese political level to stop the games, but without success. Furthermore, Greenpeace Japan wants to prevent the dangers of contamination of Japanese and international waters that would be caused by the planned dumping of radioactively contaminated cooling water of the nuclear power plant starting in 2023. There are already multifaceted descriptions of different aspects of social movement in Japan. Just to name a few examples, Cassegård wrote about the history of protest in Japan and the importance the 2011 catastrophe had regarding social movement (Cassegård, 2022). Hommerich analyzed the importance of social connectedness for motivating Japanese citizens to play a more crucial role for society (Hommerich, 2014). Mesimäki meanwhile asks the crucial question where Japan’s climate strikers are and what causes this absence (Mesimäki, 2019). A crucial part of society, its youth, was also the focus of research (Kyōko, 2021; Ryall, 2021).

T. Mohr (✉) Justus Liebig University Giessen, Giessen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Briesen, S. P. Das (eds.), Media, Politics and Environment, Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31252-6_15

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The following pages aim to rather introduce more widely spread-out relevant topics to pave the way for further research in these highly relevant areas and will provide examples of where the keywords “environmental policy,” “civil society mobilization,” and “media” intersect. This article does not promise a fully comprehensive description of the complex issues, but it will draw on relevant points and shed light on them. This article begins with a general overview of the extent to which Japanese citizens participate in civic activities. The second section focuses on environmental issues of Japan. The most well-known would be the Fukushima nuclear accident, its meaning for civil society engagement, and media coverage. Another would be the still ongoing pandemic. This article links these two environmental catastrophes with an example of civic engagement. Following on from this the last section examines social media platforms on their potential of providing digital rooms to connect and organize. All these points can be summarized under the following questions, as to what extent selected environmental issues in Japan have been discussed by civil society as well as the media in recent years and if those involvements are enough to tackle pressing environmental problems. The source materials are mainly newspaper articles and reports.

Chapter: Civic Movement in Japan. History, Trends— Apathy? There was a time in Japan when civil society commitment was much more visible from the outside than it might be today. Especially the then younger part of the civil society voiced their opinions on the streets in the 1960s and 1970s. Protests at that time were not only louder, they were also more violent. This higher potential for violence of course attracted the attention of the broader media landscape – national as well as international. Probably the best-known incident of this era was the assassination of the leader of the Japan Socialist Party, Inejirō Asanuma, by the 17-year-old right-wing extremist Otoya Yamaguchi (Ryall, 2021). The picture of the assassination went around the world and eventually won the Pulitzer Prize. Another example of massive protests was the so-called Anpo struggle in 1959–1960 and again in 1970. Those protests, massive in size, were led against the United States-Japan Security Treaty which allowed the former nation to install numerous military bases on Japanese home ground thus establishing a foreign military presence. Hundreds of thousands voiced their opinion against such an influence but to no avail. These large-scale and potentially violence-fueled protests however lie in the past. In between those and the protests that can be seen now lie what Cassegård describes as an “ice age.” During that period, preparation for protests did not cease but rather shifted into niches of movement spaces, where activism still existed – just not clearly

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visible to the public eye (Cassegård, 2022). This activism then resurfaced, albeit not as strong as before. Nowadays, civic movements still rally for diverse topics. Examples would include protests for and against the possible changing of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. These protests are about whether Japan should maintain its pacifist stance, enshrined in the constitution since the end of World War II, or change it in the face of growing tensions with its geopolitical neighbors such as China and Russia. Since 2011, there have been and continue to be protests that address the issue of nuclear power generation, as well as protests on current issues that are present in society. This year, Japanese citizens have gathered in support of Ukrainians in large numbers thanks to social media influencers who were distributing information about the war in Ukraine. With their help calls for action went viral on social media. One drew roughly 2000 people onto the streets in Shibuya. Protestors contributed to their support with singing the Ukrainian national anthem and by financial contributions. Besides the civic sector, the political sphere also eyes the Russian aggression with skepticism. The implications of their actions also draw questions for other nations and into the Indo-Pacific Region. If Russia was to conquer Ukraine, this could manifest a precedent for China making moves for the Senkaku Island and Taiwan (Lee et al., 2022). But what the protests nowadays have in common is their relatively small scale and their peaceful nature – albeit some examples would deny this assessment. One of those would be situated in 2011, when Japan saw mass protests after the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe. But how big were they? As Brasor puts it “conventional wisdom” says that the organizers tend to exaggerate the numbers while the media underestimate them. Additionally, the police conducted their own assessment of existing crowd sizes “for security purposes” but those numbers do not get officially published. He gives some example figures of a demonstration in front of the prime minister’s official home as reported by various media sites. The organizers stated that 150,000 people attended; however, the police estimated just 17,000 persons. A much larger number was estimated by the Asahi Shimbun, counting 150,000–180,000. Veteran reporter Shuntaro Torigoe said that 40,000–50,000 people attended the demo. Both the organizers’ and the police’s estimates were published by the comparatively liberal Mainichi and the relatively liberal Sankei Shimbun. NHK merely stated that the attendance was “greater” than that of the demonstration the week before. According to journalist Yusaku Tanaka, authorities count participants at rallies but fail to account for later crowd swells (Brasor, 2012). Also, speaking in more general terms, protests nowadays lack the demographics of younger people, which poses to be a problem. According to Ryall, those younger generations do not tend to be utterly apathetic, they rather take their protest and opinion elsewhere. Due to technological advancements, it has become decisively easy to carry dissatisfaction and protest onto various social media sites or platforms Yet, despite these virtual possibilities, there are lingering personal issues that need to be addressed too. Focusing on oneself to achieve individual goals relating the job market or studies does not leave much room for further activities outside these workrelated issues: “I have opinions on issues, but everyone is too busy trying to get by,

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with studies or a part-time job to pay for university, that there is no time to take part in movements or protests” (Ryall, 2021). It might not entirely be the switch to digital platforms that explains an apathy of young Japanese. Surveys across the board indicate a general trend of lower interest and motivation in social movements of young Japanese in comparison to young people in other nations. For instance, the Nippon Foundation’s Awareness Survey of 18-Year-Olds, which was conducted in nine nations including Japan, found that only 20% of Japanese youth believe they possess the ability to change existing social and political structures. People born between 1949 and 1953 had the highest level of belief that public action may influence national politics, but this rate decreased the younger the demographics become. Kyōko recognizes this trend as social and cultural elements which have an impact on the consciousness and encourage younger people to avoid politics. She also gives the driving force behind this decline: There happens to be a reduced visibility of social movements in Japan since the bigger waves of protests in the 1970s. Their overall numbers fell and labor unions, as well as student council groups at universities, also notify a decline in their membership numbers. Civic movements, their ideals, and implications therefore become less and less present in the minds of the people (Kyōko, 2021). She further explains a fear that is inherit to younger people regarding their future. Apparently, it is not easy for young job-seeking prospects to voice a political opinion or oppose those being in power. Such an outspokenness would hurt them in their job hunting evoking unwanted reactions of potential employers or fellow citizen. Being considered an individualist can be a danger in Japan. This status is already not supported in schools and is not welcomed for employment (Kyōko, 2021). Despite those negative attributes to civic engagement in Japan, it is surprising that still a large and growing number of Japanese say they would like to make a contribution to society. By 2013 67% did make such a statement. The share of the people that actually are already engaged in some form of volunteer activity more than doubled to 25% in 2012 from 10% in 2003. Hommerich believes the root of this positive trend to be the emerging volunteerism following the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995 (Hommerich, 2014). Sixty-nine percent of the people that did not participate in community work said that time restrictions or a lack of interest were the main factors of their decision. Focusing on the overarching topic of this volume, the environmental factor, one of the most dominant ones in Japan, was and still is the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe resulting from the great earthquake and tsunami in 2011. This incident was initially a game-changer that greatly aided the dissemination of ideas regarding the antinuclear protest movement. Before 2011, one major challenge to face by antinuclear power movements was in winning over the public as in demonstrating the ability to be able to develop positive frames to counteract their naturally critical and oppositional imagery. It was of utmost importance to display that they were more than merely a movement that seemingly rejected and opposed growth or progress (Hasegawa, 2010, 90). And there was plenty of potential to show for it too! Hasegawa detected in 2010 more than 10,000 environmental nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations. Yet this sheer number of potentials could not

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heave itself to a positive outcome. A lack of influence on national and local governmental policy, mass media which could have helped to gain some public attention, and on public opinion itself was scarce. This neglectable influential status stood in a vicious circle, resulting in low counts of memberships in these organizations and their limited budget to cover costs and staff expenditure which again ended up in small influential capabilities (Hasegawa, 2010, 86). But during 2011, more than ever before, activists could pick up ways to get themselves be heard without the public or political parties interpreting them as controversial or overly extreme. They received the open support from all fronts – be it even from celebrities or conservative politicians (Cassegård, 2022). This fervent activism though soon became more fragile. Political decisions were either deemed wrong or out of touch from reality. Contaminated earth piling up next to roads, the still upheld evacuation of population, the stalled decommissioning of nuclear reactors, and the failure to return nature and life to its pre-disaster form left many Japanese citizens and activists angry and disappointed (GreenPartyJapan, 2022). This feeling of not being properly listened to seemed to strengthen again the apathy and hopelessness that was felt before which again leads to a lack of interest in politics. Mesimäki points to the World Values Survey findings that a lot more Japanese than in other industrialized countries are disillusioned and cynical of their democratic and governmental institutions as a result of the “soft paternalism” of the Japanese state, which aims to produce calm and submissive citizenry (Mesimäki, 2019). This path of the Japanese state may have led to more levelheaded citizens, yet it also led to disillusioned and distrustful citizen that lost faith in their democratic and governing institutions. The failure to tackle the Fukushima catastrophe appropriately is just one good example of this failed state government. Where other states like Germany experienced large climate strike protests connected to the Fridays for Future movement where pupils repeatedly stopped going to school on Fridays which even resulted in a political debate if this is appropriate and legal, Japan did not catch up with this trend. In September 2019 alone roughly six million people took part in climate strikes around the world. But in Japan, less than six thousand people combined protested on the streets. Especially regarding the big topic climate change, Japan should be on the more active side. Year after year it has to deal with floods resulting from heavy rains, typhoons, or severe drought. But the major media company like NHK or Asahi Shimbun decides to not mention any climate strikes (Mesimäki, 2019). And this process of uneducation begins early. The “authoritarian” system of Japanese education places minimal weight on critical thinking and does not quite know the concept of skipping class to protest environmental issues – be it on a Friday or whenever. Mesimäki notes that even higher education institutions like universities are completely depoliticized and cowed (Mesimäki, 2019). So, generally speaking, historically Japan knows how to organize big protests but lost its momentum along the way. Unfortunately, it seems that in the near future the prospect of young Japanese joining civic movements is rather low. Despite this rather grim outlook, a strong and lively civic engagement is of course needed in a

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country and there are still groups in Japan rallying for their ideals as thematized in the next chapter.

Chapter: COVID-19 and Fukushima: Significance for Civil Society Engagement and Media Culture on the Basis of Environmental Issues The Example of Hangorin no Kai: Combining Olympics and Environmental Protests In the last 2 years, Japan has had to deal with two major political and social issues that have had a strong impact on each other. First, enormous planning and infrastructural challenges had to be overcome for the 2020 Olympic Games. However, the strong enthusiasm as Tokyo won the bid for the games soon gave way to an increasingly negative attitude against actually hosting the games. One of the major reasons for this was the second issue. The spreading effects of the pandemic in Japan led to debates at the beginning of 2020 as to whether the games should be postponed or even cancelled altogether. In the end, the first option was chosen and the games were moved to the summer of 2021. Unfortunately, even by that summer, the viral infection had not been sufficiently contained, so what had already been feared became reality. The games did take place without international spectators. The biggest sporting event was thus missing an essential component. What was not missing, however, were the protests of some Japanese citizens who began years ago to demonstrate against hosting the Olympics. Their civil society engagement was not only directed against the games, but also against other issues such as Fukushima. The following section takes a closer look at this commitment. The name of this group to be discussed here is Hangorin no kai or roughly “AntiOlympics Group.” This group was founded in 2013 and had a relatively small number of 12 core members. It was composed of activists who lived together in a homeless tent community in Yoyogi Park right at the heart of Tokyo. They began demonstrating against the then still upcoming Olympics when the route that some IOC members were taking on a visiting tour was cleared of homeless people (Ganseforth, 2020). According to Ganseforth, such an anti-Olympics movement in Japan tends to consist of “veterans” who have continued their oppositional work outside the spotlight since the 1960s/1970s and more recently have become associated with the antinuclear movement (Ganseforth, 2020). Despite the initial, relatively small core group, Hangorin no kai continued to develop. Within a few years of its founding in 2013, it became increasingly globally networked with other international anti-Olympics movements. This developed to such an extent that it invited people to the first transnational anti-Olympics summit in Tokyo in July 2019. Organizers from Rio de Janeiro, Pyeongchang, Paris, Los Angeles, and Jakarta came together for a weeklong meeting (Robertson, 2020a). Other participants from Tokyo anti-Olympic

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movements, such as Okotowalink, also took part in the workshops. Presentations were made and strategies developed on how the Olympics would affect inter alia environmental issues. Not only was international cooperation strengthened, also during the week joint demonstrations were held on the streets of Tokyo. This helped the demonstrators gain wider local as well as international media attention. The antiOlympics movement is not used to such interest, as their demonstrations or public statements are not usually covered more widely in the Japanese media landscape (Robertson, 2020b). And the times where they were covered, it even occurred that they were being framed. On December 2021, a documentary was aired by the NHK Osaka Broadcasting Station where a man was falsely labelled to be paid by anti-Olympics movements to voice against the Olympic Games. NHK admitted on January 9, 2022, that indeed those allegations were not true, but denied any accusations of it being intentional. The documentary focused on a filmmaker, who interviewed those who were opposed of the holding of the Olympic Summer Games. An interviewee was the anonymous man in question (Masato, 2022). This incident forced Hangorin no kai into publishing a statement that in no cases they pay people to root for their causes. They also fear that those kinds of allegations severely harm the reputation of anti-Olympics groups and undermine the protest movement (Unknown, 2022c). Hangorin no kai tried to reach the highest echelons to get comments about how the IOC themselves think about holding the Olympics in such a dangerous environment. They posted an open letter to the president of the IOC Thomas Bach. Their questions to Bach included whether it was justified to delay the reconstruction of the areas affected by the triple disaster in favor of sending monetary funds for hosting of the Olympics (Unknown, 2013). Bach did not write a response to these questions himself, but commissioned Mark Adams, the IOC’s Director of Communications, to write the response. This answer made it clear that relocation was often necessary in an ever-changing city, that they were confident that the games would boost the Japanese economy, and that the games would create initiatives to help rebuild the affected areas (Unknown, 2014). Furthermore, he noted that then Prime Minister of Japan Shinzō Abe promised that the situation at Fukushima would not hinder the games in his remarks to the International Olympic Committee Session in Buenos Aires in 2013. He also declared that the government is actively monitoring the open sea and that the effects of radioactive elements in the waters around Fukushima were restricted to the port area of the power plant. Regarding Tokyo and a potential contamination of sea waters near the capital due to sea currents, it was reassured that the then current water radiation level was at a safe level comparable to that of London, New York, and Paris. Despite those soothing words, skepticism remained until the very end. The organization Greenpeace Japan stated that safety in the areas around the Fukushima nuclear power plant was by no means assured. A measurement of radiation levels near the J-Village sports and event center, the set starting point for the torch relay, showed radiation levels of 71 microsieverts per hour, which is 1775 times the

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radiation level at the site before the nuclear disaster. This radiation level has not been published by the Japanese government (Ogawa, 2020). But the controversies did not stop there. COVID-19 forced Tokyo into its fourth state of emergency through the games, yet the numbers of positive coronavirus cases still rose every day leading up to the start of the Olympics, not just among Tokyo residents but also among people connected to the games (Goldman, 2021). Of course, they did not remain hidden to the public. People took to the streets raising their concerns about the games. Their stance was clear: Olympics could not take place while COVID-19 is threatening the lives of people in Japan. Nagatsuka is quoting in his article one protestor: “Anyone could be carrying the coronavirus. We’ve been working with that assumption and that’s the status quo in the medical industry. The medical care system is about to collapse. We had over 1,000 new infection cases in Tokyo today. The state of emergency (for Tokyo and several other prefectures) has been extended and we can’t expect this to end in the foreseeable future. How can we bring the Olympics here under these circumstances?” (Nagatsuka, 2021) Polls have regularly shown that the majority of Japanese voters wanted the games to be either cancelled or postponed. This dissatisfaction surpassed beyond the customary griping about traffic, overall expense that the tax payer has to burden, and environmental impact into an unforeseen dimension (Goldman, 2021). Those were steep challenges to manage for Abe. But instead of calming things down, he seemed to made them more explosive. A week before the opening ceremony, one conversation came to light where he states that those “who have been criticized by some as anti-Japan” are now “strongly opposing staging the Olympics.” The context of Abe’s comment suggested that he was speaking to a small group of people, portraying the protest movement as being driven by a desire to paint Japan in a negative light. Abe attributed opposition parties’ concerns about the Olympics spreading COVID-19 to politics while ignoring the reality that a sizable segment of the general public opposes the games for the same reason. This commentary is important to highlight as it shows that the Metropolitan Police Department has been conducting anti-terrorism and anti-riot drills to be ready for any violent antiOlympics protests. Even while there have been numerous anti-Olympics rallies during the years prior to holding the games, violence attributes were not a part of those. Brasor emphasizes that the media presents the police’s fear at face value without clearly separating out civic group protests from potential terrorist actions. This media coverage can support Abe’s association of “anti-Olympics” and “antiJapan” (Brasor, 2021). Astoundingly, this seems to be the strategy of some rightwing groups. They take a stance of possible violence to intimidate people they disagree with while staying confident that the government would uphold their right for free speech and that the media will portray everything as a conflict between political interests. Furthermore, the mass media fails to discern between the opposition to those in power and intimidation of those without power (Brasor, 2021). But despite all this outcry, despite all the negativity around the Olympics, they were being held. One would question if this apparently clear inability to listen to the voices of the electorate did have a clear impact on the next election results. Or were

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these preceding arguments not so important for the Japanese voter after all? Despite all the circumstances, did too few people take to the streets to convey their views to a broader section of the population?Following the lower house election on October 31, 2021, Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) maintained its overall majority in the Diet. The LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito won a total of 293 seats out of the 465 available seats. Earlier, Yoshihide Suga, the then prime minister, resigned as a result of the LDP’s handling of the devastating fifth wave and the coronavirus outbreak during the Tokyo Olympics. The new prime minister Fumio Kishida was put to the test with this election and he succeeded (Unknow, 2022a). So, COVID-19 did not manage to break the astounding dominance of the prevalent political environment in Japan nor were anti-Olympics movements able to successfully stop the Olympic Games. More than that, they had to fight uphill battles against media and political representatives. Did one of the most prevalent topic “Fukushima” have a different outcome?

Waters Back into the Ocean? In Japan, opposition to nuclear power continues to be a significant source of mobilization. Since 2011, the antinuclear demands have remained as people remember the accident, peaking in March each year. Despite the start of the coronavirus pandemic even in 2020, there was a slight increase in March. When people flocked to the streets to mark the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 2020, the data saw its biggest increase in years. The vast majority of these antinuclear protests happened to be held in the greater Tokyo area and made a substantiable portion of overall protests in Japan (Sorica, 2021). Yet, with time political changes occur. Some are confined in a single country; many have global repercussions. The war in Ukraine since February 2022 led to a rethinking of energy cooperation and consumption not only in Europe, but in Japan as well. Japan, highly dependent on energy imports, is now planning a shift back to nuclear power. The goal is to restart idle reactors and even to conceptualize new plants through cutting-edge technology. In order to avert further pressures on the nation’s power networks, which crumbled under high demand, and to reduce the country’s reliance on energy imports, Prime Minister Kishida announced that the government will investigate the development and building of additional reactors. Already next summer seven nuclear reactors are scheduled to restart pushing the total number of reactors reactivated since 2011 to 17 out of 33 total. Kishida also proposed to extend the lifespan of already power-up reactors behind their original 60 years. Through Russia’s relentless aggression, the pendulum of public opinion swings again, now gaining ground in support to turn idle plans active again. Kishida advertised this stance as an opportunity to gain access to “green transformation” – nuclear powers and renewable energies playing a pivotal role in this transformation. To get legal approval could prove to be time-consuming though. To restart reactors

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there must be consent given by local municipalities – those same local municipalities that still notice opposition from the civic sector and therefore could protract a definite decision for years to come (Stapczynski & Stringer, 2022). Stark opposition also comes from the national green party Greens Japan. In an open letter published on their website, they request to withdraw from the policy of restarting the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant. Reactors of this plant are to be online next year. The seven reactors include reactors 6 and 7 at the KashiwazakiKariwa Nuclear Power Station. According to Greens Japan, this plant has numerous problems like the damage to the pile foundations of the large object loading building of Unit 7 caused by the 2007 Niigata-Chūetsu Oki earthquake. The damage was revealed only in July 2021. Therefore, the safety of Unit 7 has not been ensured. TEPCO admits that it is not at a stage where it can foresee the date when it will restart the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plan (GreenParty Japan, 2022). Besides the planned restarting of reactors next year, Greens Japan do highly oppose another environmental factor that is set to begin in the near future. Last year in April the Japanese government approved the release of stored cooling waters which was used to cool the nuclear fuel and logically therefore became also contaminated through the radioactive material. This decision has been up for debate for quite some time. In October 2020, Japanese media reported that the government decided to dump said waters back into the ocean. This was the only choice, according to testimony from Shinjiro Koizumi, then Japan’s environment minister, as storage space for the radiation-contaminated water would run out in 2022. (Unknown, 2020). Greens Japan again published an official statement on their website, strongly opposing this decision. They state that both the farming and fishing industries were harmed by the contamination. Therefore, the government’s plan to discharge tainted water into the ocean surprised the local fisherman in Fukushima. The chiefs of the national and Fukushima Fisheries Federations met with Yoshihide Suga and expressed their vehement objections, while numerous local governments and councils in the Fukushima Prefecture voiced their opposition a week before to this decision. Forty-two out of 59 local government councils in the Fukushima Prefecture submitted opposing comments (GreenParty Japan, 2021). Specifically, the wording of the government was met with criticism by the party. According to them, the contaminated water is still dangerous and contains many other radioactive particles besides tritium and therefore should not be referred to as “treated water” or “tritium water.” By claiming that “500 becquerels/liter is as low as 1/40 of the standard” and “this water is casually discharged even in normal operation of the nuclear power plants,” the government and media are attempting to make it sound safe. Furthermore, they make it seem to exaggerate people’s worries. The party’s accusation continued to claim that this behavior is not just false, but it is also a purposeful distortion (GreenParty Japan, 2021). Referring to TEPCO, even after two treatments, the exposed fuel debris apparently adds different nuclides to the water than those created during regular plant operation. Additionally, there is a chance that tritium particles that have been kept in a tank for a long time could undergo chemical processes in which they combine with organic materials and behave in ways that are

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uncharacteristic of typical tritium water (GreenParty Japan, 2021). This highly sensitive topic also got media attention from overseas. The BBC was reporting about it too, albeit citing sources that support the decision and stating that the decision to release the water back into the sea would not be harmful. Before release, the radiation level will be put below the level for drinking waters. BBC refers to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is backing the plan to release the stored waters, claiming that other places handle those kinds of ocean release too. It is thereby not a new idea. Scientists claim toxins remaining in the water are only hazardous to humans at very high concentrations and the treated water poses no risk that can be determined by science when diluted. Parties representing the fishing sector are concerned that tritium radiation might enter the food chain and be ingested through seafood because it can be swallowed. This potential could result in customers not being comfortable anymore to buy the products of the fishermen. The majority of scientists concur that there is no real risk to human health, even if there is of course a small probability remaining of contaminated seafood being consumed. Generally, more radiation were loaded in the ocean during nuclear weapon testing during the 1940s throughout the 1960s (Unknown, 2021). Japan’s neighbors took note of this decision. The foreign minister of South Korea stated deep regret prior to the decision and the Chinese foreign ministry also urged Japan to act responsibly considering the health and well-being of the Chinese people, as well as international public interests (Unknown, 2021). It remains to be seen how the tide will transport the diluted waters into national territories of East Asian and Southeast Asian countries and how they will react if they may measure any radioactive contamination. The Greens Party proposes in their open letter other options to safely get rid of the contamination. One of those is to keep the water on land until the nuclides stop becoming radioactive. Another is to change the damaged reactors’ cooling system from water cooling to air cooling so as not to produce more polluted water. TEPCO however stated that they lack sufficient area to store tanks of contaminated water (GreenParty Japan, 2021). As it turns out, even with this topic civic engagement could so far not hinder political decisions. As it stands now, the water will be spilled back into the sea. Time will tell, if this will have any negative repercussions.

Chapter: Social Media as Potential Platforms for Civic Networking This last chapter now focuses more on the topic of social media, as it introduces some ways for citizens to access political and social information, as well as dominant social media platforms in Japan. As shown above, there are indeed civic movements and organization groups that do promote protest actions, yet it seems that this does not really impact the legislative decisions of the government. The Olympic Games still were held despite the Fukushima disaster and pandemic, and there are the

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decisions to restart nuclear reactors as well as release contaminated water back into the sea. So, does media not induce civic engagement? Do Japanese generally prefer more a factual report of news, rather than being animated by it to elicit change? Ninety percent of households in Japan are subscribed to newspapers. The majority of this newspaper circulation occurs on a small number of major cities, like Tokyo and Osaka, where the headquarters of the main newspapers are located. These big papers focus mostly on national news and issues. Yet, there is an interesting point to be made here. Previous studies showed that not nationwide mass media but rather localized media evoke willingness to community involvement. Interestingly enough, even back then computer and mobile phone usage was seen as that which may negatively correlate to community engagement (Nakano et al., 2014, 13). Back in a time, where social media was not yet as common as it is today, this negative sentiment was prevalent in media scholars. For them, social reality is created by media texts, technology, and institutions. These texts, technologies, and institutions typically speak to people as consumers, occasionally as voters, but very infrequently as citizens who may influence society (Hadl, 2010, 153). This leads to frustration, as the reach of those media is limited as well as their ability to transform the consumer into an involved figure who contributes to society through political and cultural changes (Hadl, 2010, 163). Times have, of course, since changed but it would be wrong to believe that a broader access and usage of social media helped to build a solid foundation in Japan for civic engagement. Possibilities to foster such behavior would even be available. The majority of Japanese use Twitter as a social network platform. Over 68 million people do own a Twitter account which accounts for a 58 percentage. Although Twitter is a microblogging platform, it presents plenty of opportunities to evoke political and social thought, as well as the possibility to connect a user to civic engagement groups or news sites. LINE, the most popular messenger app of Japan, pulls even more impressive numbers. Over 94 million users amount to nearly 80% of the people with a LINE account (Unknown, 2022b). It should therefore be comparatively easy to connect and stay in contact with one another. Sadly, even with those high numbers, social media remains insignificant for the potential of civic movement (Mesimäki, 2019). There are even problems for users who want to express their dissatisfaction. Twitter recently revealed that the Japanese government had ordered a significant number of content takedowns from a record number of accounts in 2021. Ninety-five percent of the requests comes from only five nations, whereas Japan was included with a share of 43%. Albeit most of the orders were related to drugs, obscenity, and financial offences, not all of them included such offenses. According to Sinead McSweeney, vice president of global public policy and philanthropy at Twitter, the social media platform experiences unprecedented hurdles as governments throughout the world try to intervene and delete information more frequently. In his eyes, it is imperative that close attention must be paid to this extremely concerning trend which threatens both privacy and the right to free speech of its users. Twitter Japan appeared to be attempting to defend Suga and the Japanese government, and according to a July 2021 report from Global Voices, Twitter Japan,

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in a seemingly politically motivated matter, suspended accounts that tweeted critical comments about the Japanese government and subsequently reinstated them after a public outcry without giving a reason. Each time the user criticized the Japanese government methods (Unknown, 2022a). Mesimäki does point out a fascinating contrast. On the one hand, there is an argument about how tight the government does control media coverage and that it does not provide that much information about environmental topics. He highlights excessive government control over the national broadcaster NHK or the established press club system that promotes official collusion at the expense of critical reporting. In short, the mainstream media will not actively report about environmental issues if the government is not willing to put these issues on their agenda. On the other hand, there seem to be enough coverage about environmental problems. According to research, among the 17 nations examined, the amount of climate change coverage in the Japanese media is around average. Whatever flaws we find in the media, the majority of Japanese people are aware of the threat posed by climate change, denial is unheard of, and the government and business community are continuously promoting new sustainability projects. The lack of climate strikes in Japan may therefore be due to the fact that the issue is in fact publicly known but perceived as being handled properly. The main problem for Mesimäki is not the question about whether Japanese media coverages environmental topics enough; it is more about the missing sense of urgency to tackle the seriousness of the now fast-paced evolving problem of climate crisis. The progressive delegitimization of citizen-led confrontational politics is probably the best explanation for the lack of activity on this front. This procedure pessimistically portrays modern Japanese civil society as having been substantially depoliticized and co-opted by the state, as well as ideas of socially engaged citizenship (Mesimäki, 2019).

Final Remarks To conclude, those last lines now return to the questions posed at the beginning. Civil society in the form of protests, certain political parties in the form of open letters, and media reportings are still interested in highly topical environmental issues as they are (still) being addressed in Japan, be it the still far-reaching consequences of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, the pandemic that has been rampant in recent years, or the energy crisis triggered by the Ukraine war and the associated reactivation of some nuclear reactors. All these topics received attention. But unfortunately, it must also be said that Japanese civil society participation is not sufficient to make a lasting impression on Japanese lawmakers. Despite all the efforts of the anti-Olympic movements, the games took place. They may have been very limited by the tourist ban and COVID-19 restrictions, but the protests were not strong enough to force a ban. The same can be seen with the dumping of cooling water back into the sea. Here, too, there were protests, but again they did not lead to a change of decision.In Japan, the general problem is that not

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enough people can be mobilized to reach a critical mass of protesters. The years when hundreds of thousands took to the streets have long been gone. Large demonstrations, such as those held shortly after the Fukushima disaster, are a thing of the past or died down very quickly. Today, there is a lack of a broader younger generation that wants to actively participate in civil society processes. The possibilities to network would be given by social media like Twitter or messenger services like LINE. But there seems to be a lack of a sense that individual efforts can bring about change or a lack of a broader understanding that now is the time to mitigate the threat of environmental catastrophe and build pressure on lawmakers to do so. Of course, it is also up to the political level to galvanize its citizens to take up action, yet it fails to emit a sense of listening to protesters, which ultimately leads to a feeling of helplessness among the population. Japan is a very interesting example of a party taking a very strong position in the political system and, despite a lot of controversy, always getting the votes it needs to stay in power. Civil society itself must be prepared to build institutions that allow it to participate more actively and effectively in policy-making for pressing environmental issues; otherwise, all members of society will feel the consequences all too soon.

References Brasor, P. (2012). Strength in numbers for protesters, but just how many are there? Accessed from https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2012/07/22/national/media-national/strength-in-numbersfor-protesters-but-just-how-many-are-there/ Brasor, P. (2021). The media and the authorities misinterpret the spirit of protest. Accessed from https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/07/17/national/media-national/media-authoritiesprotests/ Cassegård, C. (2022). The recovery of protest in Japan: From the ‘ice age’ to the post-2011 movements. Social Movement Studies, 1. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2022.2047641 Ganseforth, S. (2020). Anti-Olympic rallying points, public alienation, and transnational alliances. The Asia-Pacific Journal Band, 16(5), 16. (Onlinepublication). Accessed from https://apjjf. org/2020/5/Ganseforth.html GreenPartyJapan. (2021). [Statement]. We strongly protest the decision to release contaminated water from Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Accessed from http://greens.gr.jp/ english/30177/ GreenPartyJapan. (2022). [Endorsement] GX Executive Council: Request for withdrawal from the policy of restarting the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant (賛同) GX実行会議:柏崎 刈羽原発再稼働方針への撤回要請. Accessed from http://greens.gr.jp/seimei/32107/ Goldman, T. (2021). Protests have persisted outside of the Tokyo Olympics. Accessed from https:// www.npr.org/2021/07/23/1019892603/protests-have-persisted-outside-of-the-tokyo-olympics Hadl, G. (2010). Media and civic engagement in Japan. In H. Vinken, Y. Nishimura, B. L. J. White, & M. Deguchi (Eds.), Civic engagement in contemporary Japan. Established and emerging repertoires (pp. 153–169). Springer. Hasegawa, K. (2010). Collaborative environmentalism in Japan. In H. Vinken, Y. Nishimura, B. L. J. White, & M. Deguchi (Eds.), Civic engagement in contemporary Japan. Established and emerging repertoires (pp. 85–99). Springer.

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Hommerich, C. (2014). Feeling disconnected: Exploring the relationship between different forms of social capital and civic engagement in Japan. Voluntas International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 26(1), 45–68. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-014-9525-3 Kyōko, T. (2021). Why Are Japanese Youth Distancing Themselves from Social Activism? Accessed from https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/d00668/ Lee, M., Inuma, J., & Mahtani, S. (2022). In Japan and across Asia, an outpouring of support for Ukraine. Accessed from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/28/japan-asiaukraine-russia/ Masato, N. (2022). NHK apologizes for false label of ‘paid protester’ against Olympics. Accessed from https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14518868 Mesimäki, S. (2019). Where are Japan’s climate strikers? Accessed from https://www. tokyoreview.net/2019/12/japan-climate-strike/ Nagatsuka, K. (2021). Protesters call for Tokyo Olympics to be canceled. Accessed from https:// www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2021/05/10/olympics/summer-olympics/protesters-call-tokyoolympics-canceled/ Nakano, K., Yu, J., Sakakibara, R., Kitahara, T., Ariga, M., Hayashi, K., & Tanaka, H. (2014). How Japanese newspapers contribute to community engagement. Journal of Socio-Informatics, 7(1), 13–24. https://doi.org/10.14836/jsi.7.1_13 Ogawa, A. (2020). As if nothing had occurred. Anti-Tokyo Olympics protests and concern over radiation exposure. In special issue. Japan’s Olympic summer games–past and present part II band 18(issue 5 number 1 Onlinepublication). Accessed from https://apjjf.org/2020/5/Ogawa. html Robertson, C. (2020a). Organizing a transnational anti-olympics summit: An oral history, Part 1. Accessed from https://olympicswatch.org/2020/06/17/organizing-a-transnational-anti-olym pics-oral-history-part-1/ Robertson, C. (2020b). Organizing a transnational anti-olympics summit: An oral history, Part 2. Accessed from https://olympicswatch.org/2020/06/18/organizing-a-transnational-anti-olym pics-oral-history-part-2/ Ryall, J. (2021). Have Japanese youth lost the spirit of protest? Accessed from https://www.dw. com/en/have-japanese-youth-lost-the-spirit-of-protest/a-57061279 Sorica, L. (2021). Trends in Anti-Nuclear Demonstrations in Japan: 2018–2020. Accessed from https://acleddata.com/2021/03/10/trends-in-anti-nuclear-demonstrations-in-japan-2018-2020/ Stapczynski S., & Stringer D. (2022). Threats of blackouts drive Japan to embrace nuclear again. Accessed from https://finance.yahoo.com/news/threats-blackouts-drive-japan-embrace-034912 648.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_ r e f e r r e r _ s i g = A Q A A A M o a p P B 5 E L o e U N Q Y d B v T j W9cjFMWPecyozugYBTkECQduDpbVDTTEw_u4WXyJwWYE0R2h0 jTp7kNHv589ktovz2sNy3NvLKh_d6QLuftiNqoc7mpf18B0 JC9gAMgTBYPJwOrbFenLrC6wgkKm0vL3feLJiNfx53IIW_t7kx6LAc Unknown. (2013). Dear Mr. Thomas Bach: Questions and requests. Accessed from https:// hangorin.tumblr.com/post/68078019802/dear-mr-thomas-bach-questions-and-requests Unknown. (2014). A reply from IOC (International Olympic Committee). Accessed from https:// hangorin.tumblr.com/post/85621009396/a-reply-from-ioc-international-olympic-committee Unknown. (2020). Contaminated water from Fukushima could damage human DNA: Greenpeace. Accessed from https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-10-25/Contaminated-water-from-Fukushimacould-damage-human-DNA-Greenpeace-USKzFpMCsM/index.html Unknown. (2021). Fukushima: Japan approves releasing wastewater into ocean. Accessed from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56728068 Unknown. (2022a). Increasing Twitter takedowns by Japan while teachers and Okinawans hold protests. Accessed from https://monitor.civicus.org/updates/2022/02/16/increasing-twittertakedowns-japan-while-teachers-and-okinawans-hold-protests/ Unknown. (2022b). Japan social media statistics 2022 | Most popular social media platforms. Accessed from https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/japan-social-media-statistics/

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Unknown. (2022c). Protest against NHK's “Tokyo Olympics as seen by Kawase Naomi” [NHK 「河瀨直美が見つめた東京五輪」への抗議]. Accessed from https://hangorin.tumblr.com/ post/672906821167693824/nhk河瀨直美が見つめた東京五輪への抗議

Mr. Timo Mohr, MA, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Contemporary History

Part III

Media, Environment, and the Commons

Environmental Policy and the Tragedy of the Commons: A German’s Impressions of India Michael Baurmann

A clean and sustainable environment seems like a classical public good; it is a local, national and global “commons”. But as a commons, the environment is a special kind of public good, and it is, in the words of Elinor Ostrom (1990), a “common pool resource”. The feature shared by public goods—such as public security, street lighting or information—and common pool resources—like grazing land, water resources or fisheries—is the high cost of excluding potential beneficiaries from using the goods (non-excludability) and, therefore, the lack of incentives to contribute to their preservation. In consequence, there is the constant temptation to free-ride and to use the goods without engaging in their provision and maintenance. However, the crucial difference between public goods and common pool resources is the fact that one person’s use of public security, street lighting or information does not reduce the availability of these goods and does not compete with others using it, whereas the consumption of natural and environmental resources like water, forests or pastures does subtract from the availability to others (rivalry). Common pool resources are subject to crowding and depletion. Therefore, in the case of common pool resources, the problem of overuse together with under-provision is always present in contrast to “pure” public goods. This can lead to a dynamic by which the common pool resource is severely damaged or even destroyed completely. It is obvious that a clean and sustainable environment is the most encompassing common pool resource with global dimensions. And it is also clear that it is highly vulnerable to an unfortunate combination of overuse und under-investment if it is left to itself: there is a real danger of a global “tragedy of the commons”! The wording “tragedy of the commons” was coined, as is well known, by Garret Hardin (1968). His subject was initially the population problem, but in his seminal I thank Margaret Birbeck for her indispensable and patient support. M. Baurmann (✉) Frankfurt, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Briesen, S. P. Das (eds.), Media, Politics and Environment, Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31252-6_16

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article he uses an example from a common pool context to develop the logic of his argument. His famous analysis of the herdsmen who overgraze their pasture became something like an iconic paradigm for the clash between individually rational behaviour and collective interests: “The rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another; and another . . . But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therin is the tragedy . . . Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest” (Hardin, 1968, p. 1244). Hardin even applies his analysis already to the environmental problem of pollution: “The calculations of utility are much the same as before. The rational man finds that his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the cost of purifying his wastes before releasing them. Since this is true for everyone, we are locked into a system of, fouling our own nest” (Hardin, 1968, p. 1245). Hardin’s overall diagnosis was quite gloomy: he believed in a sharp clash between individual and collective rationality and thereby, without using the term, identifies the core structure of a social dilemma as one of the main reasons for numerous urgent problems. He was not optimistic about the options to solve this kind of dilemma. Notably, he rejects appealing to individual responsibility and moral conscience as useless and even dangerous and declares as the most important way out technological progress and mutual coercion by state power—and in some contexts privatising the commons. It is worth emphasising that Hardin did not see the causes of social dilemmas in errors, ignorance, stupidity or lacking information. Instead, he located the core of the problem in individual rational action which, in the aggregate, could produce an outcome that in the end can damage both individual and common interests. The “tragedy of the commons” is produced by an incentive structure that cannot be remedied by insight and knowledge alone nor, according to Hardin, by an appeal to individual responsibility. Therefore, his grim conclusion: “Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all”. It is exactly this basic assumption that provoked Elinor Ostrom to challenge Garret Hardin’s influential theory. In her seminal book “Governing the Commons” (1990), she develops a fundamentally different view. Against Hardin’s firm conviction she argues that there is indeed a third way to deal with commons problems beside regulation by state power and privatisation. Her starting point is the evidence provided by well-documented observation that for hundreds of years all over the world examples of communities could be found which have been “governing” their commons successfully and sustainably without state intervention or privatisation. The local users themselves have been capable of implementing efficient systems of self-organisation by developing norms and work regulations, informal social control and sanctions, conflict resolution mechanisms and mutual trust. Therefore, the freedom of their commons did not bring ruin to them—quite the opposite! On the basis of these empirical findings, Ostrom systematises and generalises the success factors of long-enduring and self-governed common pool resources (Ostrom, 1990, p. 90ff.). She identifies a number of underlying design principles

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as essential aspects of efficient self-governing, among them being clearly defined group boundaries, fair distribution of costs and benefits, inclusive collective decision-making, monitoring, graduated sanctions and fast and fair conflict resolution. However, Ostrom stresses repeatedly in her writings that no one size fits all (Ostrom, 2005; Anderies et al., 2004). There is a great variety in the forms of successful self-governance of common pool resources and many diverse social relations and institutions provide the structure of these different communities. However, there is one general insight from the study of these many cases: it is justified to accept a more positive view of human nature and its potential for problem-solving than, for example, Garret Hardin with this irreconcilable contempt of individual responsibility. Ostrom’s findings demonstrate that human individuals are not invariably purely selfish, uncooperative and opportunistic. The longenduring existence of communities which successfully govern their commons and thereby escape the social dilemma of the “logic of collective action” (Olson, 1965) prove that human beings are capable of other-regarding motivation and prosocial preferences. These can make them quasi-voluntary cooperators with the conditional strategy to cooperate as long as most of their fellows also follow the rules (Ostrom, 1990, p. 94f.). Mutual trust in the compliance of others can in this way outplay the incentive to free-ride and withhold one’s contribution to common interests. This more positive view of human nature as a precondition to being optimistic about the chances of self-governing processes has in the last few decades also been strongly supported by the experimental studies in the laboratories of behavioural economics. Starting with the famous Ultimatum Game (Güth et al., 1982), these studies have increasingly revealed that altruistic preferences, aversion towards unfairness or a desire for fairness can play an important role in human motivation and acting (Fehr & Schurtenberger, 2018; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003, 2005; Frey, 1997; Baurmann & Brennan, 2016). Recent experiments also study conditions for voluntary compliance with social norms (Vostroknutov, 2020).

Saving the Environment in Germany However, looking today at the political and societal strategies with which to forestall a tragedy of the commons in environmental issues, it may seem that at least in this context Hardin’s diagnosis is prevailing over Ostrom’s “third way”. On the global level the fight against climate change and for environmental protection is delegated to the nation states, regulated by the climate treaty in the Paris Agreement. And especially if we take a closer look at Germany, we notice the predominance of exactly those instruments that Ostrom tried to evade with her self-governance concept: solutions by the state and the market. The most important climate policy in Germany of the last few years was the implementation of the “energy transition” with the aim of phasing out coal, fossil fuels and nuclear power—accomplished mostly by state measures. The introduction

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of a carbon tax is one of the main instruments of this epochal project accompanied by new or newly adapted laws like the Energy Industry Act (Energiewirtschaftsgesetz) to accelerate grid expansion for power supply, the Renewable Energy Sources Act (Erneuerbaren Energien Gesetz) with incentives for marketing renewable energies or the Ordinance on Electricity Network Charges (Stromnetzentgeltverordnung) which aims at a relief of power grids. The important Atomic Energy Act (Atomgesetz) states at what time the operations licences of nuclear power stations will finally be terminated. Several subsidy schemes support the use of renewable energy like solar power and wind energy or help to finance house insulation. An important mechanism that works through market incentives is emission trading which has been implemented on a European level. In Germany, these regulatory policies have been backed by a robust and influential public debate that has shaped public opinion and put the awareness of climate change on top of the agenda for the last decades (Blewitt, 2010). This debate is constantly reflected in the media and extensively framed and fuelled by civil movements and NGOs like Greenpeace1, NABU2, Grüne Liga3, NaturFreunde4 or BUND5, several citizens’ initiatives (under the umbrella of Bundesverband Bürgerinitiativen Umweltschutz“6) and the political party DIE GRÜNEN7. Initiatives in politics, mass media and civil society in Germany are additionally supported by quite a prevalent motivation in the population to contribute individually to environmental protection and to behave ecologically—if it is not too costly and does not demand too much sacrifice. So, for example, Germans are worldbeating in garbage separation and display quite a widespread willingness to buy organic food or use public transport and bikes instead of private cars. But screening the German strategies to protect the environment and the climate one would be hard-pressed to find many examples of self-governing activities in the spirit of Elinor Ostrom. There are state policies, market instruments and individual behaviour—but hardly local communities of larger or smaller scope who collectively engage in self-organised activities to contribute to the protection of the environment. This may not be seen as a severe disadvantage if one thinks that, all in all, the fight against climate change is not in an altogether desolate state in Germany. So maybe the Germans can do without Ostrom’s third way—though admittedly not all ecological aims have by any means been realised in Germany as yet, so, for example, the reduction of primary energy consumption is behind the targets, and emission reduction in urban areas is still unsatisfactory.

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https://www.greenpeace.de/ https://www.nabu.de/ 3 https://www.grueneliga.de/index.php/de/ 4 https://www.naturfreunde.de/ 5 https://www.bund.net/ 6 https://www.bbu-online.de/ 7 https://www.gruene.de/ 2

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But from a complacent German perspective, these shortcomings may seem to be nearly negligible in comparison with Indian failures in coping with environmental challenges. At first sight, the picture is indeed very gloomy. Water contamination in India seems to be ubiquitous (Government of India, 2012; The World Bank, 2010, 2011), relative air quality is the worst worldwide according to the Environmental Performance Index 2012 (Kandlikar & Gurumurthy, 2000), and waste disposal is by all accounts disastrous, instructions for garbage separation, recycling and composting being apparently mostly ignored (The New York Times, 2010). Additionally, the mass media seem to be reluctant to make environmental problems the subject of discussion and to put them on the public agenda (Yadav & Malik, 2019; Briesen et al., 2015; Acharya & Noronha, 2010; Chapmann, 1997). As a consequence ecological mobilisation on the national level appears to be low (Batabyal, 2014; Nambiar, 2014; Thomas, 2006). Insofar it does not come as a surprise that the Indian authorities themselves acknowledge that Germany seems to be considerably more advanced in state of research, public policymaking and general awareness of climate change. This may all be true. But if one starts to investigate the Indian environmental situation somewhat beneath the overall indices, national policies and general awareness, a remarkable phenomenon turns up: in striking contrast to German environmental protection activities, one can find in India many examples of grass roots initiatives and locally based community projects which take care of their resources and preserve their sustainability entirely on their own responsibility. These projects fit perfectly with Ostrom’s vision of self-governance of common pool resources (Nagendra et al., 2013; Ghate et al., 2012; Nagendra & Ostrom, 2008; Jodha, 1986). 8 So, whereas Germany may be ahead with effective general policies to protect the environment and to fight climate change on the national level, India may have a (hidden) potential in developing local initiatives to cope with ecological challenges. They may be able to unfold considerable impact even if often unnoticed and possibly underestimated. Whereas in Germany the mass media and communication strategies of political parties, NGOs and citizens’ initiatives are effectively shaping the public discourse about environmental problems and are influential nationwide, the grass roots-level activities in India foster a local, often face-to-face communication which may remain invisible in larger contexts but which can be very effective in their local vicinity nevertheless.

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https://www.ifpri.org/publication/securing-commons-india-mapping-polycentric-governance https://www.ifpri.org/publication/playing-games-save-water-collective-action-games-groundwa ter-management-andhra-pradesh https://www.ifpri.org/publication/games-triggering-collective-change-natural-resource-manage ment-conceptual-framework-and https://ideas.repec.org/p/fpr/ifprid/1944.html

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Governing the Commons in India Already a superficial inspection reveals that a large majority of Indians still rely on common pool resources such as water, forests and grazing land and that these resources are essential for the survival of rural communities. A study by the Foundation for Ecological Security in 2012 documents this dependence.9 The study covers 3.000 households in 100 villages in arid, semi-arid and sub-humid parts of the country in seven states: Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. Ninety-eight percent of households access the commons for water, grazing, fodder, agriculture, food and forest products. Resources from the commons contribute about 31% of net income to the households of the landless. Thus, continued access to the commons provides stability and security in an unpredictable environment, and they in turn serve human development as well as environment conservation. The autonomous maintenance of common pool resources in rural communities is part of a long-standing history of community-based local self-government and traditional systems of common property regimes in India on which further developments could be built: “In fact India had rarely experienced a truly centralised state; it was essentially ruled by its village-governments. . . . [T]he society was self-governed through indigenous institutions and practices, most conspicuously, by a kind of decentralised government known as panchayats. . . . Thus, India had developed a number of organisations of community based administration of local affairs” (Satyanarayana, 2018). In the twentieth century the tradition of locally organised community activity in India was revitalised by Mahatma Gandhi in 1905 with the Sarvodaya Movement that combined the ideas of sarvodaya (welfare for all) and swaraj (self-governance). Today it still exists, for example, in Sri Lanka as the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, propagating self-governance and providing comprehensive development and conflict resolution programmes to villages. The movement began in just one village and was extended to more than 15.000 villages over the past 50 years.10 Another pioneer of self-organised citizen initiatives was the Chipko Movement against deforestation.11 It started in 1973 as a nonviolent social and ecological movement by rural villagers aimed at protecting and conserving trees and forests against government-backed logging. The name of the movement came from a word meaning “embrace”: the villagers hugged the trees to impede the loggers. One of the most impressive initiatives in India today is the non-profit organisation Foundation for Ecological Security (FES). The foundation is based in Anand, Gujarat. It is “working towards the ecological restoration and conservation of land and water resources in ecologically fragile, degraded and marginalised regions of the

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https://www.fes.org.in/ https://www.sarvodaya.org/ 11 https://www.rightlivelihoodaward.org/laureates/the-chipko-movement/ 10

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country, through concentrated and collective efforts of village communities”.12 The foundation assists communities in determining and adopting consumption levels of natural resources within the ecological capacity of the area and thereby securing rural livelihoods. This aim is pursued in the spirit of Elinor Ostrom by strengthening community institutions and “enhancing the capacity to self-govern, promoting inclusionary processes and collective decision-making”. The foundation emphasises deploying local knowledge and stewardship, reviving democracy on a local level, improving the entitlement of local communities and establishing democratic village institutions. According to their annual report, the FES was working with 24.086 village institutions in 31 districts across eight states in 2019. It assists the village communities in protecting 6.97 million acres of common lands including revenue wastelands, degraded forest lands and Panchayat grazing lands, positively impacting 13 million rural dia.13 Examples of projects include Decentralised Governance of Natural Resources in Rainfed Areas; Revegetating common lands; Coastal area Development Programme in Khambhat taluka; Supporting livelihoods through “Wadi” interventions in 23 villages of Gogunda Tehsil, Udaipur District of Rajasthan; or Reconciling Biodiversity Conservation with Local Livelihoods. Youth for India is a rural development fellowship programme funded and managed by a foundation of the State Bank of India in partnership with NGOs: “It provides a framework for India's bright young minds to join hands with rural communities, empathize with their struggles and connect with their aspirations”. The fellows work with NGOs on development projects. According to the programme mission, the youth should become aware of the local realities and get an opportunity to contribute through their efforts towards building strong cohesive communities. The fellowship offers opportunity to work at a grassroots level across many areas of interest, viz. health and sanitation, livelihood, education, women empowerment and many more.14 The Energy and Resources Institute focuses on “creating innovative solutions for a sustainable future” by activating local- and community-level leadership in organising collective action and coordinating between formal and informal institutions. Social capital which is seen as a necessary element in the success of collective action is aimed to be revived. Special focus is on communities located far from the Forest Department’s range or division-level offices, because they usually get less attention and support. Such communities are usually far from markets and incomegenerating employment opportunities. Due to lack of alternatives, such communities continue to depend heavily on forests, thereby impacting it adversely. Such communities located within and on the fringes of a protected area continue to depend substantially on forests despite curtailment of their rights.15

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Siruthuli (meaning a small drop) is a non-profit movement formed by a few socially conscious corporates. The idea was to motivate city people to come together to save their city. It envisioned creating a public movement to address environmental issues, especially the water problem. Today the movement addresses three main issues: to conserve water by restoring rivers, recharging groundwater and rejuvenating water bodies (“Water Watch”), enhancing tree cover by planting trees, protecting green cover and promoting urban forest (“Green Guard”) and managing waste by recycling, reusing and reducing (“Waste Wise”). Community-based activities are at the heart of all projects.16 The Reliance Foundation works towards enriching the lives of marginalised communities of India. It enhances livelihood opportunities and provides relevant information to help reduce risks to rural communities. By deploying locally relevant solutions, it enhances rural livelihoods in agriculture, marine fisheries and other farm- and non-farm-based activities. The Reliance Foundation makes systematic efforts to improve the quality and productivity of rural assets, leading to increased and more reliable yields. This ensures increased incomes and better capacities among the targeted communities.17 Reliance Foundation’s flagship programme, Bharat India Jodo (BIJ), initiated in 2010 empowers marginalised communities in India to take collective action towards sustainable livelihoods while working in the areas of water, food and nutrition and market linkages. BIJ works closely with grassroots organisations and technical resource agencies to share best practices and to create a knowledge and resource platform for collaborative large-scale impact. Keeping the community and its development needs in the centre, the programme mobilises, organises and strengthens the capacity of communities by adopting participatory processes. These interventions promote collective ownership and decision-making and catalyse collective action for sustainable development. The programme has built and strengthened more than 550 village-level community-owned and community-managed institutions and mentored 26 Farmer Producer Organisations. In the year 2018, the programme was scaled up to 3.900 villages, facilitating a sustainable development process across 12 states and supporting more than 65.000 families. There is also an impressive number of self-governance projects in India which are not working under the umbrella of an organisation or foundation but are standing on their own two feet. In his empirical analysis, Pranab Bardhan (2000), for example, listed 48 irrigation projects in South India which are working on local communitylevel cooperation. Some of them have been in existence for hundreds of years. Although “there is a great deal of variation among the organizations with respect to appointment of guards as monitors and enforcers, frequency of meetings, mobilization of collective labor, mobilization of funds, method of cost sharing”, the majority of the organisations “are traditional and informal community 16 17

https://siruthuli.com/ https://www.reliancefoundation.org/home

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organizations” whose irrigation matters are managed “at the village level” (Bardhan, 2000, p. 848f.). Another area in which many traditional and newly founded community-based initiatives are found in India is joint forest management (Ghate, 2004). Here roots go back to the Chipko Movement. Already Ostrom herself helped to initiate the International Forestry Resources and Institutions programme (IFRI) aimed at providing data for successful self-management of forest cultivation.18 “Research from IFRI locations in India has been fundamental in demonstrating the importance of self-governance and local monitoring for sustainable management of community forests in critical wildlife habitat in central India” (Nagendra et al., 2013, p. 4). Examples of traditional and indigenous institutions for community-based forest management are van panchayats, gramya jungles and community forestry: “Van panchayats are long-standing village forest institutions in Uttaranchal with a documented history of existence over a century that have been successful in many parts of the Kumaon hills in protection and sustainable management of village forests. Gramya jungles are village forest institutions recognized in the state of Odisha, consisting of village forest areas managed for communal and developmental purposes within the village boundary. Similarly, there are a variety of long-standing indigenous community institutions that have evolved locally to manage forests in different parts of the country, such as the Mundari Khuntkatti in Chotanagpur, indigenous Community Forest Management in Odisha and Maharashtra, sacred groves (Devara Kaadus and Gunda Thopus) in Karnataka, and similar institutions in many other states” (Nagendra et al., 2013, p. 6f.).

Challenges These examples are promising in proving that self-governance of communities to protect the environment and promote ecological sustainability is a possible option and has already a thriving tradition in India. They can serve as role models in motivating other people and communities to solve their environmental challenges by self-regulation instead of waiting for top-down activities from the state and its administration. However, these success stories have not automatically taken off by themselves. Solving ecological community problems by “governing the commons” cannot be taken for granted. As already mentioned in the beginning, Ostrom identifies a number of design principles as essential for long-enduring and self-governed common pool resources: clearly defined group boundaries, fair distribution of costs and benefits, inclusive collective decision-making, monitoring, graduated sanctions, fast and fair conflict resolution and authority to self-govern (Ostrom, 1990, p. 90ff.).

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Most of these principles must be implemented and executed by the community members themselves without the help of external forces—sometimes actually against adverse external powers. Even if it can be assumed that a significant number of community members are not just behaving opportunistically but possess otherregarding prosocial preferences, successful cooperation is not something which will emerge spontaneously and sustain easily under all circumstances. Therefore, additional supporting conditions must be fulfilled for an effective implementation of the design principles. 1. Clear group boundaries. Well-defined group membership by facts or by rules is an essential precondition for the successful self-management of common pool resources. As it is expected that more or less all group members invest in their commons, it must be secured that only they can profit from their resources. Their commons should not be open to external free riders who can extract from it without contributing to its provision and maintenance. If this were possible, it would not only reduce the value of the group resources but would also undermine the motivation of the group members to invest in their common assets. Additionally, sustainable self-governance of common pools demands a long-term commitment from the group members. This can only be expected if they have a strong group identity and sense of purpose which in turn presupposes that they are sharing a common fate in a sufficiently stable context. Discount rates must be low enough to invest in a future that promises equivalent benefits for former contributions. Lastly, if social and economic costs for leaving a group are too low, and outside opportunities are too tempting, there is the danger of eroding the necessary long-term commitment and creating incentives for free-riding by leaving the group after having enjoyed the common group products. Therefore, the exit options should not be too attractive, or, to use more friendly terms, the appeal of the group must be strong enough to motivate people to stay. 2. Fair distribution of costs and benefits. This requirement demands a shared understanding of the appropriate norms and rules that define fairness in the allocation of costs and benefits and prescribe how this distribution is realised. These norms must be effective in the social community, and people must be confident that these norms are in fact obeyed. To put it more generally, people must trust that a general reciprocity of giving and receiving is working in their community and that their individual contributions in common assets are honoured by the group collective without formal mechanisms to secure this reciprocity by law or other institutions. This trust is an essential element of social capital which is a necessary quality for any group that aims at solving cooperation problems on its own. 3. Fair and inclusive decision-making. Again, this challenge presupposes shared norms about the meaning of fairness, this time in the context of collective decision-making. These norms must determine who has the authority for

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decision-making, by which procedure the decision should be made and how it is secured that the interest of all community members are adequately included. Quite different norms and regulations are possible. A respected person could have the authority to make decisions for a group, as well as an assembly of all group members. But if decision mechanisms should support a common enterprise which is very much dependent on voluntary participation, it is essential that people believe that their personal interests are taken into account in the decisions. 4. Monitoring. Monitoring the behaviour is important for two reasons: first, if people are conditional cooperators, they will make their own prosocial behaviour dependent on their knowledge of the behaviour of others: they will cooperate if most others do as well, and they will defect if others do not participate. Second, monitoring is the precondition of sanctioning defecting acts. And if people know that their behaviour is monitored and can therefore be sanctioned, applying sanctions will be unnecessary in many cases. But monitoring can be a costly activity. Even if people are ready to accept additional costs to control the behaviour of others, it is important that these costs are not prohibitive. The best way would be to organise things in a way that monitoring comes as a by-product of other activities. Otherwise groups may have to deploy special monitors who are compensated for their role and who must also be respected persons in the community. 5. Graduated sanctions. Sanctions are important to create incentives to comply and to reassure those who comply that it is not advantageous to ignore the demands of the group. Many behavioural experiments demonstrate that providing a common good in a self-organising group is much more probable if sanctions apply. On the other hand, in the context of a self-organised endeavour, sanctions should be restrained in order to make them acceptable and not to estrange people from the group or ostracise them. To successfully install an informal system of social sanctions in a group depends on several preconditions. First of all, there must be widespread acceptance of the enforced norms and the possible sanctions, a general willingness to comply but also to apply sanctions if necessary. At an individual level the readiness to apply sanctions can rest on diverse incentives: retributive emotions, prosocial motivation, a preference for fairness, some forms of reward or a reputation gain by signalling one’s commitment to the common interests. The costs of imposing sanctions should not be too high, and the “audience” must support the people who carry out the sanctions and protect them against resistance and revenge. 6. Fast and fair conflict resolution. An efficient conflict management is especially important for self-governance as unresolved and lasting conflicts undermine the potential of a group for cooperation and threaten to exclude group members from a common enterprise. Perceived fairness is important in order that the parties accept the outcome and that emotions are cooled down so that the persons involved are not alienated from the group and their common endeavour.

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Resolving conflicts quickly and in a way that is accepted as impartial presupposes institutionalised arenas that serve as available contexts for conflict resolution, a procedure that is accepted as a way to solve conflicts, and trustworthy deciders and moderators whose judgement is respected. In many cultural contexts these demands will only be met if conflicts are handled in a deliberative way: if the parties can present their case and their views freely, if the facts are checked unbiased and if the conflict is resolved by an exchange of arguments and an independent evaluation. 7. Authority to self-govern. Having recognised rights and legal empowerment as a community, managing problems and deciding on the fate of the group autonomously are all essential to building a sustainable culture of self-governance. Without self-organisation being guaranteed, it would hardly be possible to create and maintain sufficient motivation to provide significant resources for common enterprises. Unfortunately, the recognition of the right to selfgovernance must be conferred by the state and its institutions. It cannot be secured without its protection. This dependency involves a measure of uncertainty that could fluctuate depending on the existing state order. Chances of influence could also be of a varying degree. In each case additional investments of time and energy are demanded of the group members: they must maintain close and good relations to the state authorities, inform them about their project and its development and convince them of the value and success prospects of the project. This could include creating political pressure, lobbying or bribing officials and dealing with the everpresent danger of corruption and opportunistic behaviour.

Size, Homogeneity, Stability This long list of conditions for successful self-governance illustrates that success cannot be taken for granted. The challenges involved can be subsumed under three main headings: First, numbers matter! Under otherwise equal conditions, small and close-knit communities make self-governance easier. In groups with a modest number of members, pooling resources needs less organisation, mutual monitoring and social control can work as a by-product of regular contacts and general visibility, common knowledge of group issues is more probable, sharing social norms and reciprocity are supported, reputation and signalling mechanisms are more effective, and the need for delegating decisions or appointing guards for monitoring and sanctioning is less urgent. Second, homogeneity matters! Social heterogeneity and economic inequality can make it more difficult to identify common interests. They can impede coordination and decision processes and may be a breeding ground for mistrust and conflicts which could complicate the equitable allocation of costs and benefits. In general, homogeneity could make it easier to develop a strong group identity and sense of purpose and a common tradition and culture.

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Third, stability matters! A dangerous enemy for self-governance is a short-time horizon of group members if the group has no common future, exit options are attractive or there are rapid exogenous changes, and a group confronts the risk of dissolution. Under such conditions a community will face commitment problems and will have no clearly defined common interests, social capital will be more difficult to develop, and discount rates will rise because people cannot wait forever until they reap the benefits of a common enterprise. Last but not least, transmission failures from one generation to the next will be more probable.

Final Word from a German As a sympathising observer from Germany I am not able to assess whether selforganised communities that tackle problems of sustainability are being developing on a sufficiently large scale in India. However, it seems obvious that there is a long and impressive Indian tradition of bottom-up local “governance of the commons”. These existing initiatives may function as sources of inspiration and unleash further potential for successfully coping with environmental problems starting at the grassroots level. In Germany this kind of tradition is quite weak, and a top-down approach to solve the challenges from climate change and other ecological problems is the preferred and possibly only option. Therefore, a strong path dependency exists in the way different countries and cultures deal with their environmental issues. But we should not make the mistake of looking selectively at other countries’ efforts and developments with the biased view from our special national experience: we might then—as in the case of a comparison between Germany and India—overlook prospects which are hidden from us because we do not have them ourselves.

References Acharya, K., & Noronha, F. (2010). The Green Pen. Environmental journalism in India and South Asia. Sage. Anderies, J. M., Janssen, M. A., & Ostrom, E. (2004). A framework to analyze the robustness of social-ecological systems from an institutional perspective. Ecology and Society, 9(1), 18–34. Bardhan, P. (2000). Irrigation and cooperation: An empirical analysis of 48 irrigation communities in South India. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 48(4), 847–865. Batabyal, S. (Ed.). (2014). Environment, politics and activism. The role of media. Routledge. Baurmann, M., & Brennan, G. (2016). On virtue economics. In J. A. Baker & M. D. White (Eds.), Economics and the virtues. Building a new moral foundation. Oxford University Press. Blewitt, J. (2010). Media, ecology and conservation. Using the media to protect the world’s wildlife and ecosystems. Foxhole. Briesen, D., Baringhorst, S., & Das, A. (eds.) (2015). Religion, politics, and media–German and Indian perspectives.

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Chapmann, G. (1997). Environmentalism and the mass media. The North-South divide. Psychology Press. Fehr, E., & Schurtenberger, I. (2018). Normative foundations of human cooperation. Nature Human Behaviour, 2(7), 458–468. Fehr, E., & Fischbacher, U. (2003). The nature of human altruism. Nature, 425, 785–779. Fehr, E., & Fischbacher, U. (2005). Human altruism–proximate patterns and evolutionary origins. Analyse & Kritik, 27(1), 6–47. Frey, B. S. (1997). Not just for the money. An economic theory of personal motivation. Edward Elgar. Ghate, R. (2004). Uncommons in the commons: Community-initiated forest resource management. Concept Publishing Company. Ghate, R., Ghate, S., & Ostrom, E. (2012). Indigenous communities, communication and cooperation: Taking experiments to the field. SANDEE Working Paper. Government of India. (2012). Uranium in ground water. Ministry of drinking water and sanitation. Güth, W., Schmittberger, R., & Schwarze, B. (1982). An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 3(4), 367–388. Hardin, G. (1968). Tragedy of the commons. Science, 162, 1243–1248. Nagendra, H., Ghate, R., & Rao, J. (2013). Governing the commons. Accessed from https://www. india-seminar.com/2013/641/641_harini_nagendra_et_al.htm Jodha, N. S. (1986). Common property resources and rural poor in dry regions of India. Economic and Political Weekly, 21, 1169–1181. Kandlikar, M., & Gurumurthy, R. (2000). India: The causes and consequences of particulate air pollution in urban India: A synthesis of the science. Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, 25, 629–684. Nagendra, H., & Ostrom, E. (2008). Governing the commons in the new Millennium: A diversity of institutions for natural resource management. Encyclopedia of Earth. Accessed from https:// editors.eol.org/eoearth/wiki/The_Encyclopedia_of_Earth Nambiar, P. (2014). Media construction of environment and sustainability in India. Sage. Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective action. Public goods and the theory of groups. Harvard University Press. Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons. The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge University Press. Ostrom, E. (2005). Understanding institutional diversity. Princeton University Press. Satyanarayana, P. V. V. (2018). Local self-governments and human rights in India. Accessed from https://www.grin.com/document/468839 The New York Times (2010, April 22). Drowning in a Sea of Garbage. The World Bank. (Ed.). (2010). Emissions and Pollution in South Asia. The World Bank. (Ed.). (2011). Environment assessment, country data: India. Thomas, R. G. C. (2006). Media. Encyclopaedia of India, 3, 105–107. Farmington Hills. Vostroknutov, A. (2020). Social norms in experimental economics. Analyse & Kritik, 42(1), 3–39. Yadav, R. A., & Malik, K. K. (2019). Covering green belt: Environmental journalism in India. In S. Rao (Ed.), Indian journalism in a new era. Changes, challenges, and perspectives. Oxford University Press.

Michael Baurmann is Senior Professor of Sociology at the Department of Social Sciences of University of Düsseldorf and Scientific Director of the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) in Bochum.

Expanding Urban, Shrinking Rural: Land and Common Grabs and Environmental Degradation in Peri-Urban Kolkata, India Animesh Roy

Introduction Ever since the liberalization and globalization of the Indian economy in the early 1990s, ‘global’ or neoliberal city-making largely characterized by knowledge-based economy and massive real estatization has happened to be a potential determinant of both national and regional economic growth. Strikingly, these urban centres epitomize spatial specificities and have been mostly planned and developed on the lands largely expropriated from the primary producers in the rural peripheries of large post-colonial metropolises, e.g. Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Bangalore. While they are governed by the neoliberal doctrines and are supposedly a central driving force for the Indian economy to catch up with some largest national economies in the world, they are highly land-based, thereby emerging as a critical threat to the rural lands and commons (forests, pastures and wetlands) adjoining large cities. Not only has this new form of global urban place-making engendered shrinking of vast rural lands, but its accompanied urban-centric development activities and competitive land markets, particularly proliferating post-acquisition real estatization, have led to a process of post-dispossession devalorization of lands, space commodification and a ‘secondary cycle’ of land and commons alienation (Roy, 2022), resulting in a new geography of neoliberalizing space, environmental degradation and a noticeable truncation in the existing natural biodiversity. This essay portrays and illustrates one of such instances in Rajarhat, West Bengal (India)—a community development (CD) block adjoining Kolkata Metropolis and the Kolkata International Airport—where the previous Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPIM)-led Left Front Government (LFG) had acquired 6933.72 acres of agricultural land and fishing

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embankments1 for the establishment of information technology (IT) parks, financial hubs, business centres, institutions and residential and commercial dwelling units in the form of a planned urban centre, which was officially recognized in 2010 as ‘Rajarhat Newtown’. Over the last two and half decades under neoliberalism, particularly after the adoption of ‘new townships’ approach to Indian Metropolises (Wang et al., 2010; Bhattacharya & Sanyal, 2011) in the early 1990s and the enactment of the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Act of 2005, the demand for land by private capital has escalated phenomenally. With the help of the ‘public purpose’ clause laid down in the Land Acquisition Act(s), many Indian state governments, including the former Left Front Government (LFG) of West Bengal, have expropriated large tracts of rural lands—both commons (forests, pastures, graveyards and wetlands) and privately owned cultivable land—for building global private capital-driven hi-tech cities, SEZs, industries or industrial corridors and infrastructure projects (Balagopal, 2007; Narain, 2009; Sud, 2009; Levien, 2012; Roy, 2014, 2022). In most of the cases until now, expropriation of land for development activities under the state force has been carried through without the consent of a majority of those who have a stake in the affected land, resulting in uproars, agitations and resistances against the governments and land-acquiring bodies for depriving them of their means of subsistence and livelihoods (Roy, 2016: 33). While redistribution of land and its utilitarian restructuring is arguably an everoccurring phenomenon, its devalorization through private capital-intensive development activities capable of producing higher rents has attained a momentum under the neoliberalism. Scores of empirical studies conducted in both developed (e.g. Best & Champion, 1970; Shaklee et al., 1984; Pyle, 1985; Blewett & Lane, 1988; Drozd & Johnson, 2004) and developing countries (Ding, 2007; Narain, 2009; Kumar et al., 2011; Dadhich & Hanaoka, 2011; Kumar, 2012; Ge, 2012; Tang et al., 2012; Hui & Bao, 2013) illustrate how farmlands are invariably being used for rapid urbanization, thereby positing a critical issue for land use planning. Notably, only over a short span of three years from 2008 to 2011, 21 major Indian states registered a loss of 0.41 million hectares of agricultural land to various development activities (Mohan, 2013). Expropriation of farmland and its channelization to capital under neoliberalism has happened to be a central ‘locus’ of perpetual debate and conflicts between the

1 Over a time span of sixteen years between 1995 and 2011, the LFG had acquired this large tract of agricultural lands from about 25,000 peasants of 26 revenue villages: Patharghata (948.97 acres), Akandakeshari (267.59 acres), Baligari (34.61 acres), Chakpachuria (724.32 acres), Chapna (176.14 acres), Kadampukur (342.27 acres), Ghuni (473.29 acres), Jatragachhi 537.80 acres), Sulangguri (26.83 acres), Hatiara (249.62 acres), Tarulia (157.06 acres), Mohisgot (196.77 acres), Thakdari (314.01 acres), Mohisbathan (85.54 acres), Dhapamanpur (42.44 acres), Rekjuani (945.52 acres), Hudarait (not available), Atghara (8.58 acres), Chandiberia (23.54 acres), Dashdron (not available), Gopalpur (193.95 acres), Kaikhali (1.76 acres), Krishnapur (1.95 acres), Raigachhi (204.02 acres), Noapara (150.47 acres) and Tegharia (8.35 acres). Data Source: West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (WBHIDCO), 2016.

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states/capitalists and peasants regionally, nationally (Cernea, 1997; Fernandes, 2007; Sarkar, 2007; Sau, 2008; Sud, 2009; Nielsen, 2010; Padhi & Sadangi, 2020; Balaton-Chrimes & Pattnaik, 2021) and transnationally (Li, 2011; Millar, 2016; Adnan, 2013; Walker, 2006, 2008; Chung, 2017). A flock of critics have sought to unfold the rapacity of these state-mediated expropriation of lands for capital by using some synonymous lucotionaries, such as ‘land grab’ (Li, 2011; Levien, 2012, 2013), ‘land seizure’ (Walker, 2008), ‘land war’ (Levien, 2012, 2013) and ‘land rush’ (Millar, 2016), denoting thereby the state’s forceful seizing of private lands and commons by exercising its ‘eminent domain power’. While one strand of scholarships argues that the dispossession of peasants from their means of production (land) results in destruction of traditional livelihoods, deprivation of the property rights and marginalization (Cernea, 1997; Fernandes, 2007; Hui & Bao, 2013; Millar, 2016), the other one considers it an engine of oppression that leads to social exclusion, tearing social capital, unemployment and eventually destitution (Pantoja, 2000; Sau, 2008; Council for social Development, 2008; Venkatesan, 2011; Penz et al., 2011; Mallik, 2016). A third riposte (Walker, 2006; Banerjee-Guha, 2010; Arrighi et al., 2010; Levien, 2012; Adnan, 2013; Roy, 2022), on the other hand, has productively analyse the state’s logical ‘modus operandi’ involved in expropriating lands and commons through the lens of Marx’s ‘primitive accumulation’ (1976) and Harvey’s ‘accumulation by dispossession’ (2003). The fourth set (Levien, 2012; Agarwal & Levien, 2020; Das, 2020) focusing on India also demonstrates the debilitating outcome of land dispossession through the lens of caste or social categories. While a good deal of empirical studies has concentrated and illustrated on the aforementioned issues, not much ink has been spilled on how state-mediated expropriation of rural land on a large scale for neoliberal city-making and its accompanied ‘glocalized’ capitalism that uses ‘space as its privileged instrument’ (Brenner & Theodore, 2002: 342–343) leads to a process of peripheral land conversion largely governed by realtors and speculators. It is in this context that this essay aims to illuminate how local political economy of neoliberal urbanism and progressively mounting neoliberal capitalism in the eastern peri-urban part of Kolkata have led to a process of shrinking rural through post-dispossession land alienation and commons grabbing for a transformative global urban place-making and are causing a perturbing environmental degradation. It also aims to elaborate on how the local and national media played a central part in covering and bringing up these issues to the attention of the citizenries and state authorities.

Data and Methodology The article is essentially analytical in nature, involving a long-term qualitative field research in the villages affected by acquisition of land for the Rajarhat Newtown project. While the field study was carried out in different phases between 2008 and 2016, I also made a few follow-up visits to some of these villages post-2016 and my last visit was in October 2022. Methodologically, this essay draws from a broader

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research involving field notes and observations and 221 in-depth interviews of project-affected peasants residing in six project-torn revenue villages (now urban villages): Patharghata, Rekjuani, Chakpachuria, Chapna, Baligori and Thakdari. The interviewees were drawn both randomly (117 peasants) and by referrals (referral interviewees: 104 peasants). The latter basically consisted of those dispossessed peasants who still (post-acquisition) owned agricultural lands and sold them partly or entirely in the post-dispossession land market. The data and information collected through the methods mentioned above were also complemented by many formal and informal discussions with the concerned panchayat Pradhans (Heads) and members, government officials well aware of the process of acquisition of land and its aftermath in the affected revenue villages, local politicians, brokers, activists, journalists and also some farmers unaffected by the acquisition. While the interviews were conducted at the concerned peasants’ houses, the formal and informal discussions with the others mentioned above were carried out in the concerned panchayat and government offices, community clubs, tea stalls, restaurants and at times the project sites. Alongside the methods mentioned above, the paper also draws on a few month’s immersive research that involved my stay in the two acquisition-torn villages Rekjuani and Patharghata in Rjarhat2 and in-depth interactions with a large number of key interviewees and villagers that helped me pen field diaries in great details. The study also benefits from various published and unpublished government documents and literature on the issues under consideration. The restructuring of rural spaces into an urban one in Rajarhat has been assessed by analysing the orthorectified3 IRS P6 LISS-IV MX imageries bearing a spatial resolution of 5.8 m for two points in time: 2004 and 2016. The imageries were processed using ArcGIS 10.3 software, while spectral enhancement and atmospheric corrections were performed using SAGA (System for Automated Geoscientific Analyses) 6.2.0. The imageries were first classified using the supervised classification method and also were manually corrected with the help of pixel recoding. The classified images were further validated with 350 random points in each broad feature category, approximating 97% accuracy.

2

A local influential leader and his followers assisted me in staying in Rekjuani and Patharghata. The morality of protecting their anonymity forbids me from mentioning their names here. 3 The orthorectified imageries were procured for the higher accuracy, representing the true positions of the features on the surface.

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Rural to Urban: Understanding the Transitions and Political Economy of Expropriation of Land and Dispossession in Rajarhat In the late 2000s, a large part of the Rajarhat CD block situated in the north-eastern rural fringe of Kolkata Metropolitan City underwent a dramatic transition from rural to urban due to a ‘sudden kick-off’ of massive construction work by the LFG through a public-private-partnership (PPP) model for building ‘Rajarhat Newtown’ on agricultural lands, fishing embankments and wetlands acquired from the peasants in order to lodge IT Parks, financial hubs and institutions, business centres and modern commercial and residential dwelling units in the form of a neoliberal planned transformative city that would correspond to knowledge economy or what Saskia Sassen calls ‘global cities’ (2001). Strikingly, an overwhelming share (95.37%) of Rajarhat’s total population in 2001 remained rural, but in 2011 more than half (52.81%) of its population became urban, registering an unprecedented decadal growth of 1390.36% (Primary Census Abstract, 2001). It now houses a population size of 0.19 million, and its block headquarters ‘Rajarhat Town’ is situated only 9.20 km away from the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport (Kolkata Airport). Although the LFG began to acquire lands in Rajarhat in 1995, the massive capital-intensive construction work on the acquired lands for neoliberal city-making and its infrastructure development kicked in late 2006.4 And within a few years that followed, many new families poured in this city under making, resulting in a change in Rajarhat’s earlier demographic composition. Hence, the demographic figures registered in the 2001 Population Census and the concerned Panchayats and Block Development Offices in 2001 would help cater a better understanding of Rajarhat’s pre-transformative socio-religious-political statistics. In 2001, Rajarhat CD block had a population of 0.15 million (Primary Census Abstract, 2001), of which 41.35% and 58.03% belonged to the Muslims and Hindus, respectively. The remaining miniscule fraction (0.62%) belongs to other religious groups. Strikingly, within the Hindus, the majority belonged to the scheduled castes (SCs) comprising Namasudra, Paudra Kshatriya and Rajbangshi, constituting 62.01%, followed by the OBCs—other backward classes (Sadgop and Karmakar). SCs and Muslims being the two dominant social groups constituted a little over three-quarters (77.28%) of Rajarhat’s total population. This socio-religious composition was, however, not constant across the affected revenue villages; rather it was noticeably variable between the two dominant groups. Of 26 project-affected revenue villages, 11 (Thakdari, Mohisgot, Sulanggari, Tarulia, Ghuni, Jatragachhi, Kadampukur, Chakpachuria, Patharghata, Hudarait and Akandakeshari) were predominantly inhabited by the scheduled caste, while in the remainder, the Muslims

4 The information was provided by the dispossessed peasants and concerned WBHIDCO officials at the time of conducting interviews.

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formed the majority. Although both Hindus and Muslims are actively involved in the local polity, the former being the majority in the locality prevail the dominance, and within the Hindus, it is the SC who have been maintaining the overall political hegemony at the CD block ever since the 1967 state assembly election. The political hegemony of the SCs in Rajarhat became even stronger with the imbibing of democratic decentralization of power by the LFG in the 1980s. Notably, since 1967 until 2011, all elected Members of Legislative Assembly (MLA) from the Rajarhat constituency remained the scheduled caste. The upper-caste Hindus (Brahmins, Kayasthas and Baidyas) constituted only a very small share of the total population in the block, and the majority of whom existed in agricultural cultivation and earned their living from either regular jobs in the government sectors or businesses. According to the Rajarhat Block Land Revenue Officer (BLRO, 2009),5 more than three-quarters of the lands acquired from the peasants in Rajarhat were low-lying and fell under the vast wetland and its buffer zones called the East Kolkata Wetland (EKW) zone, and more than 90% of its agricultural landholdings in 2001 had been, as per the standard national categorization,6 possessed and cultivated by the marginal farmers. Two other independent studies by Chattopadhyay (2000) and Chakrabarty et al. (2015) also report that Rajarhat Newtown is partly built on a large parcel of the EKW that partially helped form two vast bils (huge areas of natural low-lying shallow marshy land) locally called Dhupir and Ghunir bils. For an overwhelming majority of the households in Rajarhat, farming activities were, regardless of their social (caste) and religious identities, performed by their own family labour, while only a handful of households with one or more members engaged in government jobs or thriving businesses in the block headquarters, for whom agriculture was not the prime source of earning a living, carried out agricultural cultivation with hired labourers. Notably, participation of women in economic activities was meagre. Only one-tenth of the total workforce in Rajarhat in 2001 was women (Primary Census Abstract, 2001), and they were concentrated mainly in those households that were not practising agricultural cultivation. Agricultural cultivation was never much flourished here (Roy, 2016: 35). Due to low-lying location of the cultivable lands largely falling in Dhupir and Ghunir bils and their regular deluging in the rainy season, a large portion of the acquired agricultural lands in the pre-acquisition stage used to be cultivated by the peasants with two staple paddies, namely, aman (rain-fed) and boro (irrigated) being suitable for rainy and summer seasons, respectively. Only households that possessed elevated agricultural lands adjoining their homesteads could cultivate some vegetables, such as cabbage, cauliflower, potato, radish, brinjal, carrot and a few leafy vegetables. Strikingly,

5

The BLRO was interviewed on 08 January 2009 at his office. The standard landholdings categories in India are large (more than 10.000 ha or 24.710 acres), medium (4.001 to 10.000 ha or 9.886 to 24.710), semi-medium (2.001 to 4.000 ha or 4.942 to 9.886 acres), small (1.001 to 2.000 ha or 2.471 to 4.942 acres) and marginal (less than or equal to 1 ha or 2.471 acres).

6

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agricultural cultivation in these villages is no more considered as an economic activity because the post-dispossession existing farmlands are either undergoing a utilitarian transformation due to rapid real estatization or lying fallow as holdouts for lucrative transaction deals. Following the IMF and World Bank-controlled post-liberalization growth model that de-prioritized agriculture while rendering greater leniency towards a ‘knowledge-based economy’, in 1993–1994, the LFG of West Bengal under the chief ministership of veteran communist leader Jyoti Basu adopted a bypass approach to urbanization, attempting to decongest its only post-colonial metropolis Kolkata by developing a new planned township in Rajarhat. This new township was destined for a new economy of knowledge-based activities involving digital programming, advanced analytics and simulation, geo-computation, logistics management and real estatization (Roy, 2022: 21) which would generate employment opportunities for the well-educated and well-skilled workers—the ‘immaterial labour’ (Hardt & Negri, 2004)—who design programming and simulations and digital networking and provide logistics and supply chain management (Roy, 2022: 20). The master plan of Rajarhat Newtown prioritized and excogitated five different purposes in order to liberalize and devalorize a vast spatial dimension of 13343.40 acres involving largely agricultural lands and partly fishing embankments and wetland. These were IT hubs (6.50%), new business district (4.60%), residential apartments (50.50%), roads (9.70%) and open space and water bodies (28.70%). Analysing the post-colonial Nehruvian-Mahalanobis development mould that caused the largest displacement7 in independent India ever and became the central point of peasant movements and contestations in the 1960s and 1970s, the LFG while designing the framework of acquisition carefully adhered to a model that denigrated the displacement of peasantry to an extremely miniscule level8 and concentrated primarily on

Although the land acquisition literature embodies two similar locutions ‘displacement’ and ‘dispossession’ widely, underlying distinctions between them do exist. While displacement links to loss of a dwelling structure and thus brings forth relocation, dispossession does not necessarily comply with it. Only those losing their homestead with dwelling houses in acquisition should be technically called ‘displaced’ people. Contrarily, anyone losing land or house or both may be called a ‘dispossessed’. The word dispossession, therefore, literally has a wider scope, and in this essay, it indicates expropriation of lands only, not homesteads with houses. Notably, large dams constructed under the Nehru-Mahalanobis development model in post-colonial India happened to be the largest progenitor of displaced people. 8 No household of the sample villages lost its homestead with a house in the acquisition, which implies that no household was displaced. The project-affected households of our sample villages were only dispossessed of their agricultural land and commons. Only some refugees who lived sporadically in the squatters unlawfully constructed on the banks of Bagjola Khal (canal) flowing through nine project-affected revenue villages: Chandiberia, Sulanggari, Ghuni, Jtragachhi, Chakpachuria, Baligari, Patharghata, Chapna and Akandakeshari were displaced. However, all displaced refugee families were resettled and relocated by the WBHIDCO in nearby Nandan Nager and Jatragachhi with titles to resettled houses/land and access to civic amenities that include roads, drainage, toilets, potable water, primary schools, Anganwadis and ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services) centres (interviews with some displaced refugee families and the concerned officials of the WBHIDCO, 02 November 2016). 7

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acquiring agricultural land and commons for establishing Rajarhat Newtown. With the help of the Land Acquisition Act (LAA) of 1894, the LFG could, however, successfully acquire only 6933.72 acres of agricultural land from about 25,000 landowners and registered tenants of 26 revenue villages over a long time span of 16 years between April 1995 and March 2011. Alongside the legal mechanism laid down in the LAA 1894, the politicaladministrative machineries brought into force by the LFG played a central part in shaping up an easy expropriation in Rajarhat. First, execution of acquisition of land in the earmarked villages involved ‘a piecemeal, step-by-step method’ (Roy, 2016: 33) and was first commenced in the Mohisgot and Tegharia revenue villages. It subsequently embarked on a slow and gradual course of expansion, signifying therefore a punctilious craftsmanship of the government. Notably, the preliminary notifications for acquisition of 6933.72 acres of land came out in more than seven hundred land acquisition cases (WBHIDCO 20169). The piecemeal method and creeping pace of expropriation virtually diluted the possibilities of mass mobilization and movement that could emanate from a ‘single-swipe and short-time-bound’ method (as we saw in the cases of much-debated Singur and Nandigram in West Bengal and Jagatsinghpur in Odisha). Second, the dispossessed farmers, while interviewing and interacting with, regretfully revealed that even the local representatives of the then major opposition political party kept a close association and consonance with the land-acquiring body. A connivance and power brokerage between the then Housing Minister of West Bengal Shri Gautam Dev—a core CPIM leader and the chief government authority for the Rajarhat Newtown project—and the opposition political party’s Legislative Assembly Member (1996 to 2001) at Rajarhat as well as its few powerful panchayat samiti members cropped up, which dramatically reshaped the dynamics of local political milieu in the LFG’s favour and significantly contributed to engineering a scuffle-free land grab on a large scale (Dey, 2011: 6; Dey et al., 2013: 73–74). Third, the government ruthlessly suppressed the scattered peasants’ agitations that occasionally emerged in the project-affected villages by using its policemen and Rapid Action Force in the broad daylight and the CPIM-fostered armed goons and their dreadful political voices—what the Bengali citizenry infamously called ‘Harmad Bahini’—after the dusk. It was this ‘triple strategy’ (step-by-step method, political brokerage and power suppression) of the then ruling CPIM functionaries that played a crucial part in engineering the image of a seamless acquisition by keeping the peasant agitations downsized, peanut and unnoticeable to the majority citizenry. Determining ‘appropriate market prices’ for the lands to be acquired, however, stood as an impediment as the LFG had no data on ‘recent’ sales agreements of farmlands in the earmarked revenue villages. To transcend this limitation, the LFG in 1994–1995 adopted a ‘monopsonistic method’ of direct purchase of farmlands

9 The information was provided by the concerned official at the WBHIDCO office at Rajarhat Newtown on 02 November 2016.

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through the negotiations with farmers of 14 revenue villages,10 and it succeeded to procure 265.20 acres of agricultural land from 877 voluntary sellers (WBHIDCO 201611). This direct purchase thus provided a benchmark for determining the market price of land for accomplishing the acquisition. The method devised, inter alia, had two crucial implications: first, it rendered an authentic ‘base price’ and connoted to a legitimation of determining base price and total compensation for land, and second, by involving farmers in the direct negotiations, it also reflected a ‘token of farmers’ willingness’ and laid down ‘transparency and credibility of the process’ (Mallik, 2016: 39), indicating the veneer of social justice to a substantial extent. To eliminate the potential of speculative appreciation in the market value of land in the following years, the government announced an annual premium of 5% on the ‘base price’ for each following year over the previous year (CAG, 2007). The compensation for an acre of land in 1995, regardless of its type and quality, was rupees (Rs.) 0.36 million. However, in 2003, the rate was revised and raised to 0.78 million. The LFG, while analysing the negative chemotaxis of dispossession on tenants (keeping all other subalterns apart, e.g. agricultural labourers, rural artisans, etc.), ordained an amendment and added new clauses to sect. 23 of the LAA which ennobled only registered sharecroppers to claim an amount of 25% of the total compensation from the government for losing their earnings from such acquired land. The government also expropriated notified lands from those who spurned the compensation. In such cases, the compensation awards were forked over by the collector to the Kolkata High Court.12 While interacting with the dispossessed farmers during the course conducting interviews in Rajarhat, a few who came upon this psychic trauma deplored how extremely difficult and unimaginable task it was for them to retrieve the compensation from the state’s apex court. They were treated undignifiedly and humiliated by the officers of the land acquisition cell in every step of the legal proceedings. These infliction and difficulties in the retrieval of compensation award from the court made many farmers frightened in the successive phases of acquisition and they gave up their land in despair.

10

The villages are Akandakeshari, Ghuni, Kadampukur, Mohisgot, Raigachhi, Thakdari, Chakpachuria, Chapna, Gopalpur, Jatragachhi, Krishnapur, Mohisbathan, Patharghata and Rejuani. 11 The information was provided by the concerned official at the WBHIDCO office at Rajarhat Newtown on 02 November 2016. 12 Section 31 of the LAA of 1894 directs the collector to deposit the compensation in the court in those cases where the title holders of the affected land spurn it.

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Expanding Urban, Receding Rural: Land and Commons Grab and the Neoliberal City-Making The market liberalization and privatization and the subsequent development policy reforms by the LFG in 1993–1994 with the master plan of a global city-making in rural Rajarhat concentrating primarily on a knowledge economy sprouted the speculative real estate surge. While the real estate capital in its true sense began to thrive since 2000 with a ‘kick-off’ of apportioning a fraction of acquired lands to the potential global corporate houses and real estate giants, the rural land market in Rajarhat, however, started undergoing a dramatic transformation after 2002, especially with the eased restrictions on foreign direct investments by the central government for building neoliberal satellite towns and urban infrastructures in the country, which shot up the private capital flows—both domestic and global—in the real estate sector (KMGP, 2014). Nonetheless, the most striking feature of this neoliberal transformative city-making in Rajarhat was, unlike the ones (e.g. Kalyani, Saltlake City and Durgapur) built in the state in the pre-liberalization era when the state agencies and organizations were at the helm, the ‘public-private partnership’ (Bose, 2013: 136; Dey et al., 2013: 19) committed to forge world-class urban-public infrastructures, such as roads, hospitals, aquatic and amusement parks, hi-tech and industrial parks, power grids and thermal plants and so on. This capital-intensive development mould is transforming rural spaces by producing new habitats of urban modernity, ‘delivering a liquidity of segmentation under the ascendance of the circuits of neoliberal capital’ (Roy, 2022: 27). Rajarhat is now a ‘space of plurality’—a place that is emerging as a multitude of economic functionalities under neoliberalism, rapidly transforming from a largely rustic, typical agrarian social space to a globalized urban space housing glossy corporate offices, shopping malls, luxury star hotels, super-speciality hospitals and educational institutions, global food giants and amusement and eco-parks. Private capital-intensive rapid planned urbanization on agricultural land, fishing embankments and wetland expropriated from their stakeholders has virtually led to a process of ‘neoliberalizing space’ (Peck & Tickell, 2002) and is dramatically changing the characteristics of rural areas and the relationship of traditional farmers with their farmlands and erstwhile surroundings. The post-dispossession multifaceted economic functionalities alongside hundreds of large real estate projects and many global IT firms, such as IBM, Genpact, Tech Mahindra, Hindustan Computers Limited (HCL), Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro, Oracle Corporation, etc., presently operating in Rajarhat Newtown have triggered a ‘secondary cycle’ of [existing] land alienation and illegal wetland grabbing (I shall illuminate this aspect later). Put differently, the proliferating post-dispossession development activities on the acquired land largely governed by capital have emerged as catalytic determinants, pulling in new non-traditional actors of land—realtors, speculators and politically protected local housing developers—into the scene and transgressing the existing land in a constant progression. For non-traditional actors, land is, by principles, more consumptive than a productive good. The transformative city-

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25.00

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making in Rajarhat essentially illustrates a mechanism of neoliberal urbanism—a structural ‘process whereby the logic of building an urban centre is dictated by the dynamics of capital’ (Roy, 2022: 27). The data on transactions of agricultural land in the post-acquisition stage shared by the interviewees (especially those who lost only a fraction of their land in acquisition and sold their post-dispossession remaining land partially or completely) reflect a phenomenal increase in land price. In 2004, the year that immediately followed the completion of acquisition in the revenue village Rekjuani, the average price for an acre of agricultural land was Rs. 6.60 million, which increased to 31.90 million in 2016, registering a growth of 383% (Fig. 1). Conversely, until early 2003, the compensation rate awarded by the LFG for an acre of land, regardless of its quality (single cropped or multi-cropped) and nature of usage, was as meagre as Rs. 0.36 million,13 denoting thereby an unprecedented post-dispossession rise in land price {(Rs. 31.90 million ÷ Rs. 0.36 Million)* 100 = 8861.11%} over a time span of only 13 years. This unheard-of shooting up in land price in the postdispossession stage was an upshot of the neoliberal planned city-making on rural lands transforming a typical rustic rural landscape into an eye-catching urban one and the advent of many non-traditional actors of land with diverse motives that helps develop competitive land market. The economic rent of any given piece of land is largely contingent upon the development ventures in its vicinity (Morris & Pandey, 2009: 14) which catalyzes active land market by involving many agents (heterogeneous buyers and sellers, unlike monopsony) of land.

13

To be recalled here that the rate of compensation per acre of land was determined on the basis of ‘market price of land’ estimated by the LFG on the basis of direct purchases of lands from 877 households in a monopsonistic market in 14 earmarked revenue villages.

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The sudden rise in rural land value caused by a competitive land market and a multitude of development activities largely governed by capital in Rajarhat in the post-acquisition stage has perhaps reached the ‘reservation price’ (Chakravorty, 2013: 143)—a price at which an owner wishes to sell his land—which is playing a catalytic role in actuating partially lost households to alienate their remaining lands, manifesting a secondary cycle of land conversion under the capitalist market force. Furthermore, it is this secondary cycle of land conversion that has opened up new opportunities to navigate the post-acquisition land market for those who possessed land, thus helping a section to appropriate the potential benefits of speculative land values. The unheard-of sums involved in the post-dispossession land speculation have caused ‘inequality of a magnitude’ within the project-affected farming communities in rural Rajarhat that was never possible without the farmlands being treated as a commodity by capital and without the state-mediated restructuring and rescaling of rural spaces into an urban one under the circuits of capital. The spatial aspects of private capital-driven neoliberal urbanism in Rajarhat have attained a newer geography of development characterized by restructuring and rescaling of both horizontal (land) and vertical spaces. Hundreds of skyrocketed real estate residential towers with luxurious amenities and infrastructures like swimming pools, gymnasiums, parks, shopping complexes within the gated colonies, etc. are an illustrious examples of a ‘newer dimension’ of space conversions. A critical aspect to this newer capitalist dimension of space is, as revealed by some dispossessed peasants, social activists and two local journalists while informally interacting with them in the affected villages, the illegal grabbing of commons (e.g. community ponds and wetlands) in patches and their conversion and transformation into residential plots and multi-storeyed dwelling units by a band of locally powerful and politically well-connected land sharks locally known as ‘real estate promoters’. These land sharks unscrupulously, as revealed by a land and real estate broker,14 secure a tacit consent from the locally powerful political elites who ensure political protection and save them from the law enforcement agencies, and the means that helps mature a ‘tie’ between the political elites and promoters is a hefty token amount, what I call a ‘protectionary brokerage’. While the filling up of the marshy patches are often carried in the wee hours, legal documentations are forged with briberies. In 1991, only a few years before the adoption of the bypass approach to urbanization by the LFG to decongest post-colonial Kolkata, the EKW had a spatial dimension of 65.29 square kilometres which shrank to only 15.38 square kilometres (Ghosh et al., 2018: 668), sustaining a loss of 76.44% in its earlier areal dimension. And one of the factors that played a central part in this spatial truncation of the northern and north-eastern buffer zones of EKW was the expropriation of land for developing Rajarhat Newtown, resulting in a detrimental impact on the wetland’s natural habitat and biodiversity that existed for centuries.

14

The broker was interviewed on 04 November 2016 in a tea stall in Thakdari near the presentday EKW.

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Fig. 2 Land use/land cover in Rajarhat CD block in 2004. (Source: IRS P6 LISS IV dated 06 March and 14 December 2004)

Analysis of the IRS P6 LISS-IV satellite imageries acquired for the two pints in time—2004 and 2016—reveals that only a little over a decade, restructuring of rural spaces for a transformative city-making grew phenomenally, reflecting an unprecedented increase in commercial and high-rise buildings and manifesting how vertical vacuum spaces are being devalorized and brought into economic utilities (Figs. 2 and 3). No less imperative is the horizontal sprawl of area under urban settlements. The field verification, inter alia, unveils that, while the high-rise buildings consist of primarily multi-storeyed gated real estate apartments, star hotels and corporate and government offices, the commercial buildings include shopping malls, business centres and shopping complexes. The multi-storeyed real estate apartments in Rajarhat are a classic manifestation of neoliberal capitalist transformation of spaces, imputing speculative values by bringing the vertical spaces onto horizontal plane in a process of economic change and development through city-making. This speculative value of restructured and rescaled spaces [or land] under neoliberalism is the prime driver for realtors to accumulate capital. While the post-dispossession spatial restructuring of lands in rural Rajarhat has produced a new constellation of economic spaces, the realtors and speculators have turned the erstwhile rural land market in their favour. The first-hand information shared by the interviewees who sold their post-acquisition existing lands partly or entirely reveals that over two-thirds of total land plots sold by them had been

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Fig. 3 Land use/land cover in Rajarhat CD block in 2016. (Source: IRS P6 LISS IV dated 20 April 2016)

purchased by the realtors alone while 22.37% had been bought by the speculators. Nonetheless, the former with a larger financial leeway and an easy access to credits mostly took hold of those land plots that had spatial dimensions above half an acre. Strikingly, individual buyers had a trifling part in the post-acquisition land market and often got swiped away by the other two dominant actors in the land transaction negotiations. While both realtors and speculators appropriate benefits of speculative land values, the latter act as short-term owners who buy and sell land to only maximize profits and for whom land is less a factor of production than a commodity to be traded for a lucrative disposable income. The real estate intervention in rural Rajarhat has emerged as an inherent element of neoliberal ‘spatio-temporal fixes’ (Harvey, 2003: 43) and urbanism in a way, in which the realtors are accumulating capital through the commodification of lands, commons and vertical spaces by developing, devalorizing and making them available in ‘square foot’ in a fully developed capitalist land market.

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Land Grab, Neoliberal City-Making and Resource Degradation in Rajarhat As portrayed in the preceding section, the transformative city-making in Rajarhat through a large-scale expropriation of low-lying marshy lands (wetlands) has resulted in loss of a substantial fraction of wetlands and many fishing embankments. Although the WBHIDCO in 2011 created an artificial lake in Rajarhat Newtown measuring an area of 100 acres as an ameliorative and holistic approach to rebuild environmental sustainability and to create a balance between ecological regeneration, resource conservation and optimization of urban open spaces, it failed to qualify the grandeur of wetlands—in terms of richness in both flora and fauna— lost in acquisition. A large, dispossessed farmer in the acquisition-torn revenue village Baligori bewailed that: The lands on which Rajarhat Newtown stands today had an abundance of undisturbed landscape, consisting of long stretches of grasslands, a large number of small to medium but contiguous marshlands and wetlands which were home to countless wild fauna of different taxa that included different types of birds (both local and migratory), reptiles, and small carnivorous mammals such as jackals, jangle cats etc. Nonetheless, this contemporary capital-intensive city-making has wreaked a huge on this biodiversity. The variety of birds particularly the migratory ones, has now gone down substantially while the small carnivores have disappeared from the locality completely with the conversion of those natural habitats into high-rise gated colonies, corporate offices and shopping malls.15

Hundreds of thousands small and large trees that rendered shadows, fruits, timbers, firewood and a natural habitat to birds were cut down to make ways for private capital to establish their variegated economic enterprises in the form of planned neoliberal city, resulting in degradation of natural resources. Analysis of the satellite imageries used in this study also substantiates that the area under vegetation in Rajarhat has registered a diminution. The environmental impacts of this large-scale tree-felling are yet to be thoroughly investigated. While the WBHIDCO in 2011–2012 undertook initiatives of replanting trees and created several patches of man-made urban forests in Rajarhat Newtown, the outcome, as claimed by the respondent peasants while interviewing, befell substantially short to the magnitude in which the LFG executed tree-felling to embark on the construction work and world-class infrastructure development in the making of Rajarhat Newtown as a global city.

15

The farmer was interviewed on 21 December 2016.

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From Local to National and Transnational: Contemporary Land Grabs and the Media Acquisition of land is an old phenomenon, attaining new attentions and perspectives under neoliberalism due to its wide media coverage locally, nationally and globally. West Bengal in the late 2000s arguably happened to be the ‘epicentre’ of India’s neoliberal land wars, particularly because of violent peasant movements and agitations against the then communist government’s large-scale agricultural land grabs for capital. Diverse issues concerning state-mediated dispossession, [under]compensation and alternative livelihoods of the dispossessed peasants, an overwhelming majority of whom possessed marginal landholdings and largely relied on these lands for making a living (Roy, 2022), were widely captured by both regional and national media electronically and in published form. Expropriation-induced agitations often became the television and newspaper headlines, particularly in two eastern Indian states West Bengal and Odisha, for several years that followed the forceful expropriations of agricultural lands and commons in the late 2000s and early 2010s largely for private capital-intensive development mould. Also, the violent conflicts that flared up between the state forces and those who had a stake in such lands and did not wish to be parted away were unstintedly covered by the media. The furious commotions that followed the forceful ‘land grabs’ (or attempt to grab) for the Tata Motors’ small car project in Singur and the Indonesian Salim Group’s petrochemical SEZ in Nandigram in West Bengal and the South Korean Pohang Steel Company’s (POSCO) giant steel SEZ near the Paradeep Port in Odisha in the 2000s waggled both the state and central governments, impelling therefore the cancellations or moratoriums of many land-based development projects across the country. And in each of these cases, media played a crucial role to disseminate many nuances in great details. The coercive modus operandi of the governments involved in expropriation of land across the country under neoliberalism was reported by the mass media in ways that a nationwide clamour arose in the late 2000s from all walks of lives that included social and environmental activists, NGOs, policymakers, academicians, farming communities and a section of opposition political leaders and intellectuals who strongly demanded repealing of the draconian colonial LAA of 1894, or at least to bring about major amendments to it, resulting in its eventual repealing on 01 January 2014 and the enactment of the ‘Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013’ with the then Honourable Indian President’s approval. While the graveness of coercive expropriation of agricultural land in Singur and the killing of some farmers in Nandigram in West Bengal and their detailed media coverage in the second half of 2000s helped the farming communities gain wide public sympathy and support, the impregnable resistances, aggressions and agitations of the dispossessed families trembled the political hegemony of the LFG and its capitalist development logic under neoliberalism in the state, contributing to its eventual piteous downfall in the 2011 state assembly election. It was the mass media and their massive reporting that virtually made Singur and Nandigram in

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West Bengal and Jagatsinghpur and Kalinganagar in Odisha four familiar names to a large majority of the Indian citizenries. Contrarily, in comparison, the case of Rajarhat that registered the largest dispossession of peasants from their lands and livelihoods under the Left regime for the establishment of a global city captured only sporadic media headlines and less public attention. This was, unlike other instances mentioned above that involved short-time-bound and a single-swipe method, largely because of the well-thought-out executionary policy formulation that prioritized a piecemeal, step-by-step, long-time-bound acquisition method. Nonetheless, its sporadic media coverage did impact the local citizenries and administration to a reasonable extent. Grabbing and filling up of the wetlands for urban expansion were critically reported in the local Bengali newspapers in the early 2000s which effectively led to the enactment of the ‘East Kolkata Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Act, 2006’ and formation of the East Kolkata Wetlands Management Authority (EKWMA) by the West Bengal State Legislature for its conservation and management (Environment Department, 2016: 2).

Conclusion It would perhaps be hard for one working on the ‘dynamics of land dispossession’ to deny the fact that the diachronic processes of capitalist economic transformation across the world fundamentally rely on generating capital out of land and agriculture for non-agricultural purposes, particularly industrialization (D’Costa & Charraborty, 2017: 16) and knowledge-based techno urbanism—what Moreno and Shin (2018: 85) call ‘urbanism of digital platforms, advanced analytics and geo-computation’. Redistribution and restructuring of agricultural land acquired from the primary producers has long been identified a condition of successful capitalist development (Arrighi et al., 2010: 411), and strikingly, the contemporary land-based development ventures—both linear and clustered—promoted by the neoliberal Indian states over the last two decades have been overwhelmingly private capital-intensive, manifesting thereby an ‘underlying’ feature for restructuring and rescaling of rural lands largely on the capitalist lines. The case I studied here, however, reveals that the political-administrative machineries contrived and brought into force in the form of the piecemeal method, political brokerage and power subjugation by the LFG in the 26 earmarked revenue villages played a complementary role to the legal mandates in order to have acquisition of land an easy-going affair. The transformative city-making in Rajarhat being a publicprivate partnership model under neoliberalism is rapidly transforming the erstwhile rustic agrarian rural landscape in two ways: first, by neoliberalizing its spaces under the circuits of capital, and second, by producing new habitats of urban modernity in association with a multitude of economic functionalities largely on capitalist lines. While the proliferating post-dispossession development activities in rural Rajarhat have led to a subaltern mechanism of land conversion invariably transgressing the project-affected villages’ existing cultivable land, active involvement of many

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non-traditional actors such as realtors and speculators with diverse motives has made the post-acquisition land market fully competitive, resulting in a skyrocketed speculative hike in land value. Consequently, Rajarhat has attained a newer geography of real estate development where both horizontal and vertical spaces are largely undergoing restructuring, rescaling and devalorization and are being made available in the market by ‘square foot’, signifying a commodification of land and vertical space by capital. The capital-intensive city-making in Rajarhat partly involving grabbing and filling up of low-lying marshy land has not only shrunk the spatial dimension of wetlands but debilitated the biodiversity in the locality. Countless small and large tree-felling executed by the government ruthlessly in the earmarked revenue villages has made ways for capital to set up their variegated economic enterprises in Rajarhat Newtown. While the role of media and its reporting with regard to land expropriation in Rajarhat, unlike the much-debated and controversial cases such as Singur and Nandigram in West Bengal which became two familiar names nationally to media’s wide coverage, remained sporadic, it did capture attentions of the regional citizenries and local authorities, resulting in the enactment of the East Kolkata Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Act in 2006 by the state legislature.

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Animesh Roy is presently working as an Assistant Professor. He has a Doctoral Degree in Development Geography from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

The Hungry Tide: The Problem of the Commons in the Sundarbans of Bangladesh Lailufar Yasmin

There are no borders here to divide fresh water from salt, river from sea. The tides reach as far as two hundred miles inland and every day thousands of acres of forest disappear underwater, only to reemerge hours later. The currents are so powerful as to reshape the islands almost daily—some days the water tears away entire promontories and peninsulas; at other times it throws up new shelves and sandbanks where there were none before. When the tides create new land, overnight mangroves begin to gestate, and if the conditions are right they can spread so fast as to cover a new island within a few short years. A mangrove forest is a universe unto itself, utterly unlike other woodlands or jungles. There are no towering, vinelooped trees, no ferns, no wildflowers, no chattering monkeys or cockatoos. Mangrove leaves are tough and leathery, the branches gnarled and the foliage often impassably dense. Visibility is short and the air still and fetid. At no moment can human beings have any doubt of the terrain’s hostility to their presence, of its cunning and resourcefulness, of its determination to destroy or expel them. Every year, dozens of people perish in the embrace of that dense foliage, killed by tigers, snakes and crocodiles. There is no prettiness here to invite the stranger in: yet to the world at large this archipelago is known as the Sundarbans, which means “the beautiful forest.” (Ghosh, 2004, pp. 7–8)

Introduction The Hungry Tide (Ghosh, 2004), set on the Sundarbans, depicts a story of conflict between man and nature. The above paragraphs introducing the region depict the nature at its best—its harshness and how it looks on the ground. The story is also about the self-reflection of the main character of the novel—but throughout, it shows man cannot win against the nature. Yet, humans have unprecedented level of “power” to win temporarily. The age of the Anthropocene is merely a small fragment L. Yasmin (✉) Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Briesen, S. P. Das (eds.), Media, Politics and Environment, Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31252-6_18

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of time in the entire history of the Earth, although it is this age that has created irreversible damages to the plant. The finite nature of the planet often escapes the minds of policymakers, who are more interested to pay attention to the problem to today, as their bread and butter depends on providing resolution for the time being. Seldom, the consequences of an action of today are judged in the timeframe of tomorrow. The tragedy does not end here. For an average Tom or Dick or Harry, there is no time to think about environmental concern, when they have to put food on the table and take care of a family. Resources, although divided with the walls of sovereignty, are not seen as “common properties,” rather seen as required for meeting necessities. The Sundarbans, one of the global commons, also experience such a fate of the tragedy of the commons—because it belongs to everybody, the management of the Sundarbans becomes equally illusive. As a result, the largest contiguous mangrove ecosystem in the world and a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) world heritage site, spread between Bangladesh and India, is threatened by climate change and man-made activities. Interestingly enough, a number of studies that are carried out on the Sundarbans emphasize mostly on these aspects. The article argues that the top-down approach of addressing environmental issues hardly works if the local people are not made aware of the issue. In other words, the gap between experts and general people may be one of the significant areas that more research should be done in order to raise awareness of environmental issues. This article is an attempt to address this argument by outlining the issues that are directly affecting the sustainability of the Sundarbans, which is located within three southwestern districts of Khulna, Satkhira, and Bagerhat in Bangladesh. Although the article takes a typical statist argument following the mandates of international relations, the arguments presented here shall often transcend the boundary due to the interspersed nature of environmental issues. When it comes to air, water, or the movement of animals, these hardly look at the human-constructed artificial borders, and therefore, the discussion shall take a note of it. The article argues how the environment, though the only ties that bind the humanity together, is also under a constant threat because of the way we have defined ourselves as “different” than each other. It is not only geographical differences or locations that set us apart but also sovereignty dictates a particular form of power of each of the states within their definite territory and, therefore, enact law and implement them keeping their particular national interest at the top, leaving or sacrificing the global need. More to this is the local users who often see resources to be used keeping their primary needs in mind. The article points out that concerns on global environment, state policies, and needs of the local users cannot meet until we pay attention to the ideas of sustainable co-development through the community’s perspective. The case study of the Sundarbans shall highlight this aspect. In this article, therefore, I relate a number of arguments to explaining the issues emerging and already prevalent in the Sundarbans that are already well-established arguments in the study of understanding environmental concerns; nonetheless, they are discussed here as there have been less attention to understand these issues in a

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comprehensive manner in the context of the Sundarbans. These are also discussed here more from the point of understanding environmental issues and their solutions not only with scientific data and policies but also to understand from the point of view of human behavior. It is only from applying the lens of social science one can understand how to appeal to humans about the gravity of environmental issues and how to make it see as everyone’s problem but only those of the policymakers. For everyday human survival and in a world where a number of people are battering with economic crises of different natures, preservation of the environment may seem at the bottom of the list of concerns. Human behavioral patterns are often lost in scientific data analysis and their application if they are not connected to people. Quantitative data can provide figures but at the heart of those exists qualitative explanations and making the scientific data understandable for common people. Environmental issues and fight for saving the planet, thus, often seen as something alien to common people, for whom meeting everyday needs is the first priority. The same applies for the people living in the Sundarbans, as I shall discuss later in this chapter, who have found more stake involved in bringing development projects in the Sundarbans, although those might be ridden with environmental concerns. The chapter is divided into several substantive sections. It starts with a discussion on the concept of “the tragedy of the commons” and how it has been applied in contemporary context. The next section brings in the case study of the Sundarbans and discusses why conservation approaches with regard to the Sundarbans are turning into a challenge. However, as the chapter shall show, the nature of the conservationist approach is gradually changing in Bangladesh where there is an increasing understanding about involving the local with the global—if we may put it this way. In other words, with increasing awareness about the pitfalls of climate change, Bangladesh’s polity understands the need to involve local people in understanding the nature of climate change and environmental degradation as well as has elaborated national plans from bottom-up approaches, involving communities. This chapter shall elaborate the discussions on this area. It starts off, however, with the theoretical foundation of the chapter.

The Fate of the Sundarbans Is Tied Up: The Tragedy of the Commons! The idea of the “commons”—that the Earth belongs to everybody and each of our actions affect the fate of the rest—is a relatively new idea in human history. The consequences of human activities on the environment and its collective effect and impact became a matter of concern at both the scholarly and policymaking levels only since the middle of the twentieth century. Amidst a number of concerns, what emerged was the concern about collective responsibility for environmental degradation that was visible in different parts of the world. One of the foremost of such ideas, arguably one of the most powerful of its kind, is the concept of the tragedy of

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the commons (Hardin, 1968). Introduced in 1968 by Garrett Hardin, the central thrust of the concept has been applied in a number of diverse disciplines starting from ecology to health care, from economics to sociology, from environmentalism to psychology, and from law to international relations (Hardin, 1998). In the end, one cannot but point out that the concept of collective responsibility is tied up with the concept of global governance—and there comes the role of the state inside and outside. The concept of “the tragedy of the commons” is as plain as it sounds: how individual greediness may affect resources which are available to all and meant for all to share. In other words, if in a crisis situation, if we have but one lifeboat to share, how do we comply and ensure our survival? Can we depend on the “feel free” attitude or do we need “social arrangements that produce responsibility?” He raises a vital question: “freedom in common ruins us all.” Hardin’s argument rests on the consequences of overpopulation on the finite resources of the Earth and identified as a “thought experiment.” Also, to address the issue of overpopulation, Hardin suggested relying on morality and understanding of the common responsibility as ways to address this. As one of the very common and widely used metaphors to refer to humans sharing one planet together and their collective responsibility on using finite resources, the concept has been widely used. Scholars, however, have argued that Hardin’s apprehensions of individual greed leading to depletion of resources have not been aptly framed. Contrary to Hardin’s argument, there are plenty of examples where communities do act for preservations of resources out of their own interests as seen in some Asian and African communities (Acheson, 1990; Cogolati & Wouters, 2018, p. 3). It has been also been pointed out that Hardin’s ideas were “pernicious” in nature as he lobbied in the Congress against sending food aids to developing and underdeveloped countries who were testing Earth’s “carrying capacity” with overpopulation (Mildenberger, 2019). On the other hand, the loss of biodiversity; illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing; and air pollution due to urban lifestyle, among others, are testaments to how individualistic attentions have collectively created tragedy for all of us. The evidences of climate change no longer stay confined in scientific data but the frequency of natural disasters and abnormality of climatic conditions show how we are collectively being affected, no matter who is directly responsible for this. The Sundarbans is not only being affected by the users in its vicinity but also being affected severely due to saline intrusion as a result of sea level rise. While I discuss the first issue of human-environment interactions and its effects in details later in this chapter, I raise the issue of sea level rise as a collective responsibility and how it is tied to the idea of the commons. The characteristics of “subtractability” and nonrenewable characteristics, which made the natural resource commons vulnerable (Nonini, 2006). That environment has been a subject to the “despotic” rules of humans and its effects are seen and felt collectively are well recognized. Nonetheless, we have seen states are held by their national self-interest, domestic priorities, and business interests, to cite a few, to look beyond today’s considerations and pay a sustained and meaningful priority on issues of conservation.

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International agencies working on the issue are often driven by region-based priorities, funding issues, and attractiveness of an issue to promote it. In a speech, Professor Saleemul Huq (2022), an eminent environmentalist from Bangladesh, for example, pointed out how the attractiveness of climate change has trumped over other environmental concerns and seldom an integrated approach on environmental issues can be identified. In another example, as the International Union on Conservation of Nature (IUCN) works on a number of projects on conservation, its works are rather region-centric than looking at issues on an integrated manner. A recently published research on the conservation of mangrove forests that are taking place in Saudi Arabia and Southeast Asia is presented in such an isolated manner and does not mention the Sundarbans (“Magic of mangroves: The plant that sequesters more CO2 than rainforests”, 2022). One can argue that this is a part of the Saudi initiative to conserve its mangrove forests, but to see this issue in an isolated manner is a glaring example of how environmental issues are driven by nationalist priorities and objectives, even in today’s world where we can see how interdependent we are. The idea of the commons, not in the way that Hardin has put it, but in a more general sense, is often not seen as being a part of the bigger narrative. In other words, while it is the environment that makes us globalized, interdependent and together, no matter where we reside, approaches to understanding environmental issues, mitigation, and conservation may not always take an integrated approach. The theoretical framework of Hardin’s “the tragedy of the commons” has been criticized by many accounts; nonetheless, the concept itself has a deep impact in terms of emphasizing the necessity to understand the ideas of the commons, which has remained generally underexplored. This chapter acknowledges that particular contribution and situates the Sundarbans in that particular framework.

The Sundarbans: A Reality Check The existence of a different kind of forest on the southern coast of the Bengal delta came to the attention of the colonial administration by the end of the eighteenth century and the first Collector General, Claude Russell, was appointed in 1770–1773 (Chattopadhyaya, 1999; Sarkar, 2017, p. 56). This area was divided into two parts— the reclaimed area and the forest zone. This forest zone was named as the Sundarbans under Regulation III of 1828. The following is the earliest map of the Sundarbans (Damodaran et al., 2022, p. 66):

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The Sundarbans stuck through its name since then although the origin of the particular name has at least three different stories. The popular imagination holds it to be named after the Sundari Tree (literally: beautiful tree), which is found in abundance in the forest. On the other hand, another account provided by W.W. Hunter explains that the redwood bark of the trees makes the forest “sundar” (beautiful), added with “ban” (meaning forest) giving the origin of the name Sundarbans. The third account argues that from the name of the tribe “Chandabhandas,” which was mentioned to historically exist around 1079 AD, morphed to Chandradwip and in turn gradually transformed into the word Sundarbans (Chattopadhyaya, 1999, pp. 1–3). The original measurement of the Sundarbans stood out to be about 16,700 sq. km., carried out during the colonial period. This has reduced to one-third of its original size in contemporary time. With the division of the subcontinent, Bangladesh received two-thirds of the Sundarbans within its territorial jurisdiction. That size has also reduced over time for a number of reasons that I will subsequently discuss.

The Tragedy of the Commons and the Belongingness of the Resources: State, People, or the Planet? Discussing issues surrounding the Sundarbans, one cannot but tie it up with the general understanding of the tragedy of the commons—where it belongs to everybody, yet the fate of the resources is determined by the local users. A careful observer of the concept proposed by Hardin may wish to analyze this from this

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minimalist perspective leaving it out of the other dimensions that scholars have argued for and against. While analyzing what is happening in the Sundarbans and why these are worth the discussion, I apply this minimalist application of the concept. In other words—the Sundarbans is a world heritage site; in terms of sovereignty, it belongs to India and Bangladesh, but its de facto belonging rests to the end users—that is the local people. One can go back to applying the oft-cited metaphor of Rudyard Kipling “the twain shall never meet” to understand how state and people would hardly meet in the management of the environment. I have extended this on the idea of the commons and how global governance mechanisms miss this point. Thus, the idea is expanded tying up global concerns, state concerns, and the locals’ needs and how these three are at odds with each other. The following discussions on the Sundarbans shall show how the local people see and use the resources in the Sundarbans as opposed to existing discourses on the environment.

The Loss of Traditional Knowledge As with the advance of the Anthropocene in the nook and cranny of the world, traditional knowledge has been under threat by the construction of the civilized vs. uncivilized or modern vs. the unmodern; at the basic level, the imposition of the state system and its branches for the management of its properties, the Sundarbans has also experienced a similar fate. A number of Bangladeshi scholars, through their intensive research based on field visits and interview methods, have documented these changes. One of the interesting examples would be related to fishing practices and preservation of the fish resources of the Sundarbans. The local people of the Sundarbans take a conservationist approach when it comes to fishing, which is often not done in the same manner by the outsiders. For the local people, “The Sundarbans is our life. If it dies, we will not be able to survive for a single day. You cannot buy life with money” (Quoted in Titumir et al., 2019). In the case of fishing, the locals use “rocket nets” that do not kill carps and ensure long-term sustainability of fish resources as opposed to outsiders fishing with “Bainjal” that cannot guarantee the survival of carps. Studies undertaken in the Indian part of the Sundarbans also outlines the significance of documenting and highlighting the process of indigenous technical knowledge (ITK) in the areas of fisheries (Roy et al., 2020) and other forest-related livelihood activities (Ray, 2015). Scholars have argued that although initially there was no particular regulatory management system relating to the Sundarbans, with the colonial administration, an official and structural system of management with regards to the Sundarbans emerged. Bangladesh government, which inherited colonial administrative practices, also carried on with the system of management. Gradually, a system of co-management between the government and the local people developed to use traditional knowledge for conservation purposes. However, it has been identified that despite the approach of co-management, traditional knowledge of the local inhabitants has been undermined as the process requires the local people go through

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official lengthy procedure to gather resources from the forest. For the forestdependent locals, administrative processes hardly make any sense in times of their needs (Titumir, 2021).

The Result of the Human-Environment Interaction and the Poverty-Environment Nexus With the expansion of the human habitat and sustaining livelihood of the local people, several actors expanded their activities in the Sundarbans. On the one hand, the local people often were compelled to expand their economic activities without caring for the conservation of the nature and often unaware of the long-term impact of their activities. This is connected to the poverty-environment nexus, as highlighted in the introductory section. Very few income-generating activities exist in the Sundarbans, which is spread over three districts of Bangladesh. The overall economic condition of these three districts is dismal compared to the other parts of the country, where clear belts of economic prosperity is divided between eastern and western parts, where the eastern part is more developed than the western part. The poverty-environment nexus, however, cannot simply be explained by pointing out that environmental degradation may be done by poor people due to the lack of choices and knowledge about environmental conservation (Jehan & Umana, 2002). While poverty may be one of the causes, it is a more complex phenomenon than generally believed. In the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) evaluation of its sample of 132 projects and final evaluations of 113 projects, it was concluded that, “‘win-win’ situations to provide economic benefits to local populations and conserving the environment were not easy to identify and, in some cases, trade-offs were necessary” (Uitto, 2016). One can argue, however, that the cases of “coastal poor” and “forest poor” might be significantly different than the “urban poor” or even poor people living in semi-urban areas. For people living in the coastal region and forests, their survival mechanism might have long-term and unintended consequences on the forest resources. Studies have argued that for the former group, poverty has a direct impact on the immediate natural resources and their degradation in an unsustainable manner (Jalal, 1993). Talking with locals of the district of Satkhira, one can find evidence of this in the Sundarbans as well. Moreover, this led to the local people welcoming development projects that they consider providing them with more economic opportunities and ensuring their bare survival, which I will discuss in the next subsection.

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The Development-Progress-Environment Nexus The Rampal Power Station, being constructed at the Khulna division and just 14 kilometers away from the Reserve Forest of the Sundarbans, is a proposed 1320-megawatt (MW) coal-fired power station. It is also known as the Maitree Super Thermal Power Project, as this is a joint venture between India and Bangladesh together and being sponsored by the Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company (BIFPCL). The UNESCO World Heritage Centre and the IUCN conducted a study in 2016 in which they have raised a number of concerns regarding the feasibility of the power plant within only 14 km of the Sundarbans, along with a detailed report on larger environmental impacts (“Report of the joint World Heritage Centre/IUCN Reactive Monitoring mission to the Sundarbans World Heritage site (Bangladesh), 22-28 March 2016”, 2016). Environmentalists and activists have also pointed out how the Rampal Power project would adversely affect the natural habitat of the Sundarbans, has already affected lives of two million people, and will irreversibly change the ecosystem (Chandran, 2017; Chowdhury, 2017; “Rampal coal power plant Bangladesh”, 2022). The manner in which rehabilitation of the people was done was often questioned by experts (Joshi, 2016). Studies show that the traditional income-generating activities of the region, which is agriculture and shrimp cultivation based, would also be affected (Mahmud et al., 2020). Although the project has been approved by Bangladesh’s Department of Environment (DoE), it has been argued that the carbon emission from the power plant shall adversely affect the Sundarbans (Moneruzzaman, 2019). In addition, a report argues that Bangladesh would be the top carbon-emitting country by the year 2030 due to the energy-related carbon emission from the power plant (“Bangladesh to become a top carbon emitting country in Asia by 2030: TIB”, 2021). It must be noted here that Bangladesh’s carbon emissions per capita were 0.62 tons in 2021. The carbon footprint of the country has increased from 0.05 tons of CO2 per capita in 1972 to 0.62 tons of CO2 per capita in 2021, which is growing at an average annual rate of 5.32% (“Bangladesh - CO2 emissions per capita”, 2022). Given the extensive research on this issue both by national and international teams, one can hardly make a case for the Rampal Power project. However, one interesting point can be raised here—the perception of the local people regarding the Rampal Power Project. That the project has created income-generating activities for the locals and has provided means to meet their everyday struggles cannot be ignored. As stated throughout the chapter, environmental concerns are presented in such scientific manner; often the real data do not make senses to the general people. Because of taking a top-down approach and making the environment rather an urban-intellectual issue, for rural people, this seems like alien concerns. The widening gap between the intelligentsia and the common people and the inability to explain the environmental issues in common parlance have created such a situation. In the end, they do not either “own” the issues or are more concerned about meeting daily needs than to think about far-reaching consequences of today’s acts. In

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particular, the COVID-19 pandemic can be cited as an interesting example, which was termed as an urban disease as its rampant effect was more visible mostly in Dhaka, the capital city, and other major cities. Rural people were reluctant to follow health protocols and wear masks complaining that this would not affect them. While interviewed, one of the locals of the area rather praised the initiative to construct the Rampal Power project in that particular area and told the interviewer that there was no concern for the local people till the plan for the project was initiated. This was an interesting point made by the locals—the place was put on the map due to the decision to construct the Rampal Power project, and therefore, they welcomed the decision. This is elaborated in the next section tying the argument with how specificities about the Sundarbans is absent in the popular imagination.

The Urban-Local Disconnect and the Urban Imagination of the Sundarbans The people living in the Sundarbans have to struggle for their daily survival in terms of putting food on the table at the most basic level. There is very little, if any, formal economic opportunities available in different parts of the Sundarbans for which it is often termed as an “industrially virgin” region. The people living in this region are usually faced with two choices to make their living: either to go to the nearby city to earn money or to use natural resources to meet their needs. A study reveals that 40% of the people living in the Indian part of the Sundarbans experience “economic stress.” At the same time, it has been argued that majority of the poor people lack political consciousness and maturity, which is also a characteristic of the rural poor people of the Sundarbans. The activists, experts, and environmentalists, who have highlighted the environmental risks of having the Rampal Power Plant so near to the Sundarbans hardly pay attention to the fact as their concern is raised from a top-down approach. That short-term employment generations through development works would bring long-term catastrophes is not disseminated to the local people. What the people of the Sundarbans need is access to education, income-generating activities, and creating ecological consciousness, among others, for them to understand the far-reaching impacts of environmental degradation. The disconnect between the urban and the local is evident in the analyses of environmental issues, where often studies are done without proper mapping of the mindset of the people, their need, and their perspectives. It must be added here that a number of studies are done to understand the community’s perception about climate change and their impacts, particularly to the fishing community and the agriculture community in the Sundarbans region in both India and Bangladesh. These studies, however, are done. It is also observed that studies emerged in the wake of a disaster or a specific issue that has some acceptability in the contemporary discourse and, by extension, have salability. One example would be a rising number of studies emerging to gauge the effects of the Cyclone Aila (2009) and Cyclone Sidr (2007)

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and how the local community coped with it. There are two particular issues found while talking with the community: (1) the survival kits often did not reflect the need of the community; rather they were made of standardized disaster relief packs; and (2) in a hurry to reach disaster reliefs to the local community, it was not noticed that the heavy vehicles that were used for transportations were not made for the roads; therefore, the roads were damaged permanently, which are yet to be repaired fully (Badal, Personal Communication, 2022). A tendency, thus, exists to study the Sundarbans as a “whole” than paying minute attention in understanding the lifestyles, economic activities, and the community’s particular need assessments. Instead, a community-based approach should be taken to identify the needs of the local people and plan policies accordingly. This tells us once again what Walter Lippmann wrote back in 1922 about how people perceive the world in a stereotypical manner and through “pictures in their head” and how experts create an issue “by the urgency of their own interest” (Lippmann (1997). Lippmann points out, “[I]t was recognized that the specially trained man was in some dim way oriented to a wider system of truth than that which arises spontaneously in the amateur’s mind” (Ibid, p. 370). Throughout this chapter, I have argued that the Sundarbans suffer from such generic view taken about the region and it provides us a convoluted understanding about the region. Experts must work with the community and take a community-based approach in a wholistic manner instead of seeing the Sundarbans as a project to save from environmental impacts.

Concluding Observations The environment does belong to everyone—and that is what makes preservation of the environment virtually impossible single-handedly—through official decrees or through international treaties. This article is one of the initial attempts to argue this particular perspective, taking the Sundarbans as a case study. It has been discussed, throughout the chapter, how the issues in the Sundarbans are seen from the outside. It is as if people who live outside of the Sundarbans but are experts can fit the Sundarbans in the existing narratives of environmental threats to the region and thereby provide prescriptions to “fix” the region. The existing studies, thus, take a truncated view of the region, being based heavily on a top-down approach, where voices of the local and marginalized seldom get to be heard. This article rather argues that without going to the “local,” it is not possible to save the “global.” In this context, the article concludes by using an assertion of Bruno Latour: Support by scientists, institutions, the academy, journals, peers, instruments, money — all of these real-world ecosystems, so to speak, necessary for producing objective facts. Science depends on them just like you depend on the oxygen in this room. It’s very simple. And it was very simple 40 years ago, but at the time science was supposed to be true just by itself. It was mysterious, like the Immaculate Conception (Paulson, 2018).

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This article on the Sundarbans point to this argument—the environment is what makes the globe global. And environmental issues cannot be placed in their proper perspective if they are not seen and analyzed as interdependent and connected. Also, this connection must take into account the roles of the multiplicity of actors and ascertain how different pieces of the puzzle fit together.

References Acheson, J. M. (1990). The tragedy of the commons: Twenty-two years later. Human Ecology, 18(1), 1–19. “Bangladesh—CO2 emissions per capita”. (2022). World data atlas. Accessed October 7, 2022, from https://knoema.com/atlas/Bangladesh/CO2-emissions-per-capita “Bangladesh to become a top carbon emitting country in Asia by 2030: TIB”. (2021, April 28). The new age. Chandran, R. (2017, April 21). Environmentalists slam planned Bangladesh power plants near protected Sundarbans. Reuters. Accessed October 5, 2022, from https://www.reuters.com/ article/bangladesh-environment-idUKL8N1HT0W7 Chattopadhyaya, H. (1999). The mystery of the Sundarbans. A Mukherjee & Co Pvt Ltd. Cogolati, S., & Wouters, J. (2018). Introduction: Democratic, institutional and legal implications of the commons for global governance. In S. Cogolati & J. Wouters (Eds.), The commons and a new global governance (pp. 1–19). Edward Elgar Publishing. Chowdhury, A. H. (2017). Environmental impact of coal based power plant of Rampal on the Sundarbans (world largest mangrove forest) and surrounding areas. Ecology & Environmental Sciences, 2(3). Damodaran, V., D’Souza, R., & Dey, S. (2022). Uncertainty and environmental change: Kutch and the Sundarbans as environmental histories of climate change. In L. Mehta, H. N. Adam, & S. Srivastava (Eds.), The politics of climate change and uncertainty in India (pp. 55–82). Routledge. Ghosh, A. (2004). The hungry tide. Ravi Dayal Publisher. Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162(3859), 1243–1248. Hardin, G. (1998). Extensions of “the tragedy of the commons”. Science, 280(5364), 682–683. Huq, S. (2022, March 16). Climate emergency: Understanding the consequences. The BIPSS Lecture Club, Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Strategic Studies (BIPSS). Jalal, K. F. (1993, December). Sustainable development, environment and poverty nexus. Asian development bank. Accessed October 3, 2022, from https://www.adb.org/publications/ sustainable-development-environment-and-poverty-nexus Jehan, S., & Umana, A. (2002, May). The environment-poverty nexus. UNDP, round table on sustainable development and the millennium development goals held in Bali, Indonesia. Accessed October 2, 2022, from https://sarpn.org/documents/d0000349/UNDP_Report_5.pdf Joshi, A. (2016). Bangladesh sticks with coal power plant project despite major backlash. Global Forest reporting network. Accessed October 5, 2022, from https://news.mongabay.com/201 6/02/bangladesh-sticks-with-coal-power-plant-project-despite-major-backlash/ Lippmann, W. (1922/1997). Public opinion. Routledge. “Magic of mangroves: The plant that sequesters more CO2 than rainforests”. (2022, September 30). Independent. Accessed 30 September, 2022, from https://www.independent.co.uk/climatechange/sgi/mangroves-plant-co2-saudi-green-initiative-b2182803.html Mahmud, M. S., Roth, D., & Warner, J. (2020). Rethinking “development”: Land dispossession for the Rampal power plant in Bangladesh. Land Use Policy, 94, 104492.

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Mildenberger, M. (2019, April 23). The tragedy of the tragedy of the commons. Scientific American. Accessed October 3, 2022, from https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/the-tragedyof-the-tragedy-of-the-commons/ Moneruzzaman, M., (2019, August 28). Rampal power Plant’s carbon emissions to adversely affect Sunderbans: HC. The New Age. Nonini, D. M. (2006). Introduction: The global idea of ‘the commons’. Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice, 50(3), 164–177. Paulson, S., (2018, February 23). The critical zone of science and politics: An interview with Bruno Latour. Los Angeles Review of Books. Accessed October 8, 2022, from https://lareviewofbooks. org/article/the-critical-zone-of-science-and-politics-an-interview-with-bruno-latour/ Ray, T. (2015). Traditional knowledge of Mawalli in Sundarban: A case study. International Research Journal of Interdisciplinary & Multidisciplinary Studies (IRJIMS), 1(1), 22–25. “Rampal coal power plant Bangladesh”. (2022, June 3). Accessed October 5, 2022, from https:// www.banktrack.org/project/rampal/pdf “Report of the joint World Heritage Centre/IUCN Reactive Monitoring mission to the Sundarbans World Heritage site (Bangladesh), 22–28 March 2016”. (2016, December 18). UNESCO world heritage convention. Accessed October 5, 2022, from https://whc.unesco.org/en/documents/14 8097 Roy, A., Sinha, A., Manna, R. K., Aftabuddin, M. D., & Das, S. K. (2020). Traditional knowledge of the fishermen community of Indian Sundarbans. Indian Journal of Fisheries, 67(2), 94–101. Sarkar, S. C. (2017). The Sundarbans: Folk deities, monsters and mortals. Routledge. Titumir, R. A. M., Paran, M. S., & Pasha, M. W. (2019, December 18). “The Sundarbans is our mind”: An exploration into multiple values of nature in conversation with traditional resource users. Unnayan Onneshan. Accessed October 4, 2022, from https://satoyama-initiative.org/ case_studies/the-sundarbans-is-our-mind-an-exploration-into-multiple-values-of-nature-in-con versation-with-traditional-resource-users/ Titumir, R. A. M. (2021, January 26). Sundarbans under threat. Prothom Alo English. Accessed October 3, 2022, from https://en.prothomalo.com/environment/sundarbans-under-threat Uitto, J. I. (2016). The environment-poverty nexus in evaluation: Implications for the sustainable development goals. Global Policy, 7, 441. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12347

Dr. Lailufar Yasmin , University of Dhaka, Department of International Relations, Bangladesh

Summary Detlef Briesen and Sarada Prasanna Das

Detlef Briesen and Sarada Prasanna Das As discussed in the introduction, we initially chose three starting points for our joint research and publication project. First, we assumed that the selected societies/states would not deal with environmental problems in the same way. Second, we illustrated this with an exemplary comparison between Germany and India—with a view to the environmental problem itself as well as its media echo. Third, we sought to apply established concepts such as agenda-setting, framing, scandalisation and the basic idea of the “tragedy of the commons” to our field of research. It would be a rather trivial undertaking to refer once again in the summary to the diversity of the respective modernities of the areas under study and the resulting different development paths of the individual societies of Europe and Asia. Our answer is therefore a simple yes: yes, the societies studied are different, their developments begin from different starting points, they are each exposed to specific challenges, and environmental issues are perceived differently. In contrast, it is much more interesting to look in the respective national contexts at issues such as, first, the environment in the media; second, the media as factors for political mobilisation; and third, the limitation of the latter by the characteristics of the global commons. This necessitates a very brief summary of the quintessence of each article, which we had assigned to each of the three subchapters already mentioned.

D. Briesen (✉) History and Cultural Studies, Justus Liebig University Gießen, Gießen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] S. P. Das Initiative on Climate Energy and Environment (ICEE), Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Briesen, S. P. Das (eds.), Media, Politics and Environment, Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31252-6_19

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Media and the Environment First is the subchapter on media and the environment which is basically determined in its dimensionality by two case studies, those by Detlef Briesen and Manish Tiwari on Germany and India, respectively. A first model developed on the basis of historical analysis is proposed by Detlef Briesen. The environmental movement in countries like Germany obviously owes much of its success to scandalisation—the denunciation of “unacceptable” conditions portrayed by the media. The scandalising agenda-setting or framing triggered consumer panic which is understood as a specific form of politicisation that achieved changes in social realities under certain circumstantial conditions, especially when (in Germany) the authorities or later party politics began to take up such issues. The decisive factor for the emergence of consumer panics was that environmental problems are presented or perceived in a direct connection to concrete, in this case health, issues; they are thus based on what are at least considered to be real, concrete threats to everyday human life. Manish Tiwari’s essay, on the other hand, presents a very different picture: he has focused on four newspapers that are significant for all India and the framing of climate change and the related policy that can be identified there. This is a very complex topic in the context of which political actors operate at many levels, such as local, national and international. The fabric of actors is similarly complex: it includes government, bureaucracy, civil society and media. Climate change therefore requires, in principle, a multidirectional approach, where policy design, implementation and communication on the management of risks should go hand in hand in order to actually secure a core objective of climate policy, the supply of clean, “green” energy to India. However, the four newspapers analysed show that the communication of risk management remains largely without foundation. This is because news about climate change during COP-26 is framed only as international events; it is mostly not put in relation to events connected to domestic policy. The topic thus appears predominantly as an international political problem, rather than an issue that directly affects people, for example, through impacts on their health. One of the other papers of the section by Devendraraj Madhanagopal and his co-author focuses on the missing links in climate change communication in two states of India. Authors argued that there has been an inadequate and fragmented understanding of how print media communicate climate change. The paper highlights existing status of media outlets and their efforts in communicating to the public by examining select media articles and critically highlighting the vast gaps. In general, the media presence of environmental problems seems to be characterised by a dichotomy: by a concrete lifeworld reference, on the one hand, and rather abstract risk communication, on the other hand. In this way, the other articles on the connections between media and environmental issues can almost be arranged on a graduated scale. On the one hand, the essays by Arvind Das (Delhi) and Nguyen Thi Thuy Hang (Hanoi) deal with the more lifeworld-based engagement of social movements for the environment, for example, against air pollution in the

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case of Delhi or the protection of urban greening and marine life in the case of Vietnam. On the other side of the scale are the articles by Patrick Ziegenhain and Ririn Sefsani (Indonesia). The country has enormous environmental problems, especially regarding deforestation and air and water pollution. However, such problems are largely unknown among the Indonesian population, which the authors attribute to the very restrained coverage of environmental issues in the national media: owners of media companies are not interested in the topic, the Indonesian government sees economic development as a top priority, and journalists take a high personal risk when reporting on environmental scandals, which usually take place in rural areas. Finally, two other essays deal with the future: how will environmental issues be treated in the media, especially the new social media, in the coming years. Originating from two quite different starting points, media studies (Christiane Eilders) and postcolonial political theory (Kumaresan Raja), both authors arrive at surprisingly convergent results in their view of Germany and India. Both show that social media will significantly change communication about environmental issues by providing the new social movement with innovative instruments. When political communication changes, politics alters too, and this also applies to the institutional sphere. The changes make it much more difficult to create a stable, legitimate framework through binding decisions. Decision-making processes are becoming shorter and more compressed, driven by accelerated communication. This leads to a lack of reflection and deliberation among politicians and exposes the nexus of media, politics and environment according to Eilders to ambivalent, if not threatening, developments. Kumaresan Raja also sees the new forms of communication as a threat to India’s existing political system, as they could contribute to postulating an alternative between environmental protection and democracy.

Environmental Politics, Mobilisations and Media Second, the discussion on environmental politics, mobilisations and media is largely structured by divergencies between Ulrich von Alemann’s and Gerhard Vowes papers in the forword of the book and most of the other articles in the respective subchapter. Alemann’s paper starts from an initial thesis based on the collective action theory, according to which there is no way to organise public interests. However, regarding the current environmental movements (and not only these), such a thesis can also obviously be empirically refuted. After all, the organisational forms of public interest groups have changed, from associations and clubs with fixed membership to NGOs and networks in social media. Alemann attributes these changes to three factors: changing values, globalisation and alterations in the media system. However, he still points out that the articulation of public interests has so far only succeeded in industrialised countries with a high standard of living and education. In the future, however, such changes in the public sphere could shift to a global level, which could be interpreted as a consequence of the worldwide

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effects of climate change. These theses are supported by the article of Gerhard Vowe, who deals more generally with questions of political communication campaigns in the environmental field. In the further contributions, it then becomes apparent that the results of Alemann and Vowe do not readily correspond to those of the other authors. This is shown, for the Indonesian case, by Ho Thi Thanh and Abdul Fikri Angga Reksa (Indonesia) and Ngyuen Tuan Anh (Vietnam). The paper argues that Indonesia’s environmental policy has significantly advanced over the past two decades compared to the New Order era. Some critical positive adjustments are enhancing community participation in environmental protection and better environmental governance at the national level. However, some limitations in the current environmental policy have threatened environmental sustainability. Arun Kumar Nayak’s contribution shows a similar tendency. He focuses his analysis on protest movements against large-scale development projects in northeast India and shows that there are no identifiable endogenous factors for their success. Environmental movements in India seem to succeed only when they are supported by alliances of transnational ideologies, organisations and networks and sometimes also by India’s political opposition parties. In the absence of such a high level of support, environmental movements in India tend to be suppressed by the state, which has consistently been the case in the northeast of the country. There, the priorities of the geopolitical national security strategy are exacerbated. Ecological movements have hardly ever been able to organise resistance against environmental destruction and even their expansion to the regional level has been successfully prevented. Timo Mohr draws a similar balance on Japan. On the one hand, he states that there is still a civil society in Japan that tries to influence highly topical environmental issues through protests and specific reporting in the (social) media, such as the still far-reaching consequences of the Fukushima nuclear disaster (2011), the COVID-19 pandemic or the energy crisis triggered by the Ukraine war and the associated reactivation of some nuclear reactors. All these topics received attention. Unfortunately, on the other hand, it has to be said that Japanese civil society is not strong enough to make a lasting impression on Japanese lawmakers. It does not manage to mobilise people in sufficient numbers. Today, there is also a lack of a young generation at all that is willing to actively participate in civil society processes—even if only via social media such as Twitter or Messenger. In addition to a generally low level of interest in environmental issues, Mohr attributes this to a feeling of helplessness among the population. The country has essentially been governed by a single party for decades, and despite many controversies, it always gets the votes it needs to stay in power. The articles mentioned so far, which come from the subchapter environmental politics, mobilisations and media, discuss, quite controversially, questions about the potential and limitations for political mobilisation on environmental issues. They use a bottom-up approach; how, they ask, can environmental movements influence political decisions? Sarada Prasanna Das, on the other hand, looks at Indian environmental politics primarily from a top-down perspective. The mobilising or politicising factor is the state or should be.

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In India, environmental policy did not emerge until the 1970s and initially focused mainly on rural conflicts over land, forests and water. The first ideas came up on how to deal with natural resources. From this, a strongly institutionalised and state-centred environmental management developed and persisted until today, which, according to Das’ findings, increasingly put economic interests before environmental concerns. Today’s enormous problem pressure has led to a more widespread realisation that the structures in place in India to enforce environmental laws are not sufficient to deal with the scale of environmental problems. A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that India has already reached a stage where environmental risks and hazards are obvious and unavoidable, scarce natural resources need to be judiciously allocated and conserved, and the country must meet numerous national and international obligations. Once again, there are debates about the establishment of a new agency to focus on monitoring and enforcing environmental regulations. However, Das believes it would be better to strike a balance in India’s environmental policy: between safeguarding local livelihoods, imperatives of development pressure and enforcing sustainable principles. Das concludes that, above all, a stronger commitment of the state to environmental issues is needed for environmental policy to be implemented effectively at all. In addition, appropriate incentives for individuals and companies should be created in various ways. Moreover, institutional set-up and resource plans need to be integrated. For a country like India, it is very important to plan a multilevel governance system with effective participation of all stakeholders.

Media, the Environment and the Commons In the third part of our book, we look at the complex connections between media, the environment and the commons. This subchapter begins with a contribution by Michael Baurmann, who compares the environmental policies of Germany and India: dominantly state intervention here, primarily social self-organisation there. In striking contrast to German environmental protection activities, one can find many examples in India of grassroots initiatives and locally anchored community projects that take care of their resources on their own responsibility and preserve their sustainability. Baurmann then discusses these projects, building on Ostrom’s vision of self-management of community resources. His core thesis here is: while Germany may lead the way with what he sees as effective general policies to protect the environment and combat climate change, India may have a (hidden) potential—the development of local initiatives to address environmental challenges. However, these often go unnoticed and may therefore often be underestimated. One could attribute this to patterns of communication: in Germany, mass media and communication strategies of political parties, NGOs and citizens’ initiatives effectively shape the public discourse on environmental problems. Activities at the grassroots level in India, on the other hand, are often based on a more local, often personal communication, which is often hardly noticed in larger

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contexts, but which can be very effective in the local environment. In a second step, Baurmann then presents various Indian environmental initiatives and discusses their successes or failures along the criteria for the collective management and protection of the commons originated by Elinor Ostrom. If we look again at Arun Kumar Nayak’s essay, we can assume that environmental initiatives at the grassroots level are mainly faced with the problem of communicating at a higher, national or even international level. Baurmann’s article is followed by two case studies: Animesh Roy deals with land and common grabs and the related environmental degradation in peri-urban Kolkata. Although land grabbing is a significant social and environmental problem, he believes that the media is selective in reporting on this phenomenon, or usually only when there are serious human or civil rights violations or deaths. In individual cases, however, it is at least possible to limit severe damage to the environment through legislation, in the case of Calcutta, for example, to the marshlands. Lailufar Yasmin’s contribution on the Sundarbans in Bangladesh again takes a perspective that strongly ties in with Michael Baurmann’s remarks. She takes a bottom-up perspective and asks about the endogenous potential for protection for the Sundarbans World Heritage Site that could come from the inhabitants themselves. Instead of trying to heal the Sundarbans from “above” through international or national environmental programmes, an approach that would be much more promising would be to achieve the most diverse participation imaginable. For the Sundarbans will only remain a common if as many stakeholders as possible, especially common people, participate in its protection, which points to the very meaning of the word common. Explicitly for the role of the media, this implies that the imaginations projected onto the Sundarbans from the urban space should become much more diverse in the media, especially through the involvement of the local inhabitants themselves. The mass media would play an enormous role in this.

Executive Summary and Further Perspectives for Research It has become apparent in all contributions to our publication what a major role the mass media have or could play so far in relation to environmental issues through agenda-setting, framing and scandalisation. Scandalous conditions, catastrophes or institutional failures have received enormous media coverage in all the countries studied over the last decades—if only because the mass media refer to such events to arouse the interest of the public. Furthermore, in the context of mass media reporting, the general perception of environmental problems may develop or alter. Mass media also create forums for the articulation of the interests of those affected and this in deficient democracies or authoritarian systems too, and they could contribute to further improving the protection of the environment and other commons too. However, a quintessence can be identified from all the contributions. Mass media, political movements and protests in the service of the environment, as well as the

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dissemination of the awareness that intact nature is a “global common”, are not enough to initiate, institutionalise and implement concrete environmental policy: especially when environmental protection competes with other socio-political goals in the respective political system of a country. So, what still needs to happen in the respective decisive national context for concrete environmental policy to actually and sustainably establish itself? The central result of our research so far has been that environmental protection, like other areas of “politics” and “policies”, requires a corresponding policy field for successful establishment (this can at least be deduced from the current state of research on other political areas and regarding the EU and North America). This brings us to a question that follows on from our book and that has not yet been dealt with more extensively in an international comparison and in a contemporary historical perspective: How do environment-related policy fields emerge in the respective national contexts of the Global North and South and this in democratic, deficient democratic and authoritarian political systems? The term “policy field” used here has become so well established that it has almost become common knowledge, but, in most available publications, reference is made to the difference between frequent use and theoretical substantiation of the term policy field. Up to now, policy fields have mostly been understood as the results of the departmental division of ministries or administrations and examined along their administrative markers. Only recently has there been a shift to viewing them independently as “fields of interaction” between different political actors, in connection with a boom in the concept of field in general. This innovation can help to identify more precisely those factors that can be relevant for the formation of policy fields: problematisation, politicisation and discourses. We are currently preparing a conference in New Delhi on this topic, which will take place in November 2022. After that, we will again address the concerned public with another publication on policy fields. Detlef Briesen is a German historian and political scientist. He completed his doctorate at the University of Cologne and his habilitation at the University of Giessen. Since 2009 he is professor at the JLU Gießen. His fields of research include the spatial organisation of modern societies, the political history of consumer society and, in recent years, increasing development policy in Asia. Detlef Briesen has been a guest researcher in the USA, India, Sweden and other countries and has been serving as DAAD University Advisor for Southeast Asia since 2010. Sarada Prasanna Das is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research’s Initiative on Climate Energy and Environment (ICEE). He holds PhD, MPhil and MA degrees in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University.