Friday, June 20, 2008

Meeting Notes 13 June 2008 at Air Quality Cell

Environment Status Report

Ajay presented the work done thus far for the ESR 2008. The discussions at the Jan 10 meeting were revisited, where it had been stated that the ESR framework would be reorganized. The main points of reorganization are:

  1. The purpose of the ESR has to be clear – it should reveal the health status of the population linked to the state of services and the environment
  2. Overview chapters for a comprehensive picture of the city, including key sectors
  3. Certain data sets have to be presented disaggregated at ward-level so that actions needed to be taken by corporators are clear, and these can in turn be linked to ward level municipal budgets and plans
  4. It is important to create the framework in the next few weeks, even if data is not there. The purpose of this is to identify data gaps and put in place appropriate data collection systems
  5. Descriptive material, detailed data tables, references etc are valuable information and the ESR is a good way of making such information publicly available and these may be included. However, the key actionable aspects may be presented as a separate section for facilitating monitoring and follow-up
  6. A point was raised about lot of the information in the ESR being irrelevant, such as tourist sites, flights operating out of Pune and list of Malls - Commissioner agreed that all such material can be removed from the report. However, a lot of the development related data could still be included, albeit in the form of appendices.

Sharad Mahajan raised issue of printing the ESR on recycled paper and this was accepted

Aneeta, Ranjit and Himanshu would help Ajay evolve the ESR framework.

Update: This group has met and a new framework is to be made available by Ajay shortly.

Biodiversity
The following aspects were suggested for inclusion in the ESR:
1. Aggregate and per capita green zones and reservations
2. Status of aquatic ecosystems
3. Number of municipal gardens and per capita garden area, and change over the last few decades
4. Naturalness of municipal gardens
5. Tree plantation and tree cutting
6. Status of selected rare species
7. Status (incl mapping) of biodiversity hot specks

Anchal and Sanskriti are to help develop a section on Biodiversity

Update: The above have been incorporated in the Biodiversity framework draft, which is posted on http://pcef.blogspot.com

Non-motorized Transport
Dinesh reported that an NMT cell has been created at PMC. This group has been meeting regularly. Several implementation tasks have been identified which PMC is to take up.

Schools
Ranjit reported that three areas have been identified by the School Group for focusing effort:

  1. Testing of learning attainment – a set of tests is being developed to be discussed with the school dept and administered in July; while testing is done by PMC, the effort from the School Group would be to improve testing systems and to monitor efforts to improve quality
  2. Infrastructure status – the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and PMC have been gathering this information, and the School Group would like to monitor whether improvements are being made based on this data – are schools moving up from being ‘C’ to ‘B’ and ‘A’, as well as by examining and improving the level of data gathered
  3. Out of school children – again, this data is gathered by SSA and PMC, but there may be constraints in the data gathering methods as certain sections of the children population may not be getting counted (such as children of construction labour families, children employed as resident domestic help). The School Group would like to help improve systems reaching out of school children including the alternative education schemes, funding, the capacities of NGOs providing non-formal education etc

The School Group has had a number of meetings to clarify its role. It has revamped the format of the Annual Report of the School Board, so that it now focuses more on outcomes and not just on activities, as it did before. Besides the new format seeks to emphasize the important aspects & indicators wrt Schools, and to drop or dilute the less important ones. The School Group will now encourage the School Board to adopt this format to prepare its next Annual Report.

MC suggested that Schools be taken out of the purview of the PCEF and the individuals/ organizations interested in contributing to school improvement should join the monthly meeting forum already initiated by PMC.

Update: The School Group is requesting an appointment for next week with the Education Officer, Chair of School Board and MC to discuss the above and to request inclusion in the monthly meetings

DC Rules
MC suggested that the DC Rules group work in coordination with the Planning Cell and especially Mr Gohad and Mr Vikas Bhandari.

Update: The DC Rules group is discussing whether the earlier task they had taken up – of simplifying existing DC Rules – should be done or not, as in any case, the new DP will have a new set of rules. It may be better to focus the discussion on what the new DC Rules should be. A meeting is being arranged by Anagha for end of June/ early July

PCEF Work Scope
The PCEF will now focus on ESR, Biodiversity and Water. Groups and individuals interested in Schools and DC Rules should work with the other forums as suggested above.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Draft Framework for ESR Status of Biodiversity

I. Introduction and Scope
Biogeographic zone in which Pune is located


Why is BD important to assess - impacts on human health and environment locally, regionally and globally (as appropriate)

The ESR reports on

  • status of ecosystems, hot specks and selected groups of plants/animals, and selected species in the city
  • institutional aspects of BD conservation/ management: specialized govt/scientific agencies to deal with bd, civil society engagement, forums of complaint/redressal, conflict resolution

Definition / ownership related issues

  • while some major ecosystems (river, forest) are not technically under PMC limits and are governed by other government depts, they are enclosed by PMC lands and they are heavily impacted by the city and contribute in a major way to the citizens’ health and city aesthetics
  • several hotspecks are within private / institutional lands

II. Values
What values does the city current place on bd?
What values could/should it place?
Differential values between rich and poor? How to put these values into the city’s planning?

III. Policy and legislative framework

  • Land records (for river ecosystem integrity) administered by District Collector
  • Water Act (for surface water quality) regulated by MPCB
  • Irrigation agreement (for water returned to regime and net consumption) by Irrigation dept
  • Forest Act for reserved forests
  • MRTP Act for urban environment and planning (Development Plan and DC Rules) for BD reservation, green zones, open spaces, setbacks, parks and gardens in municipal lands
  • Tree Act for tree felling permissions
  • BD Act for management aspects and setting up of Biodiversity Management Committee

IV. Key drivers or factors influencing Biodiversity

  • Population growth and pattern of settlement (?) affecting land conversion and usage of BD rich areas
  • Amount of untreated or uncollected sewage and garbage (for river / water body quality)
  • Road widening/ construction
  • Any others? Biomass collection?

V. Status and Change in Key Indicators

  1. Aggregate green cover extent: total area and per capita green cover (from Sharad/ DP Cell), disaggregated between forest/wild/semi-wild and lawns/parks
  2. Tree cutting and transplantation/survival, plantation and survival rates, exotic/indigenous ratio in plantations (from Tree Authority records and Garden Dept)
  3. Select rare species status (TBD – Dr Sane, Dr Ankur Patwardhan, Ranwa)
  4. Ecosystems/ hotspecks (including small wetlands) status report in table below (needs a quick outreach to various research and study groups, colleges for data on different parts of the city)
  5. Ecosystem type (forest, grassland, river, reservoir, garden, hotspeck)
  6. Name (for e.g. Vetal Hill, Baner Hill, Mula R, Mutha R, Ramnadi R, Katraj Lake, Pashan Lake, Turtle Pond, Bat roost site .....)
  7. Location (with a map key)
  8. Ownership/ regulatory authority (for e.g. PMC, private ...)
  9. Legal status (Reservation, green zone, private/ institutional)
  10. Area (ha)
  11. Status of major indicators of health of ecosystem (state methods and reliability elsewhere)
  12. For e.g. for Lakes: Hyacinth cover increased; Fish species decreased by x; Black winged stilts increased; Migratory species number decreased
  13. For Rivers: Physical-chemical characteristics at various points; indicator species of fish, birds, plants + Ecosystem physical integrity by measuring naturalness of banks in terms of area of encroachments in the form of lawns, roads, tenements etc
  14. For Gardens: Number of indigenous vs exotic trees and %
  15. For Hotspecks: Flapshell turtles number same, Bats number same etc....
  16. Based on above, state Change in Ecological Status (improved, degraded, no change from previous year – TBD over time)
  17. Status of Institutional aspects of BD Management in City
    Current institutional methods of BD Mgt: Garden Dept, Pune Tree Authority, Encroachments Dept, Water and Sewage Dept
    Existence of BD Management Committee: No
    Steps taken to set up one: None
    Mapping of BD: Not done
    BD Info system: Not done

(add civil society institutional aspects and actions…PTW, Lakaki lake committee, Green Earth, etc.)

VI. Analysis and Key Issues and Concerns

Status of BD

  • Forest status improved through soil and water conservation works carried out over … acres
  • River status degraded over previous years, as measured through instances of pollution/ extent of pollution and decrease in number of freshwater fish species etc
  • Lake status degraded over previous years, as measured through decrease in numbers of birds, and diversity/composition of migratory bird species
  • Grassland status degraded as area of grassland decreased as it has been planted over by trees, or fire instances
  • Gardens total area increased though number of exotic tree species planted increased
  • Tree numbers went up or down as measured through tree-felling permissions granted less plantation (and survival) number
  • Hot specks – 30 (or whatever) in number; x number were extinguished; y number were preserved and granted ‘PMC Hotspeck’ status (perhaps in the future)
  • Rare species numbers/distribution – enhanced / went up or down

Comment on overall status of BD

Status of Institutional Aspects

  • Policy and legislation gaps and issues of coordination between multiple authorities
  • Data and information gaps
  • Financial gaps

VII PMC Response planned
VIII Recommendations

Appendices

  • Methodological and reliability aspects
  • Where to report data year round