Uttarakhand has not just become the first Indian state to launch a Gross Environment Product Index, but also the first in the world to go beyond ecosystem services to ecosystem growth. Simply put, it does not only calculate what services we get from the environment but also what we put back into the environment.
Anil Prakash Joshi, the founder of Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organisation, has been the force behind the creation of the index, now accepted by the state government. The challenge he said was to make a formula which would be as comprehensible as the formula to compute Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
There are four pillars of the Gross Environment Product Index: air, soil, tree and water.
The formula is, GEP index = (Air-GEP index + Water-GEP index + Soil-GEP index + Forest-GEP index)
To simplify, consider this. When a forest is taken into account, it is not just about counting trees. The (new) trees planted are categorised into three categories with the best (broad-leafed) getting greater weightage than say a (least-preferred) pine. The average survival of trees is considered. The number of trees felled for any reason is deducted and then the GEP is calculated. Such a counting also means that the current methods of calculating forest cover- where anything green counted by a satellite goes- will have to be refined. Similarly, for water, a calculation will have to be made of man-made water conservation, storage methods- for example, how many amrit sarovars were made. This is different from nature’s own methods, eg rain that recharges water bodies. Thus, it measures the contribution of human activities to ecological development.
“How much economic product we create can thus be compared with the environmental product created. We will calculate how much quantity and quality of soil we created for instance”, said Joshi.
Not everyone is on board. Some see it as overly simplistic.
Hemant Dhyani, member of the Ganga Avahan movement, said that there should first be a categorisation of activities carried out in the state. "Activities should be prohibited; regulated and promoted. Regulated activities should be allowed only as per carrying capacity and environmental impact assessment". Thus felling trees for an all-weather road that prompts landslides is a negative, no matter how many trees are planted to make up for it. Also, if human intervention in ecological development is seen as a pure positive, it gives rise to the danger of causing unmitigable damage and then trying to justify it with an anthropomorphic contribution to a bettering of select environmental indices.
There is however no denying the conceptual superiority of the metric. Vir Singh, professor emeritus. Environmental sciences, at the GB Pant University, Pantnagar said, "GEP offers a meaningful alternative by quantifying the contributions of natural ecosystems to the economy and overall welfare, including human well-being".
Singh said that GEP was novel in that it assessed and assigned a value to the benefits that ecosystems provide. Consider these benefits as various kinds of services, for example, provisioning (food, water and timber); regulating (climate regulation and flood control); supporting (soil formation and nutrient cycling) and cultural services (recreational and spiritual).
"By translating these diverse contributions into a single monetary value, GEP reflects the true worth of natural capital in sustaining economic and social well-being", said Singh. (This however is a partial understanding for Singh does not take into account Joshi’s calculation of putting back in the environment)
He, however, said that a cell (as proposed for now) was not enough to undertake the task but a commission should be put in place.
Many environmental experts that this reporter spoke to were not clear about the scientific rigour put in to arrive at the formula. At least one said, "It seems to have been accepted just by publication in one scientific journal".
Joshi though said that he had been working on the concept for over a decade.
Vishal Singh, an environmental scientist based in Dehradun said, "There is a widespread failure to understand the values that are being presented in the media. The methodology used and the components of the analysis are not clear".
Singh is also unclear about how GEP would work on a national level. “Will it be possible for states like Punjab and Uttar Pradesh to claim agricultural food security services? Will it be possible for states like Bihar to claim loss and damage due to cloudburst in upper regions of the country?”
However, GEP for now has the support of the Uttarakhand chief minister, Pushkar Singh Dhami. How well and easily it will translate into actual calculation may be tricky.
