The potential of Indian Military in Environment protection

 

If one walks through a military cantonment area, he or she will definitely have a sense of relief from the chaotic ambience of a civil municipality area. The greenery of any cantonment area is very pronounced compared to the dusty and stuffy atmosphere of its civil counterpart. What goes into making any cantonment so distinct in its environmental character from its civilian counterpart? Perhaps, it is the very perception the military has about its environmental obligation along with its primary obligation of national security.  The very concept of the Military being used for the protection and restoration of the rapidly degenerating environment may seem ridiculous and incongruous to many. It is a concept often ridiculed by some, as exhibited at an environmental seminar in India where a group of women activists demanded the expulsion of the speaker for daring to make such a proposal as, in their opinion, the Military are often described as wanton destructors of wildlife and despoilers of nature. However, about two decades back, at an international seminar of retired Generals and Admirals convened in London and attended by over 20 participants from Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, the Gulf States and Russia, the new concept of security was discussed and redefined. No longer can security be defined in purely politico-military terms. It now covers a much wider perspective which includes social security, a quality of life for all and last but by no means the least, environmental harmony. Traditionally, the role of the military is to defend the integrity of the country's international borders from external aggression and to ensure internal peace. After World War II, scope of its role was widened to include disaster relief and international peacekeeping, so much in evidence today through the UNO. But it is an accepted fact that today the greatest threat to our Mother Earth is galloping environmental degradation resulting, inter alia, from the greenhouse effect, the piercing of the ozone layer, deforestation, pollution of water and land resources, acid rain and rampant consumerism. In fact, violent conflicts often stem from environmental conditions under which the more deprived people are condemned to live. During the past decades, a new dimension has been introduced based on the fact that with the diminishing of the nuclear threat and international confrontation leading to war, environmental degradation now poses the greatest threat to world peace due to rampant deforestation and habitat destruction, piercing of the ozone layer, the greenhouse effect and species destruction. Thus, the question confronting most Governments today is, how best to use this valuable resource of trained manpower on diversified productive tasks. Those skeptics, who feel the Military has no role to play any longer, are living in a fools' paradise, as no nation today can afford the luxury of doing away with the Armed Forces.  The inevitable question that now arises is how best to use this highly discipline and motivated resource on new tasks, besides the routine peacekeeping and disaster relief task. Based on the role model of the Indian Army, it has been conclusively proved that the Military has and can play a vital role in the protection and restoration of the environment in a positive manner without blunting the cutting edge of the sword.

In almost all parts of the world today, the military are a recognizable force politically, socially and, to some extent, economically. It is not generally realized, however, that the military have a positive role to play in protecting and restoring our degraded environment. On the contrary, there are many who feel that they are only capable of wanton destruction of wildlife and nature. Indeed, the military have a unique non-violent and productive role to play in protecting the environment, creating security and social patterns founded on cooperation and not on confrontation. I think the Indian Army has long been a beacon for the environmental activism. It has acquired worldwide recognition as one of the most pro-active military forces as far as the human and environment consciousness is concerned. Presently, some of the major threats to human security come from the deterioration of the physical environment. Air and water pollution, the depletion of underground water tables, deforestation, desertification, loss of biodiversity, and above all climate change, are having profound effects on many societies today, and, as each injury to the environment accumulates and interacts with all the other injuries, the welfare of future generations is endangered. In order to achieve this goal, there is a need for a broad view of "Environmental Considerations". When Army units and commanders take too narrow a view of what falls within the scope of "environmental considerations," they may limit the opportunities available to shape mission outcomes positively. Environmental considerations encompass anything related to the environment that either affects the planning and execution of military operations, positively or negatively, or is affected by those operations. They include environmental conditions affecting soldier health, clean water, sewage, and other environmentally related infrastructures, compliance with environmental laws, pollution prevention and environmental management, protection of historical and cultural sites, sustainability, and management of agricultural and natural resources. The relationship between the Army and the environment is a two-way street. On the one hand, soldiers and operations affect the environment and on the other, the environment affects soldiers and operations. If not planned for and managed well, the presence of soldiers in a base camp can degrade the environment. But environmental degradation can also adversely affect the health and safety of soldiers. Similarly, a program to recycle motor oil can reduce the amount of hazardous waste that is generated and lower the demand for fuel and oil deliveries, which, in turn, can lower costs and the risks to soldiers. For the first time, the Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces acknowledges that the “environment has emerged as a critical area of the security paradigm,” and warns that if environmental degradation and related issues increase security risks, the military will need to respond. Released in 2017, the doctrine lists a series of non-traditional security challenges linked to the environment that could influence conflict and war, including climate change, ecosystem disruption, energy issues, population issues, food-related problems, economic issues of unsustainable modes of production, and civil strife related to environment. While the military has taken steps to address its impacts on the environment, it is striving to do much more to support the nation’s environmental goals and mitigate environment-related security risks. Environmental changes could physically alter the battlefield, forcing India’s armed forces to change their existing game plans. Indian troops are deployed in some of the country’s most ecologically and politically sensitive zones, such as its mountainous border with Pakistan, where enemy forces could exploit an environmental disaster to strike critical nodes and vulnerabilities. For example, changes in Himalayan glaciers could cause the water levels in downstream rivers to fluctuate drastically, limiting the military’s range and endangering water supplies for military installations.

Climate change may also spur people in vulnerable countries to cross borders in search of safer ground. India has fenced part of its border with Bangladesh to prevent illegal immigration, and while most of these migrants are not yet pushed by climatic changes, some experts imagine an alarming scenario where climate change-induced migration lead the two countries to wage war with each other. Even in the absence of climate migration, Indian armed forces have to take environmental factors into consideration while patrolling and safeguarding the border. The military is eminently suited for the important and productive task of protecting the endangered environment and ensuring its regeneration where necessary. The military the world over are well placed to undertake this new role, but, the Indian military has a number of advantages in this regard:

• The Indian military are a body of volunteers, all regulars, who serve for a minimum period of 15 years, and thus their involvement is ongoing and ensures continuity.
• Personnel are recruited nationwide and are therefore aware of the problems to be confronted in various parts of the subcontinent.
• Recruits, especially for the army, generally come from a rural background and therefore have a better understanding of nature's web of life.
• The military have the leadership, motivation, training and discipline to perform this new role effectively.
• The military have the infrastructure - mobility (even with animal transport and on foot), intercommunications, medical and engineering skills - necessary for such work.
• The armed forces are looked on with respect in the country and therefore make valuable exemplars.

·        Each year, nearly 50 000 soldiers and airmen retire from the armed services. These large numbers of trained and disciplined personnel form a valuable pool of human resources for environmental duties.

In order to really appreciate Indian Military’s profound penetration into the environmental cause, we need to look back to its history which led to its emergence as a new ‘avatar’. Prior to the Second World War, the Indian Army encouraged shikar (game shooting) by infantry personnel as a way to develop stalking and shooting skills, although this activity was controlled by game laws. During the war, however, service weapons and ammunition were readily available and wildlife protection rules could not be strictly enforced. This led to large-scale illegal hunting. Moreover, the felling of trees for defence works and the construction of new railway lines took their toll on India's forest wealth. After the end of the war, this destruction of wildlife and habitat by the military continued for some years, especially in central India. When Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru became Prime Minister in 1947, his love for wildlife and nature caused the brakes to be applied, albeit gently, to illegal hunting and cutting of trees. But the transition was slow. When Indira Gandhi became prime minister in 1966, the brakes were applied with force. The Indian Wildlife Protection Act was introduced in 1972 and applied stringently. An army colonel even faced a court martial for shooting a barking deer in the forests of central India. However, it was during this period that the military became increasingly conscious of their role in wildlife protection. General P.P. Kumaramangalam, on retirement as army chief, was elected President of the World Wildlife Fund-India (WWF-India) during its formative stages, and numerous other officers, both while in service and after retirement, took leading roles in wildlife and environmental protection. At the National Defence Academy (NDA), awareness-creating programmes were introduced through audiovisual presentations, talks and films. Cadets were encouraged to participate in WWF-India's Nature Club Camps during their mid-term breaks. Permission was granted for WWF-India, and later the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), to conduct a ten-day holiday leadership camp for aspiring nature club leaders from all over the country. Another innovation was to make "Operation Greenhorn" (a long march to test endurance) much more interesting by guiding cadets on how to appreciate nature. Regular interactions are in vogue at various levels of army formation to create awareness among soldiers and officers by participant environmentalists and conservationists. As a result of the awareness-raising and of the untiring commitment of an increasing number of dynamic military leaders, over time many successful projects have been introduced which provide clear evidence of the military's potential in environmental conservation and protection. Some examples mentioned below could provide an insight into the achievements towards this end.

·        Army headquarters, under the direction of General B.C. Joshi, has organized an 18-month programme in the Greater Himalayas in 1995. It was a multidimensional, multinational programme which encompassed adventure and ecology through such sports as hang-gliding, white-water rafting, hot-air ballooning and trekking on foot and with animal transport. Participants in every event were required to report on the status of endangered species, deforestation, pollution and environmental degradation. The response had been enthusiastic.

·        The Army Environmental Cell organizes an annual three-day Army Environmental Meeting, attended by representatives from all five Army Commands, the Navy and Air Force, the Territorial Army, the Border Roads and the Environmental Ministry of the Government of India, as well as suitable resource persons from the BNHS, WWF-India and other non-governmental environmental organizations. The meeting reviews the progress made, the problems faced and the measures to be adopted.

·        Northern Army Command organized a workshop in the Dachigam Nature Reserve, home of the Himalayan black and brown bear and the Kashmir stag (hangul). The State Forest Department has appointed army officers as honorary wildlife wardens.

·        Central Command had conducted workshops in Lucknow, at the world-renowned bird sanctuary at Keoldeo Ghana and the Shivpuri Nature Reserve. Tree planting on a major scale has been undertaken in hilly areas and near the wildlife sanctuary of Sariska.

·        Eastern Army Command had conducted two workshops, one in the Buxar Tiger Reserve with the assistance of WWF-India's West Bengal Branch and one in Siliguri at the foothills of the Sikkim Himalayas. It has undertaken a massive reforestation programme in Siliguri and on the mountain slopes of Sikkim to prevent soil erosion and landslides. Recently, it conducted a nature camp for children in the Lachen/Lachung Valleys of northern Sikkim. It has instructed local artillery units to suspend firing on the ranges in the Torsa River area when the annual elephant migration takes place, to ensure a safe passage for these feral herds. All these activities are an ongoing process.

·        Southern Command has conducted workshops at the National Defence Academy. It has undertaken the greening of the large depot in Pulgaon and has introduced measures to attract and protect wildlife. Twinning arrangements have been undertaken between army units and small villages in the Thar Desert to demonstrate the importance of water and fodder management, the proper use of village grazing grounds and the benefits of solar energy. Major installments in the Command such as the College of Military Energy outside Pune and the Madras Engineering Group at Bangalore are being encouraged to green their large areas. No wonder that all army cantonments are testimony to this practice of creating greenery in their domain.

·        Realizing the vast trained and disciplined human resource in personnel who have retired at a fairly young age, the government, in consultation with the Ministries of Defence and the Environment, has begun to utilize this resource by raising Eco Territorial Army Battalions or Ecological Task Force Battalions for exclusive use in environmental protection. These are deployed to prevent desertification in the degraded areas of the Himalayan foothills; between Dehra Dun and Mussoorie in the Siwalik hills; in the hills in the extreme northwest; and along the Ganga canal in Rajasthan. They have been eminently successful in the construction of bunds and check dams; the prevention of soil erosion; the use of alternate means of renewable energy, including solar cookers and gobar (cow dung) gas plants; security; the introduction of anti-pollution measures, especially for water; creating environmental awareness among local people; and tree planting on a massive scale (over ten million trees in the past decade).

 

The Indian Army is probably the only army in the world which has implemented the concept of ecological units of the Territorial Army since the 1980s. These units, called Ecological Task Forces (ETF), are officered by a mix of regular and Territorial Army officers and based on manpower comprising of young ex-servicemen. ETFs are funded by state governments and the Ministry of Environment and Forests. The ETFs, through tree plantation, have performed admirably in recovering from the damage of manmade ecological disasters – such as ‘mining’ areas in the Mussoorie hills or sand dune stabilisation in the Thar Desert of Rajasthan and other places in the Himalayas and the foothills. Over the last decade, the ETFs have planted approximately two crore plants and have reclaimed twenty-five mines. There is a proposal to raise one Eco Territorial Army Battalion in each state of the Union. The recruits would be selected exclusively from retired service personnel of that state so that they would have a vested interest in their activities.

 

These are some of the innumerable instances of engagement of Indian Military in protecting sensitive pan India environmental zones during the peacetime. Inspired by the Indian military, many foreign armies of the world have undertaken similar task of rehabilitating the environment with an immediate concern. The United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence has a Defence Environmental Cell to coordinate these activities and its army produces the periodical Sanctuary, which records the environmental activities in the British Army in the United Kingdom and overseas. One of the important roles of the Venezuelan National Guards is the protection of Venezuela's rich natural resources. The Brazilian military have replicated a piece of the Amazon jungle complete with live specimens of Amazonian wildlife at the jungle warfare training school in Manaus. It had a great role to play during the recent Amazon jungle fires along with several national and international organizations. The United States military permit scientists to carry out scientific environmental studies on the vast defence lands. It has also set up an Environmental Cell in the Pentagon. The Austrian Army has addressed itself to cleaning the Danube River and recycling vehicle batteries. The Bulgarian Army has created a soldiers' forest where each soldier plants two trees during his two years of national service. The Nepalese Army monitors pollution in the Greater Himalayas and helps protect wildlife. The Vietnamese Army painstakingly hand-plants trees in the areas degraded by Agent Orange during the Viet Nam war. Beyond these individual examples, some 26 countries have pledged their support to a University of Hawaii project to document the use of the military for environmental protection while the Centre for International Peace-building and the International Association of Retired Generals and Admirals are compiling a database on this subject. This will go a long way in establishing that the military is playing an important role in stimulating innovation in technological advancement in environment protection.

Why Is the Indian Military Concerned About Environmental Security?

The Indian military has recently begun to look more closely at the impact of environmental change on its tactics, operations, and strategy. This change in approach was triggered by the devastation wrought by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on the Car Nicobar Air Force Base, and by more recent events, including 2014’s Cyclone Hudhud, which wrecked the air base at India’s Eastern Naval Command. Damage from the cyclone, which cost the Indian Navy more than US$300 million, demonstrates the threat posed by increasingly intense and frequent storms and sea-level rise to India’s naval assets on its eastern coast. Hence, looking forward, the military will need to adjust its equipment and its strategies to cope with the impacts of environmental changes to sustain their operational capabilities, temperature-controlled equipment (including tanks, submarines and aircraft), it will have to adapt to changing climatic conditions, as well as meet the requirements of Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS) regulations. The Indian Army is a major stake-holder in the Himalayas. Protecting the Himalayan ecology with particular reference to ‘Climate Change’ is an area where the Army can play a key role. The Indian Army can indeed provide the much needed leadership to the Nation for this vital and challenging task. One also has to be careful in expecting the military to ignore its core competency of soldiering, combat and war fighting. Long periods of peace may induce a misguided opinion to use the military for tasks other than their primary mission. A military is worth having only if it is prepared for war. Any digression will pose serious challenges to national security. In the nuclear context, Bernard Brodie, an American military strategist well known for establishing the basics of nuclear strategy noted, “Thus far the chief purpose of our military establishment has been to win wars. From now on its chief purpose must be to avert them. It can have almost no other useful purpose.” In similar manner, the military needs to be aware of the causes of war and help the Nation take all measures to avoid war due to ecological degradation. Starting with simple tasks such as tree plantation and ecological restoration of degraded land, the Indian military has been upfront, with its ecological units. The military has immense potential to rise up to the National mission for a Green India. It is also in the lead in protection of ozone layer. The future of ecological restoration by the military is very vast. As an institution, much more needs to be done to further improve on the past achievements and to enhance ecological consciousness. This is one field where Indian military can be a global role model. What is required – is to consolidate and document the good work being done by the Indian Army. 

From the foregoing it is obvious that the military do have an important role to play in protecting the earth and its natural resources. They are geared to do so by virtue of their organizational structure, training, leadership, motivation, technical skills, mobility and intercommunications. This potential is exemplified by the work of the Indian military in such fields as re-forestation, the use of renewable sources of energy, anti-pollution measures, population control and creating awareness and economy in the use of resources, especially energy and water. All these nation-building and productive activities by the military are possible in the changed world scenario. If it is possible to collate and disseminate information on the tasks that the military the world over are doing in this field, the results will be magnified. And to those cynics who consider such activities outside the scope of the military, if proof are needed at all, the Indian military have been able to achieve these results notwithstanding their manifold commitments and without blunting the cutting edge of the sword. Military life, thus, is a free on-the-job package on Ecology.