Karnataka Rejects the Seventh Western Ghats ESA Draft: What the State Wants and Why It Matters
On September 22, 2026, both Houses of the Karnataka Legislature unanimously passed a resolution rejecting the Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) draft in its present form. An ESA is an area where the Centre bans or controls harmful activities like mining to protect nature.
The resolution was a reply to the seventh draft notification, published by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) on July 27, 2026. The draft gave states 60 days to file objections. The first draft came out in 2014, and Karnataka has now objected seven times.
The draft is based on the Kasturirangan Committee (High Level Working Group, 2013) report. The current draft covers about 56,825 sq km in six states and about 4,402 villages. Karnataka has the largest share: about 20,668 sq km across 10 districts.
Karnataka's main objections: the boundaries were drawn using satellite data, not a joint ground survey; the ESA should cover only notified and other forest areas, not plantations, farms, houses and public areas; and whole villages should not be included just because part of a village is forest. It also wants pending land matters settled first, such as Bagair Hukum applications (requests by farmers to regularise government land they have long been farming), forest rights claims and deemed forest land.
The Legislature asked the Centre for one year to carry out a physical, plot-level survey and not to finalise Karnataka's part until then. The state also announced a high-level committee headed by a retired judge to review the report. Members urged the state to follow the "Keralam model", where Keralam did a ground survey and cut its ESA area to 9,993 sq km.
The draft bans activities like mining, quarrying, sand mining, red-category industries, thermal power plants and very large buildings. It does not propose any ban on building or repairing ordinary houses, though fears about this have spread on the ground.
The Gadgil and Kasturirangan Committees on Western Ghats Conservation
India set up two expert groups, one after the other, to decide how to protect the Western Ghats. The first, the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), was led by ecologist Madhav Gadgil and treated almost the whole range as sensitive. The second, the High Level Working Group (HLWG), was led by space scientist K. Kasturirangan and proposed a smaller protected area. Every ESA draft since 2014 is based on the Kasturirangan report.
Karnataka's resolution rejects the seventh draft of the Kasturirangan-based ESA "in its current form". The core dispute is the same one that split the two committees: how much land should come under protection, and whether farms, plantations and villages should be inside it.
Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESAs) and the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986
An Ecologically Sensitive Area is land that the Central Government marks as fragile and valuable for nature. Inside it, harmful activities like mining, quarrying or polluting factories are banned or strictly controlled, but people can still live and farm there. The legal power comes from the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. The Centre first publishes a draft, invites objections, and then issues a final notification.
The Western Ghats ESA can only become law when the Centre issues a final notification under the Environment (Protection) Act. Karnataka's objections, sent within the 60-day window, ask the Centre to hold back Karnataka's part until the state finishes a one-year ground survey.
Deemed Forests: The Godavarman Ruling and the Dictionary Meaning of Forest
A deemed forest is land that looks and works like a forest, but has never been officially declared as a forest in government records. In India, such land is still protected as forest because of a famous Supreme Court order of December 12, 1996, in the T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad v. Union of India case. The Court said the word "forest" must be understood in its ordinary dictionary meaning, no matter who owns the land or what the records say. So a thick patch of trees on private or revenue land can also count as forest.
Karnataka wants the ESA limited to notified forest and other forest areas, and it lists deemed forest land among the matters that must be sorted out first by a physical survey. Because the dictionary meaning of forest covers land that is not in the records, the question of what counts as "forest" sits at the centre of the state's dispute over ESA boundaries.
- Karnataka Legislature resolution: September 22, 2026, unanimous, both Houses
- Seventh ESA draft published: July 27, 2026; 60 days for objections; first draft 2014
- Current proposed ESA: about 56,825 sq km, about 4,402 villages, six states
- Karnataka's share: about 20,668 sq km, 10 districts (largest among six states)
- Kasturirangan (HLWG) original proposal: 59,940 sq km (37% of the Ghats), 4,156 villages
- Western Ghats area per HLWG: 1.64 lakh sq km; Gadgil estimate about 1.29 lakh sq km
- Keralam's area after ground survey: 9,993 sq km (from 13,108 sq km)
- Karnataka asks for one year for a physical survey; a retired judge will head a state review committee
- Banned in ESA: mining, quarrying, sand mining, red-category industries, thermal power plants, buildings of 20,000 sq m and above