ASSIGNMENT 5 POST-GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT AND

LAW (PGDUEML) May 2014-‘15

Dear Participant, Assignments are a part of your continuous evaluation process. The main purpose of assignment is to test your comprehension of the learning material you receive from us and also to help you understand the course aspects. Every participant must submit a total of five assignments, one for each theory Course.

The submission of assignments is compulsory and ‘only soft copy’ has to be emailed to Ms. Richa Tyagi at submissionscel@wwfindia.net Assignment scoring will be included in final result. Each course will have one assignment and will carry 40% weightage. The assignment has to be submitted within a certain time span (as indicated below), failing to submit the assignment on or before last date will amount to negative grading. Please try and put the solutions to below questions in your own words instead of indulging in mere cut, copy paste from other sources. The questions in the assignments are mostly analytical and descriptive which will enable you to understand and comprehend the concepts better.

All the best with the assignment.

Programme Coordinators WWF-India & NLU, Delhi

COURSE 5: URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION

MECHANISMS

Last date of submission: Check timeline for date of submission Submit only soft copies to: submissionscel@wwfindia.net

Total Marks: 40 Note: All questions are compulsory. Answer each question in about 1000 words each. Each question carries 10 marks. (4x10 = 40)

1. Review the below statistics and provide an analytical opinion on changing forest cover and how much of it can be attributed to the growing urban requirements. How much of forest land can we compromise for developmental activities?

2. Land use modification, urbanization, and infrastructure developments specifically could destruct the natural environments and are threatening the biodiversity. Tools and measures must be adapted to evaluate and remedy the potential effects on biodiversity caused by human activities and developments. Within physical planning, environmental impact assessment (EIA) plays important roles in the prediction and assessment of biodiversity related impacts from planned developments. The purpose of EIA is to ensure that the environmental effects of a proposed development are fully considered, together with its economic or social benefits. This should be considered before the planning application would be determined. EIA is thus an anticipatory, participatory environmental management tool. EIA is one of the main legislative tools recognized to reduce an anthropogenic impact on the environment. EIA can be defined as “a process by which information about the environmental effects of a project is collected, both by the developer and from other sources, and taken into account by the relevant decision-making body before a decision is given on whether the development should go ahead.” If you are an industrialist and are taking up a mega project, how would you prepare an

EIA report and what steps you would be taking up for balancing environment vis a vis development? Elaborate with a case study.

3. ‘Good policies, good local governance systems, and sound arrangements to finance

public services are critical elements in sustainable urban development and shape the nature and quality of public services provided as well as the structure of incentives and accountability. Open multicultural policies support cosmopolitanism and attract both capital and labour; in contrast, restrictive policies create insecurity and prevent efficient migration. Cities, to be competitive, need both to provide quality public services in adequate quantities and to be responsive to the requirements of people and businesses. To do so, they not only require adequate sources of finance but also effective participatory mechanisms that elicit the preferences of people and provide the services that meet these preferences. The governance system should also foster accountability by ensuring that, by and large, urban residents themselves pay for the public services they receive’. Elaborate on effective urban governance in lieu of the above commentary.

4. Just like there exists a fine line between balancing conservation and development, there is a fine line between wildness and civility. Especially in an India society (as there is in many other cultures), there exists a connection of ideas of nature to different aspects of social life, especially labour, aesthetics, politics, commerce and agriculture. Explain in detail these interconnected historical processes that enable any society to acknowledge Environmental conservation as a part of Economic growth.