WWF, BNHS selected by Narendra Modi government for National Board for Wildlife after Supreme Court criticism

Noted non-governmental organisations like WWF and Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) are among four NGOs and eight new experts have been selected by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi led NDA government for appointment in the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) after it came under the scanner of Supreme Court for not following the law while reconstituting the apex wildlife body. The notification announcing their appointment is expected to be out by Friday evening.    
 
“Now all shortcomings in constitution of NBWL have been corrected. In addition to existing one NGO and two experts and environmentalists, four NGOs and eight experts are being brought in,” sources in the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) told dna.
 
The four NGOs that have been zeroed in on by Modi government are WWF, BNHS (Pune), Aaranyak of Assam and Nature Conservation Society of Jharkhand. Among the new experts, conservationists and environmentalists that the NDA government has selected are Dr RJ Rao from Gwalior, VB Sawarkar from Pune, SS Bisht, International Union for Conservation of Nature  India representative India PR Sinha and four others.  
 
The government had also appointed only five states against the requirement of one representative each from 10 states and union territories. “Now five more states are being appointed to NBWL,” sources added.

The move came after SC last month issued notice to environment ministry for not constituting NBWL in accordance with law. MoEF consulted attorney general Mukul Rohtagi who also laid out that “environment ministry cannot escape form the apex court as its action was not in accordance with the law” and thus the board has been reconstituted before the case comes up for hearing in the apex court again sometime next week.

Modi government in July 2014 constituted NBWL and nominated only one NGO -- Gujarat Ecological Education and Research Foundation -- and two experts – Professor Raman Sukumar and Dr HS Singh -- against the required number of five NGOs and ten eminent conservationists, ecologists and environmentalists.

Following the constitution NBWL’s standing committee in its very first meeting on August 12-13 cleared more than 130 projects worth several thousands of crores which were pending for months. However, NDA government’s move had come under severe criticism from the Supreme Court which remarked that prima facie they found that the environment ministry had violated the law while constituting the board and had issued a notice to the central government to explain the stand. While SC had refused to stay the decisions taken by NBWL’s standing committee it ensured that they would not come into effect till next hearing in the apex court.

Sources further said that most of the new names in NBWL are chosen by PMO and top environment ministry officials from the same list of around 70 names – of NGOs and experts – which was sent earlier also for consideration.