The The Paradox of Environmental Citizenship: Need for Private Participation to Promote Economic Growth and Environmental Protection

Abstract

Article 51A (g) of the Constitution of India establishes that protecting and improving the natural environment is the moral and civic duty of every citizen. However, India’s current legal framework paradoxically prevents citizens from fulfilling this constitutional duty. This paper critically examines the legal and institutional barriers embedded within India’s environmental laws — namely the Indian Forest Act 1927, the Wildlife Protection Act 1972, the Forest (Conservation) Act 1980, and the Biological Diversity Act 2002— to argue that the citizen’s role has been reduced from a proactive participant to a passive observer. Drawing on comparative legal experiences from countries such as South Africa, Costa Rica, and Australia, where environmental protection and livelihood generation go hand-in-hand in privately-owned conservation areas, this paper proposes the conceptual foundations of a ‘Citizen Conservation and Livelihood Act’ that would legally empower citizens to engage in conservation, entrepreneurship and biodiversity stewardship. It contends that true realisation of Article 51A (g) requires a legal paradigm shift from state monopoly over environmental governance, to participatory and incentive-driven ecological citizenship.