Someone to know: a forest advocate

President Biden welcomes Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India to the White House this week. They want show the world that the two largest democracies strengthen their alliance.

But concerns about the health of democracy are high in both countries. So today I would like to introduce you to Ritwick Dutta, an environmental lawyer who is using India’s democratic institutions to protect people and forests, clashing with his government in the process.

He is an advocate for change whose work has made him a target of the Modi government. More on that later.

Let me tell you who he is first. At age 49, Dutta has worked on more than 1,300 environmental cases, he told me. Since he became a lawyer some two decades ago, his philosophy has been to bring as many cases as possible at the same time. It increases his chances of winning something, he said.

“People are suffering all over the country,” he told me on a phone call from his home on the outskirts of New Delhi. “You don’t have the luxury of choosing suitcases.”

He’s lost quite a few. But there have also been many victories that have shaped India’s environmental policy. Rulings in cases he led have helped communities be heard on projects that concern them and in which the public participates environmental permits and that government has the tools to ensure that biological resources are used sustainably.

Today, the Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment that he founded, also known as LIFE, represents people from all states of India. But his work has become more risky lately.

A few months ago, tax officials announced they were investigating Dutta on suspicion of taking money from US foundations to delay coal projects. Others who have opposed coal in India are also being investigated That reports the Washington Post.

This worrying trend is not limited to India. A few weeks ago, the Vietnamese government arrested a leading environmental activist on charges of tax evasion. She was the fifth environmental activist to be arrested on tax charges.

Dutta has denied any allegations. He has also argued that in order to tackle climate change, the government must ensure voices against environmental degradation and injustice are protected.

“Real change can happen when both votes for and against are considered,” he told me.

And India urgently needs to fight climate change and build resilience to it. In the past few days alone, dozens died in a heat waveand tens of thousands were displaced by a cyclone.

Dutta knows that it is impossible to turn back the clock to stop the extreme weather that is a direct result of global warming. But India can still build up its defence.

“The main problem is that we continue to build on the coast and destroy the mangroves,” he said. “As a lawyer, my role has been to support and represent communities that strive to protect the coasts.”

Although court victories show that his words carry weight, Dutta is a gentle man with an easy smile and wavy gray hair.

His lifelong mission did not stem from a desire to fight the establishment. Going to law school was only meant to buy him time, until he figured out how to make a living from a passion he’s had since childhood: Dutta has always been fascinated with wildlife.

He grew up in a world of rhinoceroses and elephants. There are thousands of them in Assam, his home state in northeast India.

“I would be a maverick in any other industry,” he told me.

His passions are visible on the walls of his house, where drawings of hummingbirds and sunbirds hang next to piles of law books and court documents.

Being an environmental lawyer has meant taking on major corporations from the very beginning of his career. One of his first major victories was against a company called Vedanta that wanted to dig for bauxite in the pristine forests of the Niyamgiri Hills.

Dutta represented local people who opposed the project. He was an easy choice for them, he said, since no one else had stepped forward. Dutta fought the case all the way to the Supreme Court, what ruled that the project could not proceed if the affected communities opposed it.

India continues destroy the forests that could help make it resilient to climate change. Assam has lost more trees since Dutta became a lawyer than any other state in India. Still, he said, about 300 million Indians depend on the country’s forests for their livelihoods.

That’s a point he likes to emphasize. “Looking at forests only from a carbon perspective is not correct,” he told me.

His challenge is huge and still growing, but he is optimistic. Just three weeks ago, a community he represents received a positive ruling in its effort to protect thousands old growth trees.

“Ultimately it’s a fight for the truth,” he told me. “It is a fight for the future. It is a fight for the present.”

His victories, he said, only make him more vigilant. Maybe he managed to protect a forest today. But tomorrow, a new government order could cut it anyway.

Wins don’t necessarily last in this kind of work, Dutta said. “But environmental losses are permanent, yes. And that’s the sad thing.”

The future of coal: A huge power plant in Bangladesh is running out of coal. The problems are an early warning for countries investing in coal, even as renewables become cheaper.

A murky economic outlook: The conventions that policymakers have relied on for decades may no longer hold true, and that could have huge consequences for the environment.

Burning “Unstoppable”: Foreign firefighters battling Canada’s worst wildfire season on record said some fires were 100 times the size they had ever seen.

Indoor pollution: A gas stove can raise the concentration of a chemical linked to cancer beyond that found in secondhand tobacco smoke, according to a new study.

Melting Glaciers in the Himalayas: A new study has found that the region’s glaciers melted faster between 2010 and 2019 than in the previous decade.

The story behind the story: A reporter talks about the lessons she learned about optimism and climate change after visiting a New Jersey elementary school.

Take the common Tesla: An innovative electric car sharing program brings cheap, clean transportation to a farming town in California’s Central Valley.

From outside The Times

• From Reuters: After two decades of debates, the United Nations has adopted the first global treaty to protect the high seas and conserve marine biodiversity in international waters.

• Climate Home News examined how coal lobbyists managed to delay the green transition South Africa committed to at a cost of $8.5 billion deal with rich countries.

• The New Yorker recounted the journey of a Taiwan-based researcher seeking protection chili peppers from climate change.

• An investigation by High Country News and ProPublica showed how Arizona has used its influence over tribes to limit their access to water from the the shrinking Colorado River watershed.

• The Associated Press reported that Swiss voters, concerned about melting glaciers, have supported measures curb their country’s emissions.

Before you leave: how to put food scraps to good use

Most of the 1.4 billion tons of food people throw away each year around the world ends up in landfills. As it rots, it pollutes water and soil and releases massive amounts of heat-trapping gases. But South Korea manages to keep almost all discarded food out of landfills and incinerators. Instead, the waste turns into animal feed, fertilizer and fuel for heating homes.

Claire O’Neill, Chris Plourde and Douglas Alteen contributed to Climate Forward.