'The Devil is in the Detail': Peer-review of the Wildlife Conservation Plan by the Wildlife Institute of India for the Etalin Hydropower Project, Dibang Valley

A group of Indian scientists including botanists, entomologists, ornithologists, mammalogists, herpetologists, aquatic fauna specialists, hydrologists, geographers, and social scientists, many with research experience in northeastern India, including the Dibang Valley in Arunachal Pradesh, have conducted a peer-review of the Technical Report prepared by the Wildlife Institute of India’s (WII) titled ‘Wildlife Conservation Plan for the impact zone of Etalin HEP, Dibang Valley District, Arunachal Pradesh’ (the ‘Report’). The Report was prepared in response to the Forest Advisory Committee’s (FAC) recommendation to Chintan Sheth1, M. Firoz Ahmed2*, Sayan Banerjee3, Neelesh Dahanukar4, Shashank Dalvi1, Aparajita Datta5, Anirban Datta Roy1, Khyanjeet Gogoi6, Monsoonjyoti Gogoi7, Shantanu Joshi8, Arjun Kamdar8, Jagdish Krishnaswamy9, Manish Kumar10, Rohan K. Menzies5, Sanjay Molur4, Shomita Mukherjee11, Rohit Naniwadekar5, Sahil Nijhawan1, Rajeev Raghavan12, Megha Rao5, Jayanta Kumar Roy2, Narayan Sharma13, Anindya Sinha3, Umesh Srinivasan14, Krishnapriya Tamma15, Chihi Umbrey16, Nandini Velho1, Ashwin Viswanathan5 & Rameshori Yumnam12 1Independent researcher, Ananda Nilaya, 4th Main Road, Kodigehalli, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560097, India Email: chintz604@gmail.com (corresponding author) 2Herpetofauna Research and Conservation Division, Aaranyak, Guwahati, Assam. 3National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, Karnataka. 4Zoo Outreach Organization, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. 5Nature Conservation Foundation, Bengaluru, Karnataka. 6TOSEHIM, Regional Orchids Germplasm Conservation and Propagation Centre, Assam Circle, Assam. 7Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, Maharashtra. 8National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, Karnataka. 9Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Bengaluru, Karnataka. 10Centre for Ecology Development and Research, Uttarakhand. 11Sálim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON), Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. 12South Asia IUCN Freshwater Fish Specialist Group 13Cotton University, Guwahati, Assam. 14Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Karnataka. 15Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, Karnataka. 16Department of Zoology, Rajiv Gandhi University, Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh. *Contributors are listed alphabetically conduct “a multiple seasonal replicate study on biodiversity assessment” of the 3097 MW Etalin Hydro Electric Project (HEP) in Dibang Valley, Arunachal Pradesh. The review has found that the study was conducted in under five five months from February to June 2018 and cannot be considered as a ‘multiple seasonal replicate’ study as it does not represent three seasons in Arunachal Pradesh. This survey period excludes seasonal migrants and/or crucial breeding times for certain species. Further, fieldwork was conducted in a very small area (‘Zone of Influence’, ZoI) compared with the area that will be directly and indirectly affected by the impacts of