Wildly disruptive: Diversion of natural habitat for projects cannot become a fairly routine event. Consequences are enormous July 5, 2021, 8:27 PM IST Times of India’s Edit Page team comprises senior journalists with wide-ranging interests who debate and opine on the news and issues of the day. As statistics go, this one is wild. TOI reports that in 2020, the standing committee of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) approved the diversion of as much as 1,792 hectares of wildlife habitat. The data is from a study carried out by the non-profit organisation Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment (LIFE). It raises several questions, of which the most interesting is this: How can so much wildlife habitat area be given over to project work in a year when site visits, considered absolutely critical for such clearances, were severely restricted?