Coke, Pepsi Under Fire for Painting Rocks in India

Pallava Bagla
for National Geographic News in New Delhi

August 27, 2002

Two giant international soft-drink manufacturers, Coca-Cola and Pepsi,
are under fire in India for colorful advertisements that were painted
onto rocks in the ecologically fragile Himalayas.

The Supreme Court of India recently served legal notices to the companies, charging them with violation of environmental laws, specifically the Forest Conservation Act of India. The notices refer to the damage caused by advertisements painted on eco-fragile rocks.

The Coke and Pepsi ads, painted in the bright colors associated with the two brands, appear on rocks along a road in the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh in northern India.

The legal action came in response to a recent news report in the The Indian Express that brought the ads to the attention of officials, environmentalists, and the public.

According to the newspaper, the soft-drink ads were painted—along with local advertising—on rocks dotted all along a 56-kilometer (33-mile) stretch of road between Manali, a popular hill resort in Himachal Pradesh, and Rohtang Pass.

"This isn't a free-for-all, and painting old, geologically valuable rocks this way cannot be allowed," said P. K. Manohar, an advocate with the Supreme Court in New Delhi and member of Legal Action for Wildlife and Environment, a group of lawyers working for environmental protection and legislation in India.

Scientists have voiced concern that the paint may have destroyed the mini-ecosystems of microbes and mosses that live on the rocks.

In India it is illegal to advertise anywhere without permission, unless it is an advertising balloon floated from a private rooftop.

The advertising daubed on the rocks has made a number of people angry, and not only because of possible ecological damage. For many people there is aesthetic damage caused by the brightly colored advertisements, marring the beautiful landscape of the Himalayas.

The Chief Justice of India, B.N. Kirpal, headed the three-judge panel that issued the legal notices to the parent companies of Coke and Pepsi. The court had taken note of the newspaper report while hearing a case involving forest conservation in India, saying that the companies responsible should be "made to pay" for damage caused to India's environment. Kirpal also mentioned in court that the painting of advertisements on rocks in forest areas was disturbing.

C.K. Varshney, a professor at the School of Environmental Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, applauded the legal move. "This is really a decision in the right direction, and perhaps ought to have been taken long back, for it really sets the rigor India needs in dealing with environmental issues," he said.

The initial response of both multinationals has been ambiguous. While Pepsi's official response has been that areas such as the affected Manali-Rohtang region are franchisee-owned where the corporate office has little control, Coca-Cola said that it is an extremely environment-conscious company, and what has happened seems to be a localized slip-up. Coca-Cola said it would ensure it wouldn't happen again.

Local authorities in the area where the advertisements appeared said it is hard to prevent the rock defacement because those responsible for such paintings work under cover of night, and it is difficult to patrol all regions of the vast mountains.

The practice of painting rocks with advertisements is also a source of anguish to geologists. If a geologist cannot observe and study rocky outcrops, there is little else that can be done to understand the geology of the area.

Ramesh Kakkar, chief of the Center for Advanced Study in Geology at Punjab University in Chandigarh, told The Indian Express: "If the outcrop has been painted over, we cannot conduct research."

The legal experts arguing the case said they planned to ask the National Environment Engineering Research Institute, based in Nagpur, Maharashtra, to inspect the rocks along the Manali-Rohtang road and assess the damage.

Experts say removing the paint from all the huge rocks with paint thinner or remover would be both costly and environmentally destructive. Left to nature, it could take five to ten years for the paint to wash off.

Varshney said he was pleased that the courts have taken seriously a matter that many people might regard as trivial and hoped it was a sign of greater government vigilance on environmental issues in the future. "Such defacing of rocks is not something restricted to the Himalayas in India. I have seen this across the country," he said. "In supporting the protection of nature in its original form, in whatever way possible, the courts have set a great precedent."

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