The Ministry of Environment & Forests & Climate Change is supposed to be the custodians of the environment and the guardians of conservation of the environment, which should go to the extent of being opposed to Environment Clearance for projects that severely impact the environment. In the case of Mopa, it is pertinent to note that the issue of cutting of at least 54,676 trees is the clinching factor on which basis the MoEF&CC should oppose environment clearance. In such a case it is ironic how the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) of the ministry should have granted that the Environment Clearance be endorsed which was rightly suspended by the Supreme Court following the highly misleading Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) in which 54,676 trees have been designated as bushes by the Goa government to deliberately mislead the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court rightly referred to the ‘govt having hid the existence of trees in Mopa’ as a serious subterfuge to endorse the Environment Clearance for construction of the airport at Mopa and which is to the detriment of the entire Mopa plateau as an extension of the Western Ghats and thus per se a United Nations conservation area as well as against the wishes of the local peasants who are not willing to part with their land and their livelihood from the produce.
The Mopa plateau besides being a fertile area, consisting of trees of various types, fruit bearing and others, is also habitat for exotic animals such as pangolins, deer, bison, wild boars, porcupines, civet cats as well as tigers, as also birds, peacocks in particular and butterflies, besides having a sparkling clean water table not polluted by industrial toxins and that is home to 46 natural springs that provide potable water of medicinal and curative properties.
An eye witness recounted his real life story of how tigers abounded in and around Mopa and how on one occasion he witnessed the shooting of three tigers when he was nine-year-old just before liberation. The Portuguese at that time used to present trophies to the hunter who shot the most of tigers. Such was the abundance of wild life in the area. Protection of wildlife is also an important issue.
The belated promise by the GMR that trees are going to be planted do not serve the purpose since the locals want their land back otherwise their livelihoods for generations to come will be lost forever. The emphasis is to scrap the project and towards this end, the Supreme Court verdict should favour the locals. It is the prerogative of the Supreme Court to strike down the environment clearance of Mopa since it is going to impact the future of the eco-system and ecological balance of the 2,133 acres of land in the region.
Cherapunji in Assam was the wettest place on earth in the 1960s because it had abundance of trees as also the rain forests of the Amazon also had very high concentrations of trees that made it to receive abundant rainfall. Mopa is not an arid area and thus it would be wise to shift the location of Mopa to some arid area in Maharashtra or Karnataka. Deforestation in Goa has to be consigned to the background in quest for a green and clean Goa.
