TEAM HERALD
NEW DELHI: Excluding the highly populated areas, more than 37 per cent of the Western Ghats constituting nearly 60,000 sq km in six States of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Kerala are all set to be declared “no mining, no polluting industry” zones.
Within two weeks of the National Green Tribunal’s strictures for sitting over two expert reports on the ecological degradation of Western Ghats, the Environment and Forests Ministry is ready with a draft notification to be published to protect the world’s heritage site from destruction.
The draft notification seeks to declare the non-populated areas as “Ecologically Sensitive Area” (ESA) where no industry falling in the “red list” issued by the government under the Environment Protection Act, 1986, will be permitted. The list covers those considered the most polluting and includes the thermal power plants. The hill tracts with dense human habitations are, however, being kept out of the ESA ambit.
The draft notification has been cleared by Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan for saving at last India’s mountain range with the highest biological diversity in the world, the range that starts south of the Tapti river in Gujarat and runs approximately 1,600 km through the States of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala ending at Kanyakumari.
Once objections and suggestions to the draft are considered and a final notification is issued, even establishment of the non-polluting projects in the ESA-demarcated areas would be allowed only on the prior consent of the gram sabhas while ensuring cumulative impact assessment and strict adherence to the Forests Rights Act. The green tribunal, which acted on a petition of the Goa Foundation, wants the final report placed before it in the next hearing on November 12.
Since after the Western Ghats were declared UNESCO World Heritage Site, the ministry had constituted two expert committees, the first headed by noted Pune-based ecologist Madhav Gadgil and the second headed by Planning Commission member K Kasturirangan for vetting the Gadgil report.
Sources in the ministry said, the draft notification is based more or less on the recommendations of the Kasturirangan committee’s report, ignoring some of the drastic aspects of the Gadgil report. They said once the final notification is issued, the moratorium on mining in Sindhudurg and Ratnagiri districts of Maharashtra will be revoked.
The “no-go zones” for mining, quarrying, thermal power plants and other dirty industries will be declared as ESA by vetting the areas on three criteria suggested in the Kasturirangan report: Biodiversity richness, fragmentation of forests and human population density. The report recommended to exclude the populated areas and not to force changes in the economic practices in these areas since “close to 60 per cent of the Western Ghats region is under cultural landscape ~ human dominated land use of settlements, agriculture and plantation.”
The hydro-electric power projects will be allowed in ESA zones but with a new set of strict regulations recommended by the Kasturirangan panel, including maintenance of the ecological flow of the rivers. The only recommendation of the panel overturned is about the windmills as the draft notification proposes their construction in the ecologically sensitive areas through environment regulations.
