Goa Foundation complains against govt
HERALD REPORTER
PANJIM, JULY 18
The Goa Foundation has complained to the Centre that the State government has been taking retrograde actions threatening the extinction of about 1016 sq kms of open forest in the State.
In his letter to Minster for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh, Director of Goa Foundation Dr Claude Alvares said that the extinction of 1016 sq km open forests could even frustrate the implementation of Green India Mission in Goa.
Dr Alvares further said that the Green India Mission launched by his ministry may not be executed in Goa due to the retrograde actions already taken by the State government.
A national mission for a Green India was recently announced in view of international commitments. But according to the State government’s criteria any forest below 0.4 per cent canopy density will not be recognized as open forest. By the applying this criterion, all areas categorised by Forest Survey of India (2009 report) as “Open forest” have been simply derecognised.
“Thus by restricting the definition of forest to 0.4 per cen canopy density, the Government of Goa has in one stroke deleted 1016 sq kms of forests in Goa from the operation of the Forest Conservation Act.
Naturally, these lands have been placed outside the purview of the Net Present Value (NPV) and compensatory afforestation regime. By the same measure, most of the 1016 sq kms would not be available to the Green India Mission,” he says in his letter.
