Not just forests but the entire rich green cover in form of hills, fields, trees, not forgetting Goa’s sacred coconut trees, super-rich mangroves, etc, are the precious free gifts of nature to Goa. Goa’s green hills were full of Chunnam, Charam, Kand’dam which are diminishing as the years pass. Mother Nature gave Goa everything she could so Goenkars could live a peaceful, healthy, balanced life and some of us for the sake of our personal gains destroyed a lot of natural green cover which we never watered and full swing attempts are in progress to destroy Goa’s natural greenery for all. Thanks to the very few niz Goenkars who are fighting a true battle to preserve the little precious remains of Goa. Can life survive without water and air? But in Goa the rich and the powerful even auctioned the air and water in the name of development. Goa did have a stable and productive environment but our people in power sold the stability and production in exchange for sacks of rupees.
“Vanamahotsava” is a festival of life. It was started in India in 1947 to save Mother Earth. Goa was then still a Portuguese colony with full of natural greenery and celebrated the real Vanamahotsava without even planting tree throughout the year and not just for a day or a month as our government do. Our political leaders today are concerned about the environment only in messages but in reality they have supported the destruction of environment.
How Goa can forget the then Parsekar government who passed a bill to allow the destruction of thousands of coconut trees to make way for a beer factory when Goa had sufficient beer? Was that the part of Vanamahotsava? Our government is working overtime towards the implementation of PDAs which will again destroy a lot of natural green cover. The nature loving people for ages enjoyed the drive on the NH-17 passing through Cortalim after the Verna industrial estate to the old aged cross standing in the middle of the highway. The stretch was covered with beautiful green trees on either side of the road with a different healthy feeling and just in a day they all were killed to make way for something else. Is this the way to celebrate Vanamahotsava?
Our state of Goa is a beautiful state with beautiful people and only sincere people can make sincere appeals regarding the safeguards of our environment which is the need of the hour. Let us ask ourselves. Are we sincere? Are we not the ones who sanctioned such destruction officially? Are we not the ones who permitted the killing of thousands of green trees standing strong and tall? Can we set up a good example for the beautiful people especially the little children of this beautiful state by giving a hand to destruction of nature?
Now the Govt has also given thumbs up to reduce the CRZ to 50 metres and this confirms their true love for the environment. God save our souls.
