Team Herald
VASCO: Goenchea Rapo-nkarancho Ekvott (GRE) General Secretary, Olencio Simoes, slammed the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) Director Johnson Fernandes, for having a casual attitude in preparing the proper Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP).
GRE and locals were annoyed after the field surveyors deployed by the Directorate of Settlement and Land Records (DSLR) were unable to answer their questions..
Simoes said the field surveyors didn’t know anything about CZMP. “When the field surveyors visited Cansaulim-Arossim-Cuelim and Velsao-Pale-Issorcim on Wednesday, they couldn’t even answer the basic questions asked by the locals about the contents of the CRZ notification 2011,” Simoes said.
He questioned why GCZMA didn’t deploy experts from the environment department or the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM), who the government has paid Rs 2 crore to prepare the CZMP plan.
Simoes said he wants to bring to the notice of GCZMA and the government that it was the fishing community under the leadership of (late) Matanhy Saldanha who was instrumental in formulating the CRZ notification, with a sole intention to protect the coastal communities and to protect the fragile coastal ecology. He lamented that it had unfortunately taken the government 25 years to start the process of preparing the CZMP plans. Due to this delay, he added, Goans have already lost 30 km of Goa’s coastline. Simoes added,
“Several hundreds of water bodies, sand dunes and marine resources have completely disappeared, but today, even after this large scale irreversible destruction, the government is still taking this issue very lightly.
He added that GRE has demanded the Environment Minister Nilesh Cabral to follow the footsteps of late Environment Minister Matanhy Saldanha and take CZMP as top most priority, as Goa was to be given special consideration, in view of Goa’s heritage, need to conserve and protect the coastal areas and marine waters and how specific activities had to be regulated within the CRZ.
GRE warned the govt that if it fails to prepare the CZMP in accordance with the CRZ notification 2011, then more than 40 estuarine, 8 marine, about 90 riverine islands and balance coastline of 75 km will destroyed completely thereby threatening the livelihoods and life of coastal communities residing in CRZ areas.
