Team Herald
PANJIM: The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notices to the Goa government and five other States surrounding the Western Ghats, on a petition filed for reinstating the recommendations of the Western Ghat Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) report on the biodiversity hotspot.
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Notices have also been issued to the MoEF&CC, and State Pollution Control Boards from Goa, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.
M Kaviya and seven other minors have sought justice in terms of intergenerational equity. The petition states that if present developments are permitted unchecked without the controls recommended by the Gadgil panel, there would be no future left either for them or their generation.
The petitioners had approached the Supreme Court under Article 32 of the Constitution of India for urgent directions and orders that will result in an effective, sustainable and credible conservation regime for the Western Ghats, its diverse ecosystems and ecologically sensitive zones.
The petition concerns a total land area of 1,29,037 sq kms. A population of 50 million people is directly dependent on the Western Ghats and its ecology, and another 200 million people are indirectly dependent. The future of entire southern India is intimately linked with the healthy survival of the Western Ghats. The respondents herein have abjectly failed to do justice to the petitioners and the Western Ghats, despite being empowered to do so.
The present petition has been filed after the petitioners approached the concerned authorities on numerous occasions and sent several representations. Despite their demands for action and urgent conservation/ preventive measures, no effective action has been taken by the respondents, and the Western Ghats continue to witness rapid environmental degradation.
Two expert committee reports were submitted to the Ministry, one by the WGEEP headed by Dr Gadgil, and second, by the Kasturirangan High Level Committee. The Gadgil report however, was ignored for no reasons given. The Kasturirangan Report has been watered down considerably by various State governments, with the active collaboration of the Ministry of Environment, to a level of meaninglessness.
Kerala has excluded the entire area recommended by the Kasturirangan Committee by setting up its own committee. Goa and Maharashtra have sought to exclude large number of villages from the protection of being in Ecozones. Karnataka has taken a decision not to accept the Kasturirangan report. The result is that the region, recognized as one of the World’s eighth biodiversity hotspots, does not have the protection that was sought by the MOEF&CC when it set up the WGEEP.
