oa’s Chief Wildlife Warden Santosh Kumar has said enough. Enough for even remnants of any confusion existing, that the State Wildlife Department is meant to protect Wildlife and by extension the forests, where the wildlife live. In the trending documentary Art of Destruction , which deep dives into the threats Goa faces due to the troika of development and expansion projects through ecologically fragile areas. His words still resound loud.
Let’s hear them ringing as we read then
A) “We noticed that Social Media is flooded with concerns about the three projects in Mollem. When you declare an area as a sanctuary or a wild life area it’s not that it cannot be used for a non wildlife purpose”
B) When the highway is expanded (through the Bhagwan Mahavir WildfLife Sanctuary, it will be a tourist attraction. Please note Wild Life officer feels a highway cutting through forests supposed to protect, will be tourist attraction
c) These days you have a device called mobile, or WhatsApp or Gmail. Most people do not know where Mollem is. They just send petitions. Baith ke button daba diya, petition chala gaya (sit and press a button, the online petition goes)
d) I’m from Bihar. In Bihar if there is a railway line is laid down in Bihar, people will congratulate the minister saying the railway line is bringing connectivity. Surprisingly, in Goa, people are opposing
e) I’m a forest officer all right. But I’m a government officer too. Hume bhi dil ko dabana parta hain (I need to keep some emotions and feeling in check). If it is a development project, it has to meet the needs of the people
What preceded this narrative now becomes totally understandable. Almost justifiable. The irony of ironies is the interpretation of ‘development’ of the Chief Wild Life Warden.
Let’s cut to the chase:
As Team Herald’s reporters have reported on June 21; on December 2 2019, the State Wildlife Board met at the residence of the Chief Minister Pramod Sawant. The Chief Minister is the Chairman of the State Wildlife Bard, ostensibly because there’s no conflict of interest here and the state is on the side of wildlife. The realities are clearly different
According to the minutes of this meeting the Goa State Wildlife Board approved the Highway and Transmission line projects,
Not everyone was ‘on board” with the decision lf the State Wildlife Board.
On December 16, 2019, six members of the GSWB wrote to the Member Secretary of the Board (CWW) expressing concerns about the lack of preparatory notes for the agenda items and the hasty manner in which the agenda was sought to be completed.
Specific reference is made to the approval granted to the three projects in the Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary (BMWLS) and the Mollem National Park, thereby evidencing discord among the members of. The members sought a cumulative impact assessment of the projects, which has not been done till now
From December 16 2019, to April 7, 2020 the Member Secretary of the State Wild Life Board and the Chief Wild Life Warden did not respond to this important representation. What followed was the approval of the Highway Expansion and Transmission line projects in April, as we have reported earlier
Here’s a snapshot of that meeting for current reference 7.04.2020
At the 57th meeting of the SC-NBWL, in the midst of the pandemic and lockdown, via video conference; the highway and transmission line projects are placed before the SC-NBWL for the first time and approved at first instance.
When the Chief Wildlife Warden was asked about this, in the Art of Destruction video about the projects being passed during COVOID lockdown, he said in Hindi:
‘Kovid ke karan development ke kaam to rukega nahin, COVID ho ya kuch bhi ho” (Development work cannot stop, either due to COVID or anything else)
Unanswered Questions
1 Whether the impugned approvals granted by the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL), based on the recommendation of the Goa State Wild Life Board (SWLB) are in violation of the provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972?
2 The Mandatory approval from the National Tiger Conservation Authority was not taken. Can the approval of the projects by the National Board of Wild Life be valid?
3 Can the same clearances be valid without the Cumulative Environment Impact Assessment?
4 With 6 members of the State Wild Life Board, objecting to the manner in which the projects were cleared, listing serious points of objections, does the decision of the SWLB on December 2 2019 to recommend these projects to the Standing Committee of the National Wild Life Board, have ethical sanctity?
