The truth, in this case is clearly more apparent thanfiction. The entire debate over buffer zones around wildlife sanctuaries and anational park has been linked solely to mining and mining alone. But in the blind rage against mining andmining companies, facts concerning people who have been living in these areashave been obliterated.
This isn’t a backdoor argument to allow mining which iseffectively and truly shut for multiple reasons. When the one kilometer bufferzone is implemented, more than 100 leases both operational and non-operationalget obliterated. While the chances of it happening now are high, a phasing outof activity, as suggested by the state government will still put an end to itbetween five and ten years.
What is appalling is that other facts are not evenconsidered ingredients in the debate blender especially in newspaper articleswhere pontification passes for fact. In the entire stretch, which falls underthe one kilometre limit within which all activity will stop, only 10% is forestland. Yes, just ten percent. So when the forest minister, bereft of facts andthe will to acquire them, nonchalantly announces that the buffer zone should betwo kilometres, she should answer whether all the land she claims to protectfalls under her department at all. And if not, then hers cannot be the solevoice. In any case, the cabinet that she is a part of rejected the 2 kilometresbuffer zone with this remark. “It will be an economic disaster to accept a 2kilometre buffer zone for wild life sanctuaries and national parks in Goa” (Excerpt from the minutes of the cabinet meeting held on October 17,2012).
But where Alina Saldhana and similar voices of uninformedand lazy reason are missing the wood for trees is here. Mining is not the onlyeconomic activity here. There are families whose future is yet to be settled.While the government feels that the one kilometer buffer zone is the bestsolution relatively in the wake of irrational 2 “ 10 kilometer demands, look atthe area which will be lost. According to pretty accurate calculations, if theone kilometer buffer zone is applied, about 4.8% of Goa’s land goes in thisexercise alone, which corresponds to about 187 square kilometres. (Total land3750 square kilometres). Add to this, 33.1% which has gone to governmentforest, 4% to private forest, 5% to CRZ demarcations and 40% to agriculture,you have a shrinking land mass for all other development. Here we are notreferring to high rise building and mega projects but even other economicactivity. Do people living in these areas matter? Don’t their lands matter?Doesn’t the value of their lands which will fall drastically as a result ofthis matter? And if they do, why aren’t they are part of the discourse?
Moving on, there is a clear looseness of argument on theextent of the buffer zone. Earlier 10 kilometres was the “fashionable figure”.Thereafter a CEC appointed by the Supreme Court (with whom no one should haveany argument considering it has been welcomed with glee by the anti-mininglobby) gave its report on buffer zones for each of the national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in the country, where the individual boundaries for those inGoa were in three categories 100 mts, 500 mts and 1 kilometre. By thisyardstick, the anti-mining lobby should have been out on the streets screamingthat the CEC had sold itself to the mining lobby, since that is the only blackand white argument they know. But they can’t, since the CEC is a courtempowered committee, which now has an important mandate of investigatingfurther the findings of the Shah Commission report. The point is, that thoseadvocating the 10 kilometers buffer zone should either tell us that theywithdraw from that stand or reject the CEC report and justify why the bufferzones should still be ten kilometers. Forget even 1 kilometre, why are theyaccepting even Alina Saldhana’s two kilometre figure?
Yet, it’s a debate where conclusions have already beenreached. In fact there is no debate at all. The sole purpose was to close allmining even before the Shah Commission came in to existence. Take nothing awayfrom the fact that the absence of all government control and several violationsof a serious nature in the report will hopefully lead to cleansing.
But cleansing can’t be done by eradicating everything thatfalls in its path. 187 square kilometres or 5% of the states’ land over andabove what is already gone, the fate of people living in these boundaries andof course the most insignificant issue of mining leases being finished, haveall been succeeded to the center, in theso called attempt to protect wildlife.
A little attempt at understanding this may blunt the acidityof the attack on mining, but it might add a bit of reason to an argument whereordinary people are also involved.
