The Union government's decision to include 99 villages as part of eco-sensitive areas of the Western Ghats as part of the re-issue of the draft notification has brought some cheer to environmentalists who were fearing a massive reduction in eco-sensitive villages to please local political players.
The notification of 99 villages the same as it was in the original notification may seem like a win to the extent that it hasn't been a loss as of now. However, going by the statements issued by the current government and the Goa Forests Minister Vishwajit Rane, the attitude of the government remains the same in that it is committed to reducing further the areas and villages classified as eco-sensitive zones. Rane hasn't specified why exactly he is against eco-sensitive zones but has only said that he is opposed to them
As has been pointed out in the past, declaring a village as eco-sensitive will not materially hamper the residents in any way. The only things banned under eco-sensitive villages are environmentally damaging activities like mining, quarrying, red category industries, large real estate projects and the like. Yet the state has been trying to reduce the number of villages and to ensure that only those villages that are already protected under the existing reserved forests are made ecologically sensitive thereby ensuring that the ESA notification is redundant.
This will be a big mistake. If the events of the past few years especially in coastal Karnataka and Kerala are any indication, Goa will be staring at not only severe erosion, and floods that will cost not just lives and the fertility of our agricultural fields but also cause severe water scarcity in a state that already suffers from water shortages during the summer.
Unlike the rivers of north India, the rivers of peninsular India are entirely rainfed. This means that whatever rain falls during the monsoon months needs to soak into the hills and be slowly released into the rivers during the dry months. If the hills are opened for quarrying, concretization and other human activity they will lose their capacity to act as reservoirs during the dry months.
Complaints by the local politicians who complain that the forest department is harassing them pale in comparison to the consequences the state will face if the UNESCO-recognized biodiversity hotspot of the Western Ghats is not maintained. The Goa government should cease to look at things with a narrow-minded view and instead look at the larger picture of saving the state as a whole. It would be wholly improper and downright dangerous for the state to try and further reduce the already shrinking protected area in the Western Ghats. We suggest that it would even be suicidal.
The government needs a thorough consultation will all stakeholders rather than claiming to be the all and know all especially when it comes to an issue as sensitive as the Western Ghats. The government's track record in being sensitive to local concerns has been rather poor when one considers the current flooding caused by building highways through the fields blocking streams, rivers and khazan lands. The results are there for all to see.
