Vasco is geared up for an intense debate at a public hearing on the proposal of declaring the Maimollem Lake area as a wetland with 244 persons filing their objections and suggestions to the plan. Incidentally, Maimollem Lake may not be the fulcrum of the discourse on the declaration of wetland areas, since there are larger issues of residences in the area that come in the buffer zone, among other questions.
At the top of the list is the question of including paddy fields in the wetland area when guidelines have made it an exception along with a few others. A large portion of the wetland area is paddy fields which are not currently cultivated, and authorities will have to answer on how such an area was included in the first place. Also, there are portions of comunidade land, some of which are tenanted, and authorities will have to address ownership issues once the areas come under the ambit of a wetland.
The intention of declaring the Maimollem area as a wetland may not be bad, and lest we forget, the original proposal came from the Mormugao Municipality itself. However, city fathers have been maintaining that there has been an exponential increase in the area in question with almost the entire Maimollem area proposed for demarcation. How does the government explain this change?
The biggest fear of the residents in the area is that they will be denied rights of construction and development on their land, once bestowed with the wetland status. Their fear is compounded by the notification listing activities prohibited within the wetland boundary. Point 6 of Schedule II of notification Annexure states that any construction of a permanent nature except for boat jetties within fifty metres (demarcated as a buffer zone on Annexure“I) from the mean high flood level observed in the past ten years calculated from the date of commencement of these rules are prohibited. This means that people within the area and the buffer zone of the wetland cannot carry out construction activity on their properties.
The State government, through the same notification, states that Maimollem Lake admeasuring an area of 2,66,627 sqmts is critically significant for its ecosystem services and biodiversity values for the local communities and society at large and points out that in order to sustain those values, the ecological character of the wetland ecosystem needs to be maintained by regulating developmental activities within the wetland as well as within its zone of influence. The lake has been reeking of sewage from residences and establishments for several years, why has been there no concern on this end?
Interestingly, there are parallel plans of the State government, propelled by the local MLA, to renovate the Maimollem Lake and make it into a tourist attraction with facilities like boating, etc. The avowed objective of maintaining the ecological character appears to have been completely lost in the process raising a question over the objective.
In times when Goa's environmental and ecological assets are facing massive stress, the demarcation of wetlands is welcome if posterity is on the mind. However, under no circumstances can such a classification be done overriding the rights of people. A public hearing is a democratic process, but it remains to be seen how authorities go about their job of addressing concerns because history tells us such hearings have been merely academic, let's not forget the coastal plan fiasco. Finally, there has to be a fair symmetry between the rights of people and ecology.
