PANAJI
The Goa State Wetland Authority of the Department for Environment and Climate Change is expected to notify the next batch of six or seven wetlands in the state over the coming days.
“The department has already notified six lakes as official wetlands under the Wetlands (conservation and management) rules, 2017 of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change while the work on notifying six to seven more is underway,” Environment Minister Nilesh Cabral informed. A total of 547 such water bodies were initially identified by central agencies through a list sent to the state government for finalization. Two years ago, the state government had roped in the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) in order to identify the wetlands in Goa.
“There is a lot of confusion about notification of a water body as wetland. It merely means that there can be no construction around such notified wetlands. But it does not prevent locals from carrying out traditional cultivation in such regions. Wetland cannot be identified in forest areas and in CRZ areas. Some mining pits were shown as water bodies and we had to delete a lot of those too,” Cabral stated.
