The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has prohibited six States from carrying out developmental activities in the 60,000 sq km of ecologically sensitive area of Western Ghats. This comes in the wake of its recent approval to the report prepared by the K Kasturirangan-led panel on the ecologically fragile area. It had recommended prohibition on development activities in 37 per cent of natural landscape that is rich in bio diversity.
The Ministry in its order to Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Goa , Maharashtra and Gujarat stated the “directions will come into force with immediate effect and remain in force till further orders. In case of any violation, appropriate legal action under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 shall be taken”.
The direction clarified that prohibited activities include mining, quarrying, sand mining, building thermal power plants and construction projects covering an area of 20,000 sq m and above. Further, township and area development projects with an area of 50 ha and above or with built up area of 1,50,000 sq m and above will also not be allowed in these areas. All red category industries have also been strictly banned in the identified part of the Western Ghats landscape.
As per the recommendations of Kasturirangan panel, non-tolerance policy will be taken towards such activities which have unprecedented threats, said the ministry sources.
The 37 per cent of Western Ghats landscape, identified by the 10-member High level Working Group under Kasturirangan as Ecologically Sensitive Area, has low forest fragmentation and low population density. It contains protected areas, world heritage sites and tiger and elephant corridors.
Environmentalists, however, fear that Central Government’s directives and acceptance of the Kasturirangan report will exclude 63 per cent of the area from conservation. This is likely to worsen the onslaught on the global biodiversity hotspot and virtually lead to its desertification.
The Kasturirangan panel was constituted to examine the detailed Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel report prepared under Gadgil’s leadership. The ministry has said that it would soon constitute a high-level committee to monitor the implementation of the committee report in a time-bound manner.