Gurgaon residents move Supreme Court against jungle safari park project in Aravalli Hills

The mountain range runs in the northwesterly direction passing through the states of Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

“Aravallis with its lush green forests used to act as a green barrier and an effective shield against desertification. It acts as a water divide between the Indus Basin in the North West and the Ganga Basin in the east covering extensive areas of North India. Any obstruction and disturbance in the natural set-up will lead to large-scale changes in the areas adjoining North Indian plains and will be devastating for the environment. It will affect eastern Rajasthan, Haryana, Malwa region, western Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.”

The project proposes to set up a large herpetarium, an aviary, a big cat zone, a herbivore zone, an exotic zone, and natural trails/tourism zones.

The petitioners cited various instances where visitors had been carriers of diseases that affected the health of animals, including the incident where four tigers and three lions tested positive for Sars Cov 2 at Bronx Zoo in New York. They said that many occurrences clearly establish that despite the stringent conditions relating to health and hygiene stipulated by the CZA, the prevalence of diseases in zoo animals and its transmission continues to be a cause of concern.

“Keeping in view the precautionary principles, petitioners would like to submit that it would be beneficial for the wildlife, flora fauna, ecology and biological diversity of Aravallis Hills that Zoos and Safaris are kept away from it. That by way of introducing Safari in the wildlife-rich habitat of Aravalli Hills, the State of Haryana has failed to appreciate the dangerous implication of exposing the free-ranging natural population of wildlife to zoo-bred captive animals which are more vulnerable to pests and diseases,” the petition stated.

It further went on to say that the movement of a large number of vehicles is also bound to pose a threat to the wildlife habitat of Aravalli Hills.

“The landscape of the sites selected is undulating in nature with varying soil depth and poor moisture retention and is also prone to Water Stress, and the case of the applicants is that massive real estate development related to tourism is not sustainable in the landscape of the sites selected owing to the acute water crisis,” they said.

The petitioners have also stated that among the 23 districts where Aravalli exist, Delhi, Gurgaon and Faridabad are the most urban and the fractional loss of the 1992 vegetation cover of the said three districts is 29 per cent, 17 per cent and 15 per cent respectively.

Tourism Principal Secretary M D Sinha had said that not more than 20 per cent of the Aravalli will be used for the project.