Western Ghat draft on Net likely in a week

The much-awaited draft on protecting the western ghats,submitted to the Union Ministry of Environment & Forests recently,is likely to be put up on the ministry website with changes and modifications by August 31.

The much-awaited draft on protecting the western ghats,submitted to the Union Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF) recently,is likely to be put up on the ministry website with changes and modifications by August 31. The draft details areas with restrictions on development and demarcate areas where projects such as hydro-power plants and dams could be set up,with stricter than existing norms and regulations.

Key member of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) of the MoEF,Madhav Gadgil,said,MoEF is likely to put it up on August 31. There are some final changes being made but by end of next week,it will be put up.

The detailed plan will have areas where no development projects will be allowed,though they can be developed under certain strict conditions. All western ghat states,Gujarat,Goa,Maharashtra,Karnataka and Kerala,will have to abide by these rules, he added.

The pristine ecology of the region needs to be preserved and the panel is ensuring that all care is taken. The ministry under the leadership of Dr GV Subramanyam will be putting it up. All decisions on development projects will be based on this report, said Gadgil of the important document.

The 1600-km western ghats covering 1.6 lakh sq km is one of the four biodiversity hotspots in the country and close to one-third of the ghat region is forest,housing 1,741 species of flowering plants and 403 species of birds and many animals.

Gadgil stated that the existing environment impact assessment system is flawed and there were details which had to be worked out on the same. Capping the extent of mining in western ghats stretching from Maharashtra to Kerala is being considered and there are some specific recommendations for that in the report. With mining resulting in drastic degradation of natural resources in ecologically sensitive regions from Maharashtra to north Kerala,specific recommendations will be made in this regard. WGEEP had been asked to identify ecologically sensitive areas (ESAs) along the Western Ghats and suggest how to manage them. Several ESAs have been set up in India over the last 22 years under the Environment Protection Act,1986,and a GOI committee under the chairmanship of Pranob Sen has proposed certain criteria for identification of ESAs. The WGEEP noted that the country still lacked a global consensus either on criteria to define ESAs or a workable methodology to identify them. There were also no clear guidelines on a management regime that should prevail in ESAs,and the Pranob Sen Committee had not addressed the issue at all. Hence,the WGEEP decided to undertake an exercise to define ESAs and develop a workable methodology to assign levels of ecological significance / sensitivity.

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