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Journalism of Courage
Even as 39 protected areas across the Western Ghats made it to the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites,India is trying to separate the issue of the heritage status from the recommendations of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel WGEEP,headed by Madhav Gadgil.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has asked India to consider the panels report as part of the conservation efforts necessary to retain the heritage tag. The Ministry of Environment and Forests has communicated to the IUCN that the government has not yet accepted the WGEEP report and the two issues cannot be connected.
Kerala has objected to the WGEEPs recommendations of three-tier categorisation of ecologically sensitive zones. Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday and told him that the recommendations of the WGEEP were impracticable and detrimental to the interests of the state. He wanted the Centre to junk the proposal to set up the Western Ghats Ecology Authority and allow the state to take appropriate conservation measures on its own. Chandy made it clear that the state cannot accept the panels recommendation for zonation of the Ghats. The tentative recommendations,he argued,would make development or human activities unable in certain areas where the width of the land is less. He pointed out that land areas next to the Ghats which do not directly influence the ecology or environment of the Ghats need not be put under strenuous regulations.
Karnataka sent an interim reply last year and a final reply is awaited while Tamil Nadu has not yet replied. Goa and Maharashtra have indicated that they are not in favour of the recommendations,which seek to scrap mining in many areas,decommission old dams,scrap plans to build new hill stations and so on.
