SAVE WESTERN GHATS.....

Western Ghats ecologically sensitive, mining, quarrying, thermal power plants and highly polluting industries should be banned in the Ghats. The mountain range has been identified as one of the world’s eight richest biodiversity hot spots and received the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Gadgil panel was formed by MoEF in 2010 to study the impact of population, pressure, climate change and development activities on the Western Ghats. It had recommended that almost the entire Western Ghats should be declared ecologically sensitive area (ESA). It proposed that the Ghats be categorized in three zones with different degrees of protection.

Though the report was supported by ecologists, it was opposed by the states where the mountain range stretches and by politicians and farmers’ organisations who feared it would hamper development. In light of the objections it had received, MoEF constituted the Kasturirangan panel in August last year.

The panel was tasked with finding a holistic way of protecting the biodiversity of the Ghats and addressing the “rightful aspirations for inclusive growth and sustainable development” of the “indigenous residents”. The panel then came up with an estimate, saying 41 per cent of the Western Ghats is “natural landscape”, having low population impact and rich biodiversity. The remaining 59 per cent is “cultural landscape” dominated by human settlements and agricultural fields. The panel recommended that 90 per cent of the “natural landscape” should be protected.