Appended below is an article by Sudhirendar Sharma, which will be of interest to those Goans wanting to know why the Western Ghats need to be saved from 'development'...
Hartman ______________________________________ A Manifesto With A Difference By Sudhirendar Sharma Political commitment to protect the Western Ghats has been raised in the manifesto. An ecological manifesto calls for the protection of the Western Ghats, the 1,600-km long mountainous corridor across the coast from the mouth of Tapti river in Dhule district of Maharashtra to the tip of Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu. Evolved through a year-long process wherein some 8,000 people and over 85 different organisations were consulted, the manifesto calls candidates vying for 32 constituencies in the region to rise above narrow political gains in protecting the monsoon gateway to the country. “Be it extractive mining or expanding tourism, super highways or power projects, the landscape change in the pristine Western Ghats across the west coast could trigger dramatic climatic changes that may alter the monsoon cycle in the country,” warns activist Sebastian Rodrigues who has been slapped with a Rs 500-crore defamation suit for opposing the mining industry in Goa. As the development juggernaut moves full throttle in the region, there is growing unrest amongst communities whose traditional rights over forests and waters are being violated. Sample this: the JSW Energy Ltd first signed a memorandum of understanding with Maharashtra government for a thermal power project in Ratnagiri district and applied for environmental clearance later. Need it be said that in connivance with the powers-that-be, site selection for projects has become a cake walk for the project proponents. Little has been realised that emissions from thermal power plants will jeopardise the farm-based economy of the region — the flagship Alphonso mango being its first victim. With politicians playing hands-in-glove, democracy deficit has only compounded the plunder. “Western Ghats Manifesto is a collective response to the development-obsessed political-economy in the region,” argues Pandurang Hegde, leader of the Appiko movement and one of the authors of the manifesto. It is proposed to sensitise politicians by getting a letter-of-commitment form the candidates such that once elected these parliamentarians can be pursued to get the Western Ghats declared as one of the UNESCO’s World Heritage, says the manifesto. The first-of-its-kind manifesto has enlisted peoples’ demands: Political commitment to protect the natural forests is critical to the water security of south India, especially the flows in rivers like Cavery, Tungabhadra and Krishna. Forests should be regenerated by indigenous species rather than exotic species. Forest dwellers should not be resettled for establishing National Parks, instead the community be given the right to collect forest produce for their livelihood security. Dam building across the rivers in Western Ghats needs to be stopped and a review of existing dams needs to be done at the earliest. National Rural Employment Guarantee Act should be implemented specifically for ecological rehabilitation in Western Ghats. GM free Ghats Western Ghats needs to be declared ‘GM free’, as it is the centre of biodiversity for numerous plants, crops, and wild products that provide food and ecological security. Introduction of GM will unleash dreadful consequences. A series of mega thermal power plants are being established in Konkan region, along the West Coast. This will lead to increased climate change causing changes in micro climate affecting the cultivation of the famous ‘alphonso’ mango. Older than the Himalayas, the Western Ghats is replete with bewitching locations that are home to known 4,050 type of plants, 121 species of frogs, 508 bird species, 87 species of snakes, 63 types of lizards and a wide variety of large mammals. If discovery of 12 new frog species over past one year is any indication, nature’s evolutionary laboratory is still at work in the Western Ghats. “Any tampering with the ecosystem in the Western Ghats is akin to killing a child in the womb,” argues A Latha of the River Research Centre in Thrissur, Kerala, “because one would never know what amazing life will still be in store.” Post-elections, the activists of the Save Western Ghats will lobby to create an ‘MP Forum on Western Ghats’ for working out special provisions for the protection of the most versatile ecological region in the country. Amongst other activities, political pressure will be mounted to get the Western Ghats declared as an ‘ecologically sensitive area’. (Sudhirendar Sharma is an environmentalist.)
