Forest department to MoEFCC: Of 18K trees to be felled for Mumbai-Vadodara E-way, only 51 can be transplanted

The official pointed out that a comprehensive afforestation effort will be taken up to counter the loss of forest cover due to the MVE link between Talasari and Vasai

Mumbai: Out of 18,073 trees that are proposed to be felled on notified forest land in Palghar district, to make way for the Mumbai-Vadodara Expressway (MVE) link between Talasari and Vasai, only 51 are feasible for transplantation, according to a report submitted by the chief conservator of forests (CCF), Thane, to the union environment ministry’s regional empowered committee (REC) in Nagpur.

Environmentalists and experts have raised an alarm over the loss of this green cover. (Representational picture)

The report was submitted earlier this year pursuant to the National Highways Authority of India’s (NHAI) request for forest clearance (FC), in which the agency has sought to divert 193 hectares of forest land in Palghar for the project. The proposal was considered by the REC in a meeting on March 24.

The committee opined that “51 trees out of 18,073 are negligible”, and has for the time being deferred providing Stage-II forest clearance for the project. Stage-1 clearance was obtained by the NHAI on August 26, 2021.

The REC has now constituted an independent, three-member sub-committee to conduct a ground-truthing exercise and verify if a larger number of trees can be transplanted or protected from felling, reveal the minutes of the meeting.

The MVE is an eight-lane, 379-km greenfield expressway between Vadodara and Mumbai planned under the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) Phase VI and Phase II, and will reduce travel time between the two cities to four hours from the current seven hours through the national highway (NH)-8. To be sure, the total number of trees proposed to be felled between Vasai and Talasari is around 38,000, of which 18,073 are situated on notified forest land, and include about 1,000 mangrove trees.

An official from NHAI privy to the development said while seeking anonymity, “The total number of trees slotted for felling on forest land in Palghar was initially closer to 27,000. We have reduced this to just over 18,000 after discussions with the forest department, which will carry out the tree felling. Officials have seen the locations where tree cutting is needed and determined that only 51 trees can be transplanted. The terrain is rocky and hilly, many of the trees have already been harvested for timber and will likely not survive even if they are moved elsewhere. Also, bigger trees of over 60cm girth are mixed in with a dense cover of smaller girth trees, which makes selective transplantation hard.”

The official pointed out that a comprehensive afforestation effort will be taken up to counter the loss of forest cover due to the MVE link between Talasari and Vasai. The project’s EIA report, dated November 2019, mentions that 90,899 trees and 49,408 hedges have been proposed to be planted under a greenbelt development plan, while 1,91,589 plants are proposed to be planted under a separate compensatory afforestation plan.

The NHAI had initially applied for clearances under the FC Act for 94.5ha forest diversion in 2018, but retracted the proposal as a much larger forest area (193 hectares) was subsequently earmarked for diversion. CRZ clearance for this proposal was granted by the MCZMA in July 2020, while the Dahanu Taluka Environment Protection Authority’s sanction was given in August 2021.

In addition to the 193 hectares of forest sought to be diverted in Palghar, the NHAI has separately sought permission to divert another 112 hectares of forest land for the MVE’s connecting spur between Vasai and the Jawaharlal Nehru Port in the Raigad district. This proposal is still awaiting Stage-1 forest clearance, the NHAI official cited above said. In all, a total of 315 hectares of forest land and close to 80k trees will be felled across the forest and non-forest land in Palghar, Thane, and Raigad districts for the expressway.

Environmentalists and experts have raised an alarm over the loss of this green cover, particularly in light of where these contiguous projects are located, in the Dahanu ESZ, the Matheran ESZ, and around the wetlands of Uran in Navi Mumbai.

Debi Goenka, the executive trustee of the Conservation Action Trust, pointed out that the Dahanu ESZ is being fragmented by the multiple linear intrusions other than this expressway, including the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train, the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor, a CNG pipeline between Gujarat and Maharashtra, and another set of pipelines to carry water from the Surya Dam to Vasai-Virar and Mira-Bhayander.

“Environmental and forest clearances for these projects need to be considered keeping in mind their cumulative impact on the ecosystem. Such piecemeal clearances defeat the intent of the MoEFCC’s 1991 notification declaring the region as eco-sensitive,” said Debi.

SV Ramarao, CCF, and Thane, did not respond to requests for comment.