India’s first marine eco-sensitive zone comes up in Kutch

The environment ministry has declared the first marine eco-sensitive zone around Marine National Park in Gulf of Kutch, Gujarat, thereby prohibiting any industrial activity in the area. It would also mean stringent environmental regulations will apply for developmental works in 36 villages and 31 rivers flowing into the Arabian Sea.

Updated on: Sep 9, 2013, 23:35:37 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The environment ministry has declared the first marine eco-sensitive zone around Marine National Park in Gulf of Kutch, Gujarat, thereby prohibiting any industrial activity in the area. It would also mean stringent environmental regulations will apply for developmental works in 36 villages and 31 rivers flowing into the Arabian Sea.

The ministry in a notification issued on Monday, declared 313 sq km around the park as an eco-sensitive zone. Of this, 208 sq km is on the landward side while the remaining is on the seaside and covers 0-5 km of the length of the 31 rivers.

The notification says that change of land use to allow recreational, commercial or industrial development will not be permitted in the area except for residential purpose. Mining, including fresh water mining, and release of polluted water and waste will also be prohibited.

“Even expansion of existing industries and fishing by trawlers won’t be allowed,” the ministry official said, adding that stringent air pollution norms will apply at existing jetties. The ministry has also directed the government to prepare a zonal ecology conservation master plan in consultation with people living in these 36 villages.

The plan should provide for restoration of denuded areas, conservation of existing water bodies, management of catchment areas, watershed ‘management, groundwater and soil conservation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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