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Green activists hail top court’s decision to curb quarrying in Kerala
The state is burdened with mindless quarrying for quite some time now posing a serious threat to fragile areas of the Western Ghats that play a crucial role in breaking rain clouds over the sub-continent. Many hills have turned barren as the powerful quarry lobby started carving them.
Green activists and conservationists have hailed the Supreme Court order to stay the Kerala High Court verdict that allowed quarrying in a 200 metre radius of populated areas.
Last August, the High Court had stayed an order of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) which stipulated that quarries in the state must be at least 200 metres away from residential areas.
After the HC order many new quarries came up in ecologically fragile areas and now they will have to wind up. Nature lovers feel the latest order of the SC will help cap unmindful quarrying in ecologically sensitive areas (ESA) and those close to dwelling units. Earlier the minimum distance for quarrying was 50 metres away from populated areas and later the NGT raised it to 200 metres which was stayed by the HC.
The state is burdened with mindless quarrying for quite some time now posing a serious threat to fragile areas of the Western Ghats that play a crucial role in breaking rain clouds over the sub-continent. Many hills have turned barren as the powerful quarry lobby started carving them. After the 2018 floods and landslides that claimed 400-odd lives, noted environmental scientist Dr Madhav Gadgil had said it was a man-made disaster pointing accusing fingers at many illegal quarries functioning in sensitive areas of the Western Ghats.
“Illegal sand mining destroyed many rivers of the state and quarrying turned many lush hills barren. It seems the state is yet to learn a lesson from recurring tragedies,” said Dr S Vijayan, one of the members of the Gadgil Committee, formed to study growing human intervention in Western Ghats.
“Judicial intervention in environmental issues is paramount. Quarrying, sand mining and illegal tree felling pose a big threat to the sensitive ecology of the state,” said N Badusha, president of the Wayanad Prakruti Samrakshana Samiti. The samiti played a crucial role in exposing the recent illegal tree felling in Muttil in Wayanad (north Kerala) in the guise of a weird government order.
Last year the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the official advisory committee of the UNESCO, in a report expressed serious concern over the degradation of Western Ghats. It said if immediate action was not taken to check the overexploitation rich biodiversity of the mountain ranges would be in danger. Despite many such warnings, exploitation of mountain ranges which start from Gujarat to Kerala continues.
Two expert committee reports (Gadgil and Kasturirangan), intended to save the Ghats, are gathering dust at administrative offices. Fearing backlash nobody dared to touch them. The state had witnessed violent agitation against the Gadgil committee in 2012.
When all six states under the periphery of the Ghats opposed the Gadgil Panel recommendations, another committee was constituted under former ISRO chief Dr Kasturirangan. A mellowed one, Kasturirangan Panel had made some changes in the zonal classification and reduced ESA to 37 per cent from the 64 per cent suggested by the earlier panel. But many states opposed the Kasturirangan panel also forcing the government to freeze both reports.
