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Two Goa villages seek inclusion in Western Ghats ESA category
The villages of Poinguinim and Loliem have written to the Union ministry of environment, forests and climate change seeking their inclusion in the Ecologically Sensitive Zones of the Western Ghats.
Even as villages across Goa have expressed their objection to be included in the so-called ecologically sensitive category, the villages of Poinguinim and Loliem in South Goa have written to the Union ministry of environment, forests and climate change seeking their inclusion in the Ecologically Sensitive Zones of the Western Ghats. All the villages were responding to the draft notification put out by the ministry on July 31, seeking to protect almost 60,000 sq km of the Western Ghats across six states including Goa.
The Citizens Committee of Loliem and the Villagers of Poinguinim, two villages that fall in the south of Goa close to the border of Karnataka have said that their villages are “endowed with amazing biodiversity matching any other ESA (Ecologically Sensitive Area) of the Central and North Western Ghats, where rich forested slopes and springs of the extraordinary plateaus abound and connects the Cotigao wildlife sanctuary to the Arabian Sea, making the entire region a critical habitat for various species of flora and fauna and an essential part of the Western Ghats of Goa”.
“Our villages of Loliem and Poinguinim are facing a disastrous assault from real estate speculation, luxury tourism, infrastructure projects and other forms of destruction. The low altitude lateritic plateaus, forests and the riverine wetlands, which together constitute the highly eco-sensitive areas of the Western Ghats of our village, are under immediate assault and will be lost forever, unless included in the Ecologically Sensitive Areas of Western Ghats,” the villagers said in separate representation sent to the Union government.
The draft notification listed 104 villages in Goa as ecologically sensitive. In response, the state government constituted a seven member committee to meet with villagers and experts from the villages to submit the state’s response to the notification.
Several villages haves opposed their inclusion as ecologically sensitive areas in the state and the state government, has, in the past, recommended that only 63 villages be included.
It is not known what its response to the draft, to be submitted Monday and based on the seven-member committee’s recommendation will say.
“Instead of taking precautionary measures and pragmatic, logical decisions, we are shocked to see that government of Goa, misdirected by vested interests who wish to destroy our Western Ghats for private profits, is requesting you to reduce the number of villages within the ESA for Goa, when the real need is to add numerous talukas and villages that have been wrongly left out from the ESA for Goa. We therefore submit our unconditional support for the inclusion of Loliem, Poinguinim and other villages included presently,” the representation that has been signed by more than 600 people from the two villages said.
