Team Goemkarponn
PANAJI: This month, an expert committee constituted by the Union Ministry for Environment, Forests, and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) to look into the State governments’ opinions and complaints about Western Ghats Eco-Sensitive Areas (ESA) is probably going to travel to Goa to verify the State’s submission on the ground.
In its submission to the Union Ministry, the Goa government suggested removing 21 villages off the ESA list.
This proposal was based on the findings of a seven-member committee constituted by the State and led by Dr. Devendra Pandey, the former director general of the Forest Survey of India. The committee has suggested that 87 communities be classified as ESA since they satisfy the Ministry’s requirements.
In contrast to the previous list of 99 villages, the Center nominated 108 localities from Goa as ESA in its draft notification, which was released in August.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Environment Minister Aleixo Sequeira announced that the Ministry’s Expert Committee on ESA will be visiting the State, most likely this month, to discuss and verify the State’s plan after receiving a request from Goa.
The committee, led by former Forest Director-General Sanjay Kumar, will work with the State government to determine whether its requests to exclude communities designated as ESA are warranted.
“We have called for the removal of numerous villages off the ESA list. We have provided a report from a team of senior scientific officials and other experts in this sector to support our claim,” Sequeira stated.
According to the Minister, we suggested that the ESA committee visit the State and those areas because they had certain doubts about our response.
Twelve villages are from Sattari, five are from Dharbandora, three are from Sanguem, and one is from Canacona taluka, according to the government’s proposal.
Out of the 87 villages that were suggested under the ESA categories, 51 are located in Sattari taluka, 23 in Sanguem, 8 in Dharbandora, 4 in Canacona, and 1 in Ponda.
