Team Goemkarponn
CANACONA: The Gram Sabha of Loliem-Polem Panchayat overwhelmingly passed two significant resolutions to safeguard the community, its inhabitants, and future generations from additional environmental deterioration, which is a significant step in preventing environmental disasters in the village.
According to the MoEF&CC draft notification, the first resolution called for keeping Loliem-Polem village an ESA (Ecological Sensitive Area) of the Western Ghats.
The second resolution forbade the conversion of any zone or usage of any land on the village’s plateaus for concrete developments.
While some villages in the western ghats, especially in the Goa region, opposed their villages being included in the ESA notifications, Loliem-Polem villagers were the first to support the inclusion of their village in the ESA, along with a few other villages, in order to safeguard their lands from ecological degradation.
Residents of the nearby village of Poinguinim have also sent a representation to the MoEF & CC endorsing the draft notification to include their community in the ESA, in addition to the villagers of Loliem-Polem.
The Gram Sabha members pointed out that the draft notification released by MOEF&CC includes Loliem village as part of the Western Ghats’ Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA). The members of the Gram Sabha also noted that, in accordance with the Notification’s recommendations, the Gram Sabha of Loliem-Polem Village Panchayat has passed a number of resolutions to preserve the village’s biodiversity, plateaus, and other natural and environmental aspects.
In order to keep Loliem village in the Western Ghats ESA, 311 village residents wrote to MOEF&CC, the Gram Sabha members also observed. Members were told that the draft ESA notification clarified a number of important and public-related issues, including the ability of current healthcare facilities to remain in ESA and the establishment of proposed primary health centers in accordance with laws and regulations. In addition, there are no restrictions on property ownership changes or on the repair, expansion, or renovation of existing residential homes in the Eco-sensitive Area in accordance with current laws and regulations.
Additionally, the notification suggests that local communities’ economic activities, including agriculture, horticulture, plantations, forestry, animal husbandry, services, and communications, Building and maintaining residential homes and other buildings for the residents of these settlements, movement and transportation by automobiles and people, operating educational institutions, hospitals, and healthcare facilities for the local population, as well as any other activity not expressly forbidden or limited in the Western Ghats’ ESAs.
The attempts by various short-term profit-seeking vested interests to change the zones or uses of lands on plateaus within the village to non-agricultural purposes, as well as the cooperation of TCP and other authorities to support these attempts, were also discussed and deliberated by the Gram Sabha.
The residents were reminded of the six resolutions that were passed in 2016 to completely preserve all of Loliem-Polem village’s plateaus for their own and future generations’ survival. The survival of the people living in Loliem-Polem village itself must be protected in light of climate crises and the swift destruction of the state and its resources. This includes ESG, various hoterliers, and builders keeping a watch on environmentally sensitive common lands.
