PANJIM: Scientists write to the National Board of Wildlife with a detailed review on the EIA reports of the three linear projects to help address existing gaps and enable practical and scientifically informed decision making for the proposed projects.
Over the past six months, thousands of citizens have sent multiple representations to the National Board of Wildlife and Central Empowered Committee of the Supreme Court against the clearance of the three linear projects. 160 scientists and academicians have yet again written to the director of the Wildlife institute of India on November 16, to consider assessing the cumulative environmental impacts of all three linear projects instead of suggesting mitigation measures in isolation given the well-known synergistic effects of habitat fragmentation.
The letter highlights a reviewed critique of the existing Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) reports for all the three projects that has been submitted by a collective of 31 scientists with extensive expertise in various relevant fields to a peer reviewed journal manuscript number [JoTT] #6650.
The authors have also pointed out that some of the prescribed impact mitigation measures lack enough detail to be taken up and implemented correctly and effectively.
“It is a given that these three projects will have a range of potential effects on the local ecology (some of which are pointed out by your EIA reports) also have considerable spatial overlap, and are essentially connected to each other in function and mitigation measures cannot be effectively suggested without first studying cumulative impacts”, they wrote.
