Renowned Indian ecologist Dr Madhav Gadgil has said thatnhis name has been drawn in mischievous campaign to justify certain thoroughly unjustifiable linear projects in protected areas such as Mollem Wildlife Sanctuary and Bhagwan Mahavir National Park.
Professor Gadgil says the WGEEP never supported projects in Mollem; WGEEP recommends that there shall be no linear projects in Mollem wildlife sanctuary and Bhagwan Mahavir National Park.
“My attention has just been drawn to a mischievous disinformation campaign that has been launched using my name in Goa by those who want to justify certain thoroughly unjustifiable linear projects in protected areas such as Mollem Wildlife Sanctuary and Bhagwan Mahavir National Park,” Gadgil said in his social media post.
He said that the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel had suggested that the Western Ghats be divided into zones of three levels of ecological sensitivity; the ecologically most sensitive localities were assigned to ESZ1, those with medium level of sensitivity were labelled as ESZ2 and the those with lower levels of sensitivity were labelled as ESZ3.
“We had suggested that there should be no interference of any sort in the ecologically most sensitive zone ESZ1. For ecological sensitivity we had used a well defined multi-factorial quantitative index that was arrived at after an open discussion through public forums including a publication widely circulated scientific fortnightly Current Science,” he said.
Prof Gadgil said that an important yardstick for deciding on the values of this quantitative index above which the areas will be classified as the most sensitive were the levels in the areas currently classified as protected areas.
“It was specifically mentioned that all currently protected areas are to be included in the ecologically most sensitive zone ESZ1 in which there must not be any human interference,” he says.
So, he continued, it is very clear that WGEEP recommends that there shall be no linear projects in Mollem wildlife sanctuary and Bhagwan Mahavir National Park.
“I attach PDFs of part 1 and part 2 of the WGEEP report for ready reference to remove any further doubt,” he says.
Kindly feel free to circulate this email to all concerned, including those who are misusing my name.