MOEF's Western Ghats report wrongly conceived: Goa CM

Says people sitting in Delhi did not know 'the ground reality'

Targeting the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, the Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar today said that "people sitting in Delhi" did not know "the ground reality".

"The conflicts are created between humans and nature. We should not make human and nature conflicting but complementing," Parrikar said, addressing the valedictory function of wildlife awareness campaign of the state forest department.

"The people sitting in Delhi are mapping Goa's bio-diversity without knowing the ground realities here," he said. His barb was apparently aimed at the Western Ghats bio-diversity report, prepared at the behest of MoEF.

Parrikar claimed that some areas which fall outside the Western Ghats had been mapped as bio-diversity hotspots.

He also said that thousands of hectares of forest land was diverted for the mining in Goa between 2006-08 by the then (Congress-led) government.

"I had to raise the issue on the floor of the house to point out the illegal diversions," he said.

On one hand forest department did not allow to cut even a single tree for public projects and on other hand such diversions were allowed, he said.

The Environment Ministry said on Thursday it will consider views of Chief Ministers of all states in the Western Ghats region before issuing the draft notification for declaring the the mountain chain as an Ecologically Sensitive Area.

Environment Minister Veerappa Moily also said that the Ministry has not issued any draft notification for declaration of the area identified by the High Level Working Group (HLWG) as Ecologically Sensitive under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.