Govt: Special mechanism on the cards….Avishek G Dastidar
Western Ghats – More sites, protective layer planned
Western Ghats – More sites, protective layer planned
With environmental activists criticising that the UNESCO World Heritage Site tag on 39 areas in the Western Ghats does not mean more protection to these ecologically fragile properties, Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan on Thursday said the government was in the process of forming a special mechanism for these heritage sites for an additional protective layer and addition of more sites to the list.
The process to evaluate more natural heritage sites in the Western Ghats will eventually ensure that more areas enjoy the heritage-like protection in terms of conservation. The list of 39 sites does include areas already protected by various conservation laws. But we are working out a special mechanism for these sites as part of added protection measures, Natarajan told The Indian Express . There is an ongoing process of reviewing to ascertain if more sites can be added to this, she said.
Sources said two sites from Goa and one from Karnataka were high in priority to enter the series. Ministry sources said states would receive Central guidelines to confer similar protection on other sites in the Western Ghats, which did not make it to the list but were no less ecologically valuable.
We can say that from 39, the list can go up to around 43 in the future because getting the heritage status for the entire cluster was the difficult part but inclusion of more sites into that is not as long a process, said ecologist Dr Jagdish Krishnaswamy of Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (Atree), who is a member of the Environment Ministrys Western Ghats Natural Heritage Management Committee.
Sources said the Madhav Gadgil report, which recommended radical steps for protecting the ecosystem of the Western Ghats, would have no bearing on this since the government had not yet accepted the report and would do so only after evaluating response from the six states that had by and large rejected the recommendations saying they were impractical and anti-development.
The ministry has been pursuing the UNESCO nomination since 2002 and the process suffered a setback when it did not get through in 2011 over the issue of the Gadgil committee report and other matters related to compliance of conditions. This year, too, the World Heritage Committees decision was deferred once after which India sent a rejoinder stating the highest conservation measures available in the country were in place at these sites, after which the nomination sailed through.