By IANS,
Panaji: Scientist Madhav Gadgil, who prepared a report for the central government on the environmental health of the ecologically sensitive Western Ghats range, Thursday defended it, saying it was comprehensive.
Rejecting the report amounted to the summary rejection of a “democratically drafted documentation on one of the most sensitive and vibrant ecological hotspots in the world”, said Gadgil at a function here.
“The report has incorporated views from everyone. It is wrong (of his detractors, the mining lobby and the Goa government) to say that we did not speak to the people living in the Western Ghat areas,” he said.
His report calls for identifying the mountain range as ecologically sensitive, which would automatically ban mining in the area.
The Western Ghats stretch across 1,600 km from southern Gujarat and Maharashtra to Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu stretching across six states including Karnataka, Kerala, and Goa. They also account for six major rivers which flow out of the mountains into the plains of the above mentioned states.
Most mining activity in Goa is carried out in the Ghat area or on its fringes.