(IN) Wildlife Activists Move Supreme Court

[Guest guest]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhubaneswar/Wildlife-Activists-Move-Supr\

eme-Court-/articleshow/5110555.cms

 

Wildlife Activists Move Supreme Court

TNN 10 October 2009, 10:18pm IST

 

BHUBANESWAR: Three renowned wildlife activists have moved the Supreme Court,

alleging that that the private Dhamra port was being built on forest

land. The petitioners alleged that this was in defiance of the stipulated law

and also the apex court, which had earlier acknowledged the status of the land.

 

The petitioners are Bittu Sahgal, former member of the Indian Board for Wildlife

and the Expert Appraisal Committee for Infrastructure (including ports) of the

environment and forest ministry; Shekar Dattatri, who made two famous films, The

Ridleys' Last Stand and The Killing Fields; and Romulus Whitaker, founder of the

Madras Crocodile Bank, Madras Snake Park and host of other wildlife-related

organization. The upcoming port is close to defence establishments like the

Integrated Test Range, Chandipur, and Wheeler Islands.

 

The petitioners have appealed to the court to immediately ban the ongoing port

work, penal action against violation of the provision of the Forest

(Conservation) Act, 1980 and orders of the December 12, 1996 order of the Apex

court.

 

They submitted a host of official correspondences done on the issue to prove

their points and apprehended that if the work continued it could pose threat to

the environment and the endangered Olive Ridley habitat. It quoted the

government notification dated October 4, 1961 and a June 26, 2000 letter by the

Rajnagar divisional forest officer (DFO) and said, " excavation and levelling of

earth for yard construction has been done over the unsurveyed areas and appears

to be within the protected forest areas. "

 

According to the letter, the district level committee (DLC) set up pursuant to

the December 12, 1996 orders of the SC had identified the area as a " forest " .

The chief wildlife warden of Orissa in his August 10, 1998 letter had " confirmed

the status of this area as protected forest and had recommended strongly to also

constitute the area north of Dhamra port area as a Reserve Forest in view of the

significance of mangrove forest in protecting the area from the fury of the

cyclone and sea erosion along the coast. "

 

It said the principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife) and the chief

wildlife warden had on December 6, 2007 written a letter to the Bhadrak wildlife

division DFO asking him to take " necessary action " on the matter. The PCCF

(wildlife) had also in his July 25, 2008 communication to the chief conservator

of forest (Central), MoEF, had highlighted how the " ongoing expansion work on

the Dhamra Port project was endangering the forest and the wildlife specially

the Olive Ridley Turtles. "

 

--

Thank you for your compassion !

With best regards,

Debasis Chakrabarti

Compassionate Crusaders Trust

http://www.animalcrusaders.org