Promptly responding to green groups’ urgent mail to stop JNPA (formerly JNPT) and CIDCO from destroying 76 hectares of mangroves, equivalent to the size of seven-and-a-half Azad Maidans, for road works in Uran, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray asked two top officials to look into the issue.
“The CM marked our mail to principal secretary environment, climate change activist Manisha Patankar Mhaiskar and urban development principal secretary Bhushan Gagrani to take action,” NatConnect Foundation director B N Kumar said.
"This is not an auto-generated response since the mail has been marked specifically to these officials," Kumar said, who has also complained against the burial of Savarkhar wetland under JNPA in Uran.
Kumar said, "It is sad to see this kind of destruction at a time when we need to conserve our mangroves and protect our coasts in the face of rising sea levels." Kumar also vowed to follow up with the officials and resort to the RTI route to seek information on the action taken.
JNPA sought the Forest Department’s permission for the diversion of 43.4 hectares of mangroves for connecting Belpada wetland to the port’s Northgate at Nhava Sheva.
Additionally, CIDCO wants to divert 32.69 hectares of mangroves for a coastal road between Amra Marg in Panvel and the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL) junction at Nhava Sheva.
As it is, CIDCO has been allotting mangrove zones and wetlands to infrastructure projects which have been destroying biodiversity-rich properties without caring for the environment. "This diversion is nothing but permanent destruction of mangroves, and mudflats where migratory birds roost," Kumar said.
"BNHS has been reporting for a long that any disturbance in the bird habitats will lead to the migratory birds creating chaos in the sky and thus endangering flights about which no authority seems to be worried," Kumar said describing the situation as "very sad, to say the least."
"JNPA and NMSEZ have already destroyed hundreds of acres of mangroves and wetlands without obtaining any explicit permissions to which we have repeatedly drawn the government’s attention," said Nand Kumar Pawar, head of Shri Ekvira Aai Pratishtan. "Despite CM’s instructions to concerned departments no action has yet been taken," Pawar regretted.
"The burial of mangroves and wetlands in Uran is playing havoc with the biodiversity and ecological balance and this has to be thoroughly studied," said Pawar.
JNPA is single-handedly responsible for the burial of Savarkhar, Kumar said and requested a thorough, top-level investigation of the environmental damage done by JNPT in the name of its port-based SEZ project.
The NGO also sent photographic evidence of the environmental destruction which he said is yet to be investigated. This is the third major wetland to have dried up in Uran after the contiguous intertidal flows at Jasai and Bhendkhal, NatConnect Foundation said.
Following the NatConnect complaint in February, MOEFCC scientist Dr M Ramesh has asked the State Wetland Authority (SWA) to look into the complaint on a top priority basis.
"Yet, there has been no action from any state machinery and we lost another wetland through the Savarkhar wetland figured in the Uran’s 13-wetland list prepared by the Tahsildar," NatConnect lamented.
This also shows that the 'priority' and even 'top priority' messages from the Union Environment Department to the State officials have no value whatsoever, he regretted.
The Savarkhar wetland, just as the inter-tidal waster bodies at Jasai and Bhendkhal, were not only destinations for thousands of birds, but sources of survival for the local fishing community pointed out Pawar. "Bhendkhal wetland has been totally dried out by NMSEZ, notwithstanding an FIR by revenue officials against illegal debris dumping," Kumar said.
Even the High Court appointed wetland committee orders to NMSEZ and CIDCO to restore the wetland had fallen on deaf ears, he pointed out.
"Wetlands act like sponges by absorbing excess water and they are part of the natural flood control mechanism. The series of burials has been causing flooding in Uran which earlier did not have any history of inundation as revealed in the RTI responses from revenue officials," Pawar said.
