{"id":27808,"date":"2018-10-23T16:20:10","date_gmt":"2018-10-23T10:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=27808"},"modified":"2018-10-23T16:20:10","modified_gmt":"2018-10-23T10:50:10","slug":"trouble-in-the-hills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/trouble-in-the-hills\/","title":{"rendered":"Trouble in the hills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/editorial\/trouble-in-the-hills\/article24774238.ece\">Trouble in the hills<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><u>News:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The monsoon floods in Kerala and Karnataka have revived the debate on whether political expediency trumped science.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong><u>Important facts: <\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>2. In the past, the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel issued recommendations for the preservation of the fragile western peninsular region.<\/p>\n<p>3. Madhav Gadgil, who chaired the Union Environment Ministry\u2019s WGEEP, has said the recent havoc in Kerala is a consequence of short-sighted policymaking<\/p>\n<p><u>4. Issues involved in Western Ghats:<\/u><\/p>\n<p>Calculation of what constitute the sensitive core and what activities can be carried out there.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Population estimation for the sensitive zones vary greatly, based on interpretations of the ESZs.<\/li>\n<li>According to one expert, in Kerala, 39 lakh households are in the ESZs outlined by the WGEEP, but the figure drops sharply to four lakh households for a smaller area of zones identified by the Kasturirangan panel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><u>5. Suggestions:<\/u><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Public consultation on export reports on the Western Ghats ecology needed.<\/li>\n<li>The Western Ghats states must draw table on line with the reports of both the Gadgil Committee and the Kasturirangam Committee, which was set up to examine WGEEP report.<\/li>\n<li>The goal has to be sustainable development for the Ghats as a whole.<\/li>\n<li>The task before them is to initiate correctives to environmental policy decisions.<\/li>\n<li>Need to balance human development pressures with stronger protection of the Western Ghats ecology.<\/li>\n<li>Need to create regulatory framework that was proposed by the Gadgil panel, in the form of an apex Western Ghats Ecology Authority and the State-level units, under the Environment (Protection) Act.<\/li>\n<li>Adopt zoning system that was proposed by above act. This can keep incompatible activities out of the Ecologically Sensitive Zones (ESZs).<\/li>\n<li>A moratorium on quarrying and mining in the identified sensitive zones, in Kerala and also other States, is necessary to assess their environmental impact.<\/li>\n<li>Need to review decisions affecting the environment, in the wake of the floods.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trouble in the hills News: The monsoon floods in Kerala and Karnataka have revived the debate on whether political expediency trumped science. Important facts: 2. In the past, the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel issued recommendations for the preservation of the fragile western peninsular region. 3. Madhav Gadgil, who chaired the Union Environment Ministry\u2019s WGEEP,&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/trouble-in-the-hills\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Trouble in the hills<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704725327},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}