KERI: After a brief halt, work of clearing patches of private forest on the Vagheri hill has resumed. The activity is threatening the stability and ecology of the hill, which is part of the Western Ghats of Goa.
The work of clearing the forest area to make way for an eco-tourism project first began before January 2022, taking advantage of the pandemic-related restrictions on movement. However, following a report by TOI, the wildlife division of Goa’s forest department disallowed entry to Vagheri hill by installing a checkpost. This had led to the work stopping.
Environmental activist Ramesh Gauns, however, said that felling of trees at Vagheri has resumed. “The clearing of forested areas is presently going on to make roads for the proposed so-called eco-tourism project, without obtaining any of the mandatory clearances from the authorities concerned,” Gauns said.
The Sawant committee in 1997 had identified the forest on Vagheri hill as a private forest owing to dense tree canopy. This area also falls in the eco-sensitive zone of the Mhadei wildlife sanctuary.
Gauns, who has obtained documents under RTI concerning the project, said, “The five co-owners of the property had submitted applications for assessment of tax under unauthorised structures for which sarpanch of Querim village panchayat gave consent on November 13, 2021.”
As per information by the five applicants, they presently have wooden houses consisting of inbuilt biodigesters for disposing off all waste. The houses have been existing from 2007-2010.
Presently, inside the undivided property, the office of the sub-registrar of Sattari has processed sale deeds in the names of seven persons, of which six are non-Goans.
Environmentalists have expressed apprehensions that if the work of clearing the forest continues, it will result in increased siltation and sedimentation load in monsoonal streams in the villages of Pali, Zarme and inside the reservoir of the Anjunem dam.
