On the inadequacy of environment impact assessments for projects in Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park of Goa, India: a peer review
| Autor: | Shashank Srinivasan, Madhura Niphadkar-Bandekar, Anisha Jayadevan, Vighnesh Durgaram Shinde, Omkar Dharwadkar, Sayan Banerjee, Rahul Prabhukhanolkar, Nandini Mehrotra, Atul Borker, Pronoy Baidya, Katrina Fernandez, Esme Purdie, Nirmal U. Kulkarni, Manoj Ramakant Borkar, Hanuman Gawas, Dheeraj Halali, Marishia Rodrigues, Harshada S. Gauns, Sneha Shahi, Farai Divan Patel, Vidyadhar Atkore, Manish Chandi, Gowri Mallapur, Rhea Lopez, Parag Rangnekar, H.S. Sathya Chandra Sagar, Abhishek Jamalabad, Nandini Velho, Girish Punjabi, Ravi Jambhekar |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
Impact assessment National park 010607 zoology Wildlife Management Monitoring Policy and Law Public domain 010603 evolutionary biology 01 natural sciences Natural resource Geography Documentation Credibility Animal Science and Zoology Protected area Environmental planning Ecology Evolution Behavior and Systematics Nature and Landscape Conservation |
| Zdroj: | Journal of Threatened Taxa. 12:17387-17454 |
| ISSN: | 0974-7907 0974-7893 |
| DOI: | 10.11609/jott.6650.12.18.17387-17454 |
| Popis: | The Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) is a regulatory framework adopted since 1994 in India to evaluate the impact and mitigation measures of projects, however, even after 25 years of adoption, EIAs continue to be of inferior quality with respect to biodiversity documentation and assessment of impacts and their mitigation measures. This questions the credibility of the exercise, as deficient EIAs are habitually used as a basis for project clearances in ecologically sensitive and irreplaceable regions. The authors reiterate this point by analysing impact assessment documents for three projects: the doubling of the National Highway-4A, doubling of the railway-line from Castlerock to Kulem, and laying of a 400-kV transmission line through the Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park in the state of Goa. Two of these projects were recently granted ‘Wildlife Clearance’ during a virtual meeting of the Standing Committee of the National Board of Wildlife (NBWL) without a thorough assessment of the project impacts. Assessment reports for the road and railway expansion were found to be deficient on multiple fronts regarding biodiversity assessment and projected impacts, whereas no impact assessment report was available in the public domain for the 400-kV transmission line project. This paper highlights the biodiversity significance of this protected area complex in the Western Ghats, and highlights the lacunae in biodiversity documentation and inadequacy of mitigation measures in assessment documents for all three diversion projects. The EIA process needs to improve substantially if India is to protect its natural resources and adhere to environmental protection policies and regulations nationally and globally. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
|