HC to Centre: Give ESZ tag to Sawantwadi-Dodamarg

Court also directs forest officials to form a task force to protect the corridor from ecological damage

The Bombay high court (HC) has recently directed the Centre to declare Sawantwadi-Dodamarg wildlife corridor in Sindhudurg district as an ecosensitive zone (ESZ) and continue the embargo on tree felling in the corridor till the final ESZ notification is issued.

Sawantwadi is 466 km by road from Mumbai, and Dodamarg is 526 km. The drive from the city to Dodamarg takes about 7 hours and 42 minutes. The wildlife corridor is a densely forested area in the Western Ghats that’s home to several species of animals, plants, perennial streams and indigenous flora and fauna, including tigers and elephants.

The division bench of justice Nitin Jamdar and justice MM Sathaye has directed the Maharashtra government to submit in four months a proposal to the

Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) to declare the corridor – area comprised of 25 villages from Dodamarg and Sawantwadi talukas – as an ESZ.

The bench has directed MoEFCC to issue a final notification declaring the corridor an ESZ in six months thereafter. The court has also continued the restraint imposed earlier on cutting trees in the corridor and directed the district collector, the superintendent of police, Sindhudurg, and the deputy conservator of forests, Sawantwadi to ensure that there is scrupulous compliance with the injunction

on tree cutting. The officers are also directed to form a task force to ensure that the corridor does not suffer ecological damage.

The bench issued the orders on separate PIL filed by citybased non-governmental organisations, Awaaz Foundation and Vanashakti way back in 2012 and 2014, respectively, for declaring the 26 villages in Sindhudurg district as ESA, as contemplated under the Environment Protection Act, 1986. The NGOs had moved the HC to protect the corridor which has around 303 species of plants, shrubs and trees, several with crucial medicinal values, 18 species of wildlife, including Asiatic elephants, Bengal tiger, leopards, black bear and wild buffalos, and 13 species of birds.

They had approached the high court claiming that in the preceding two years over 18 lakh trees had been destroyed/felled in Dodamarg forest circle alone by clearing around 640 hectares of forest cover for facilitating mining activities and therefore, sought restraint on the bauxite and iron ore mining in the area.

The petitioner bodies said the corridor forms an important part of the Sahyadri Konkan Wildlife Corridor and the ecosystem was fragile and would not be able to sustain the large-scale exploitation, especially mining activities.

“The study categorically records that the corridor is a critical connecting link and bottleneck between the northern and central Western Ghats in the Sahyadri-Konkan corridor,” the bench said. “Despite overwhelming scientific evidence and a consensus on the importance of protecting the critical Corridor, it is unfortunate that very little has been done over the past decade. To make matters worse, largescale deforestation is carried out,” the court said while ordering the Centre to declare the stretch an ESZ.

The corridor in Sindhudurg district is a densely forested area in Western Ghats and home to indigenous flora and fauna.