No home for Birds - Okhla Bird Sanctuary

No home for Birds - Okhla Bird Sanctuary
August 19, 2015

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar has just given the green signal for how much land around the large Okhla Bird Sanctuary should be treated as "eco-sensitive" . The area around the Sanctuary has shrunk from 10 kms to 100 metres on three sides, and a little over a kilometre in the north.

With a revision to the environmental guidelines in Noida, Delhi, 1000's of newly constructed flats are no longer located in the buffer zone.

The flats constructed had been ready for last couple of years, but declared illegal in 2013 by NGT (National Green Tribunal) as the environment court found the buffer zone around the sanctuary reduced considerably and illegal construction done in it.

NGT's decision to ban new construction within a 10-km radius of the sanctuary hit major developers like Supertech, Amrapali and Jaypee. Flats in around 50 projects were not delivered to owners as the court barred officials from issuing legal certificates.

The Environment Minister has sanctioned a proposal suggested last year; the official clearance will be issued next week, Mr Javadekar said.

Around 60,000 plus residents will be soon occupying the flats around the Sanctuary, raising doubt as to how birds will be able to stay in such close proximity.

Of course, who cares? Money wins over the carcasses of dead wildlife.

This is just the tip of the iceberg...there is a lot more to come and our MOEF is actually trying to flaunt it as an achievement. while notifying ESZ around PA's and clearing the confusion surrounding this subject is very important, the logic and factors which are taken into account for notifying ESZ's need to be made public. Some of the ESZ's notified are ridiculously small as in the above case and the logic which worked there seems to be pretty much clear... here is an interesting write up on this.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/e.../1/449243.html

Rgds
Roopak

Well certain lobbies have prevailed. I have covered it in the August issue of the IndiaWilds Newsletter http://www.indiawilds.com/diary/indi...-7-issue-viii/

But why the joke of leaving 100 mts. It would not have been so insulting, hadn't it been for the cloak of scientific study.
I think we deserve to be fooled (& insulted) by these folks.