No need for panic on ESZ declaration, says Forests Minister
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Forests Minister K. Raju has mentioned that there isn’t a need for panic relating to the draft notification of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) declaring eco-sensitive zones (ESZ) across the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary as it will be revised earlier than execution.
Earlier, the ESZ was fastened at 118.59 sq. km across the sanctuary, together with 18.21 sq. km of human settlements, contained in the forest. The State authorities had submitted a revised draft notification on January 25 to the MoEFCC by decreasing the ESZ to 88.21 sq. km after excluding the human settlements on 30 sq. km, mentioned Mr. Raju in a launch right here on Saturday.
When the revised draft notification can be revealed, all human settlements can be excluded from the ESZ, the Minister added.
The draft notification, revealed on January 28, can be taken up for consideration after a interval of 60 days. The public might additionally ship in feedback and solutions on the draft proposals inside 60 days of publication, mentioned Mr. Raju.
The pointers for declaring ESZ was issued by the Central authorities on February 9, 2011, as per the path of the Supreme Court. Later, it was determined to declare as much as 10 km on the border of the protected space as default ESZ, if the zone wouldn’t be declared correctly.
A Cabinet assembly on November 23, 2019 determined to announce the ESZ from 0-1 km round 23 protected areas within the State, together with nationwide parks, and submitted draft notifications to the Central authorities for the aim.
When the Central authorities had issued the draft notifications one after the other by fixing the ESZ at 0-1 km across the protected areas, many human settlements had been included within the zone and the general public protested towards the transfer.
Later, the State authorities determined to submit maps of the zones on 28 September, 2020, by utterly excluding human settlements. At current, human settlements within the State had been excluded from the ESZ, the Minister added.
