Punjabi, G and Jayadevan, A and Jamalabad, A and Velho, N and Niphadkar-Bandekar, M and Baidya, P and Jambhekar, R and Rangnekar, P and Dharwadkar, O and Lopez, R and Rodrigues, M and Patel, FD and Sathya Chandra Sagar, HS and Banerjee, S and Chandi, M and Mehrotra, N and Srinivasan, S and Shahi, S and Atkore, V and Kulkarni, N and Mallapur, G and Gawas, H and Borker, A and Prabhukhanolkar, R and Gauns, HS and Halali, D and Shinde, VD and Fernandez, K and Purdie, E and Borkar, MR (2020) On the inadequacy of environment impact assessments for projects in Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park of Goa, India: a peer review. In: Journal of Threatened Taxa, 12 (18). pp. 17387-17454.
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
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 railwayline 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. © Punjabi et al. 2020. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publication.
| Item Type: | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Journal of Threatened Taxa |
| Additional Information: | Copyright to this article belongs to Zoo Outreach Organisation |
| Department/Centre: | Division of Biological Sciences > Centre for Ecological Sciences |
| Date Deposited: | 04 Feb 2021 11:16 |
| Last Modified: | 04 Feb 2021 11:16 |
| URI: | http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/67896 |
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