The high-powered committee was formed by the Centre to study and recommend ways to implement the Madhav Ghadgil report on UNESCO featured biodiversity hotspot, the Western Ghats.

The villages under ESA included 56 villages in Sattari and more than 35 in Sanguem ~ mining heartland of Goa ~ and balance in Canacona. This leaves, only Bicholim Taluka out of the ambit and possibly clear for mining activities.

According to the report all projects in these villages will require prior-informed consent and no-objection from the gram sabhas. It also sought an urgent notification for a complete ban on mining and quarrying in the areas under ESA and regulation of development activities in other regions.

The Gadgil panel on the other hand had recommended that the entire stretch of the Western Ghats be declared an ESA; but the committee that presented its report eight months after it was appointed in August 2012 cut it down to 37 per cent.

The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests had appointed a High Level Working Group to study the preservation of the ecology, environmental integrity and holistic development of the Western Ghats in view of their rich and unique biodiversity and examine the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel Report (Gadgil Panel) “…in a holistic and multidisciplinary fashion keeping in view the comments received from the concerned State governments, Central ministries, stakeholders and other related important aspects such as preservation of precious biodiversity, needs and aspirations of the local and indigenous people, sustainable development and environmental integrity of the region, climate change and constitutional

implications of centre-state relations, the Ministry constitutes a High Level Working Group with the following composition…”

The terms of reference were to examine the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel Report in a holistic and multidisciplinary fashion in the light of the comments received from the concerned State governments, Central ministries, stakeholders considering important aspects like ~ the imperatives of equitable economic and social growth of the region in the most sustainable manner with special attention and importance to the preservation of the precious biodiversity, wildlife, flora and fauna of the Western Ghats and to prevent further degradation of the same; the rights, needs and development aspirations of local and indigenous people, tribals, forest dwellers and the most disadvantaged sections of the local community recognizing ~ and to submit the report recommending to the government future action on the Gadgil report.

This committee was headed by Dr K Kasturirangan, Member (Science), Planning Commission, New Delhi.

The report has reduced the amount of eco sensitive areas in the Western Ghats to 37 per cent across six states where no commercial activities like mining, thermal power plants, polluting industries and large housing plans are to be allowed.

Opposition from organised business had forced governments, including Goa’s, given that the influence of the mining industry, to unanimously oppose the Gadgil report that had recommended that almost 75 per cent of the hills ~ including plantations, cultivated lands and large living areas be converted into a restricted development zone and to form an overriding authority to keep on the region with greater powers than elected authorities.

The Kasturirangan committee on the other hand recommended that 90 per cent of the natural forests left in the Western Ghats ~ would cover 4,156 villages across the six states ~ be conserved under the ESA provisions of the green law.

The panel consisted of joint secretary in the Environment Ministry Ajay Tyagi, retired senior bureaucrat J M Mauskar, academicians C R Babu and Kanchan Chopra; retired senior forest officer Jagdish Kishwan, deputy director of National Remote Sensing Centre P S Roy, Darshan Shankar of the Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Traditions, a Karnataka-based NGO and Indrani Chandrasekharan of Planning Commission besides Kasturirangan and Centre for Science and Technology Sunita Narain.