News: Special Correspondent

Daijiworld Media Network – Panaji (VA)

Panaji, Apr 19:  Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) has ordered the Public Works Department (PWD) to replant a large stretch of mangroves which they will destroy as a part of proposed national highway project.

The department will have to replant almost three times the mangroves that they will be butchering to make way for national highway.
 
GCZMA member Dr Arvind Gajanan Untawale said that nearly three hectares mangroves would be sacrificed for the highway project that will be pre-habilitated. The department will plant ten hectares of mangroves to compensate for the ecological loss.
 
“This is not a rehabilitation but pre-habilitation as they will have to plant the mangroves before starting the national highway project,” Dr Untawale, said former scientist from National Institute of Oceanography (NIO).
 
He was talking to reporters on the sidelines of seminar on mangroves ecosystem organized by Mangrove Society of India at NIO.
 
As PWD has no expertise to grow mangroves, they will seek paid assistant from forest department for it. “They will have to pay around Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000 per acre to the forest department,” Dr Untawale said. Forest department will identify the area for them to pre-habilitate the plantation, he added.
 
The stretch of mangroves from near Banastarim bridge and Chimbel will be cut down for the highway.  Untawale said that Goa is on a much better footing as far as mangroves conservation is concerned. “Forest department is taking additional efforts to make sure that wherever mangroves are destroyed, they are replanted elsewhere,” he added.