This story is from June 19, 2014

Campaign to stop construction on IIT Madras campus gets momentum

A petition asks Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa to protect the Guindy National Park by declaring a buffer zone around it and stop construction on IIT Madras campus.
Campaign to stop construction on IIT Madras campus gets momentum
CHENNAI: A petition to save Guindy National Park (GNP) is gaining momentum online. With more than 900 signatures, the petition asks Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa to protect the national park by declaring a buffer zone around it and stop construction by IIT Madras.
“GNP is dying a slow death by a thousand cuts. Green spaces that provided critical corridors for wildlife to move in and out of the park are being eaten into.
National parks and wildlife sanctuaries require a buffer zone around them where human activities are strictly regulated and pressures on the ecosystem and wildlife are kept to a minimum. Without such buffers, parks have little chance for surviving in the long run. Such a buffer zone is legally mandated,” reads the petition on Change.org. The petition now has 856 signatures.
The state government wants the forest department to declare a ‘NIL’ buffer zone around GNP so that it does not impede on development activities on IIT campus.
“This will mean that even the last remaining green spaces and the wildlife habitats around the Guindy National Park, such as the Raj Bhavan and Indian Institute of Technology-Madras' campuses, will have no protection under law. Along with GNP, the Raj Bhavan and IIT-M campuses contain the last remaining healthy stands of the rare southern thorn forests and the tropical dry evergreen forest types,” read the petition.
The petition asks the Tamil Nadu government and Central Government to declare a scientific buffer zone around the GNP covering IIT Madras and Raj Bhavan campuses and Gandhi, Kamaraj and Rajaji memorials and prohibit further construction on IIT-Madras and Raj Bhavan campuses.
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