Eager farmers throng NGT, girivalam hearing postponed

CHENNAI: E Rajamani, K Sumathi, K Yogambal and V Rose were ready for 'battle' at the National Green Tribunal here on Monday morning. The farmers from Thiruvannamalai had come with 15 others in a bid to stop their patch of forest from being razed to widen the Girivalam path cutting across their villages.
The NGT hearing scheduled for Monday has now been postponed to Thursday."All our medical needs is met by the forest. We use naval (jamun) seeds to control blood sugar levels and thuthuvalai (purple fruited pea eggplant) to cure cough and cold in our children," said Rajamani. "If not for the forest, we will have to depend on costly medicines from stores."
Farmers, actors and teachers from Thiruvannamalai all gathered outside the court, ready to explain how the government's plan would hit their livelihood. The plan is to widen the 14km girivalam path to accommodate more pilgrims during full moon nights - when the crowd is at its peak.
Locals say 4km of the 14-km stretch is through ancient forests and should not be disturbed. "There are six lakes in this 4km. They act like reservoirs and store water draining down from the mountains and sustain the ecology. The government wants to build a road over it and this will destroy everything," said K Murugan, who acted in the film 'Cuckoo'.
Farmers say that when trees are cut an entire eco-system is lost. "These are naturally formed forests and each tree has its own intricate eco-system. There are both migratory and indigenous birds that depend on these trees. Government officials do not understand the importance of this eco-system and are blindly axing trees," said writer Kumar Ambayeran.
Last week, the Thiruvannamalai collector submitted a report to the southern bench of the NGT saying only 125 trees would be cut. Earlier, 847 trees were identified by the highways department, of which 347 were required to be cut. After an inspection, the number was reduced to 218. Finally, it was decided to cut only 125 non-valuable trees.