When a State like Kerala, with plenty of rivers and rainfall for six months a year, is heading towards one of the worst droughts in the recent times, environmentalists across the country are concerned. One action plan to stave off droughts in the future, they advocate, is to implement the Kasturirangan recommendation and thus save the Western Ghats, which is the bed of all the rivers in the State.
“Kerala is unlike many of our other States. There is still something left to be preserved here,” Kumar Kalanand Mani, a noted environmental activist from Goa, pointed out. He said that the Western Ghats have depleted beyond repair in most parts of Maharashtra and Goa and some parts of Karnataka.
Mr. Mani was in Kozhikode as part of a State-level core team workshop organised by the Kerala Nadeejala Samrakshana Samiti on ‘Rethinking Western Ghats’.
“Kerala has a bigger role to play in making sure that the K. Kasturirangan report is implemented, how to take an initiative and conserve our natural resources,” Mr. Mani said adding that environmentalists in Kerala should persuade the government to implement it.
Mr. Mani feels that the presence of a large number of environmental organisations that are very dedicated towards the cause will help Kerala in this aspect. However, they are divided due to the differences in ideologies and hence, not effective, he said.
“Together, these groups have the power to sway the government. They need to respect the differences and not allow those differences to divide them. They should work together for the common goal of saving the Western Ghats,” Mr. Mani said adding that such united effort in Kerala would inspire groups in other States to do so. He called for a ‘dialogue yatra’ from one end of Kerala to the other to unite the groups. He asked the organisations to pool resources through public funding and make a move as fast as possible as the time was running out.
President of the Samiti T. Shobheendran criticised the attitude of the State government towards environmental issues. “As we change the shape of the land, the resources too deplete,” he said pointing out the need to create soil bunds all across the Western Ghats to rebuild the ecosystem.
Environmentalists A. Achuthan, Manalil Mohanan, T.V. Rajan, and Gandhian Thayat Balan spoke at the workshop.
