MINING TRUCKS, NOT TIGERS!

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IRONICALLY, Forest Minister Vishwajit Rane, has filed an application in the Supreme Court, opposing the proposed tiger reserve in the Mhadei sanctuary. The Goa bench of the Bombay high court had directed the government of Goa to notify the tiger reserve within three months. The Goa government represented by the forest minister has gone in appeal against the judgment of the Goa bench of the high court.
The Ranes, father and son, have always opposed the creation of a tiger reserve in the Mhadei sanctuary. Indeed, Pratapsingh Raoji Rane had in fact strongly opposed the notification of Mhadei sanctuary as a wildlife sanctuary. The ostensible excuse was that this would affect the tribal population settled in and around the Mhadei sanctuary. The real reason has been pressure from the mining lobby. It is the same mining lobby which is trying to sabotage the proposal to create a tiger corridor in the Mhadei sanctuary which connects to the forests in neighboring Karnataka.

WESTERN GHATS
MHADEI sanctuary makes up part of the Western Ghats ecosystem. The hilly area is a very important biodiversity hotspot as recognized by Prof Gadgil in his study of the Western Ghats who summed it up as a vital ecological buffer. It was only thanks to the former chief conservator of forests, Richard d’Souza that Mhadei was notified as a wildlife sanctuary on June 12, 1999.
Fortunately, this followed a small window when politicians including the Rane parivar, were not in power. At this time Goa was for a short time under President’s rule with Lt General Jacob who was the hero of the liberation of Bangladesh. General Jacob who was a great nature lover, agreed with Richard D’Souza’s proposal to declare Mhadei as a wildlife sanctuary.
Mhadei is part of the river basin of the Mhadei river which is sort to be diverted by Karnataka. The Mhadei wildlife sanctuary is located in the satteri taluka of north Goa and covers about 208 sq km (when the Mhadei enters Goa it becomes the Mandovi river which drains the foothills and flows into the Arabian sea).
The objective of declaring Mhadei a wildlife sanctuary was to protect the upper reaches of the Mhadei river basin which are forested and very ecologically sensitive. It is home to a wide variety of fauna and flora and the forested areas are full of underground water aquifers draining the surrounding areas inhabited or habited.
Subsequently, in the current sanctuary, there were camera trap evidence and field surveys confirmed the presence of tigers in the Mhadei and adjoining sanctuaries, namely the Bhagwan Mahavir Netravali Sanctuary and Karnataka’s Kali Tiger Reserve. It was established that there exists a natural tiger corridor between Mhadei and Kali river valley basins. Conservationists have long argued that Mhadei forms a critical tiger corridor linking Goa to Karnataka and Maharashtra.

NTCA DECISION
IN 2007 the Wildlife Institute of India and the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) identified Mhadei river terrain as suitable for inclusion in the national network of tiger reserves. From 2011 onwards there have been repeated demands from local NGOs, conservationists and the Goa Forest Department to declare Mhadei as a tiger reserve.
The opposition to the tiger reserve as in the case of the Mhadei wildlife sanctuary itself has come from the mining lobby. Though there are no active mining leases at present within the notified sanctuary boundaries, there are dozens of iron ore and manganese mining leases around and adjoining Mhadei sanctuary. Indeed, the economy of Satteri taluka is dependent on the mining belts of Surla, Pissurlem and Velguen. Both the Rane parivar and current Chief Minister Pramod Sawant belong to the Satteri taluka. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and the Forest Minister Vishwajit Rane have vested interests in blocking the tiger reserve.
A tiger reserve would affect not only the resumption of mining in Satteri taluka but also impact the transportation of iron ore through the Mandovi and Zuari rivers to Mormugoa port located at Vasco de Gama. Indeed, many of the mining leases in Satteri taluka fall within the eco-sensitive forested areas synonymous with the tiger corridor areas.
The movement for creating a tiger reserve has acquired urgency because of the resumption of mining. It may be recalled that following a case filed by the Goa Foundation, all mining leases in Goa were scrapped in 2018. The Goa government with the help of the Modi government at the Centre has succeeded in getting clearance for the renewal of mining in the state, except that the mining leases are being auctioned at a national level. This has attracted major steel industry players from all over India and the world, who are outbidding the Goan lease holders.
In the first few round of auctions for new leases, it is the Jindals and the Mittal-owned group Vedanta which have won most of the leases auctioned with very high bidding. The Jindal Group has a massive steel plant at Hospet in Karnataka. Indeed, the bulk of the coal imported primarily by the Adani group through the MPT port is for the benefit of the steel and aluminum plants of the Jindals.
Recently, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant cleared a proposal by the railways to double track the South Central Railways line between Goa and Karnataka. The tranquility of the Mhadei sanctuary and the proposed tiger reserve would also be affected by dump mining. When the leases were operating at their peak before the ban on mining in 2018, a lot of the rejects were dumped within the sanctuary area.
The Goa government decided to permit the extraction of ore from the dumps by the local leaseholders. The dumps still contain small quantities of iron ore. It may be pointed out that demand for Goan low grade iron ore skyrocketed when China hosted the Olympics for the first time in 2006. China spent huge amounts to create state-of-the-art Olympics stadiums, including the impressive intricate Bird’s Nest Stadium made of steel and was used for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics. The cost of the iron ore required went up from an average of $20 per ton to $200 dollars per ton during this Chinese boom. Even the dumps were then exploited to meet the demand.

GOVT RESISTANCE
IN the Supreme Court earlier this week the advocate for Vishwajit Rane and the Goa government, Mukul Rastogi, claimed that if the tiger reserve is created, one-third of land mass would be lost. Rastogi also warned that tigers would be roaming around in the streets of Goa. This is of course absurd as there has been no man-animal conflict in Goa. There has been no evidence of tigers attacking humans in Satteri or along the proposed tiger corridor.
Vishwajit Rane is also claiming that the local local tribal population would be displaced if the areas concerned are declared as a tiger reserve. Norma Alvares, advocate for the Goa Foundation, pointed out that the Goa government was actually attempting to protect the mining lobby. The opposition to the tiger reserve coincides with the resumption of mining activities in Goa in general, and Satteri in particular.