Carrying capacity study for Goa coast in progress: Goa minister Aleixo Sequeira
The Goa government has also written to the Centre to seek a reduction in the number of ecologically sensitive villages
PANAJI: The Goa government is in the process of conducting a carrying capacity survey for the coastal belt with the help of the National Institute of Oceanography to understand the environmental impacts of the state’s tourism industry, state environment minister Aleixo Sequeira said on Tuesday.
Sequeira, who was speaking at the 50th anniversary function organised by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), was responding to concerns raised by former union minister Suresh Prabhu. “Goa is a paradise, but it should not become a paradise lost. It is the last bastion when it comes to preservation of the Western Ghats biodiversity, which is facing pressures from everywhere,” Prabhu said, adding that everyone wants to buy a house in Goa.
“I talk to my friends in Delhi and they tell me that they are living in Goa and only sometimes they visit Delhi. What Goa needs is a data-based project on the carrying capacity of Goa to understand how much it can take,” Prabhu said urging TERI to undertake such a study as a gift to Goa.
Sequeira said the state government was taking steps in this direction. “I’m happy to inform you that as far as carrying capacity is concerned, the government of Goa has initiated the process to hand over to NIO to conduct a study… This exercise is in progress right now,”
The minister, however, acknowledged that there were some pending ‘issues’ in the context of Western Ghats, which he said he is taking up with the Union Environment Ministry.
The Goa government has written to the Union environment ministry to seek a reduction in the number of ecologically sensitive villages provisionally earmarked for declaration as ecologically sensitive by the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel.
A 2016 report by the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) identified several “no-go areas” along the state’s coastline besides drawing up criteria to decide the number of shacks that can be permitted on a particular stretch of coastline.
NCSCM recommended that beaches which have ecologically sensitive features such as coral reefs, mangrove vegetation, sand dunes or turtle nesting sites should be declared as “no-go areas”. Those with the presence of fishing villages and creeks as well as beaches with high erosion would be declared as “no activity areas”.
Except for turtle nesting beaches, no other beaches have been identified for protection or reduced activity.
