MoEF halts controversial mangrove theme park in Kerala
|
COMMENTS 
The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests has halted all activity related to the construction of a mangrove theme park in Kerala’s Kannur district due to fears of environmental damage
The Centre has ordered the closure of a controversial Kerala mangroves theme park that professes to work for protecting nature. The park, in Kannur, was opened this April by Malayalam actor Suresh Gopi in the face of a campaign against the facility by a local NGO whose activists were beaten up allegedly by those behind the project on inauguration day.
Kannur has more than half the state’s 1,700 hectares of mangrove forests. The theme park was being constructed on tidal flats, mangroves and abandoned filtration ponds. Shops, observation points and floating restaurants were being planned within the park, and bridges, jetties, wooden planks and roads constructed for access. Diesel generator sets had also been installed within the project area.
The closure orders were issued on July 14, 2010, after a site visit by officials on the request of area MP K Sudhakaran. According to the environment ministry order directing the Pappinissery Eco-Tourism Society to ‘stop all activities related to the mangrove theme park’, the project area falls within the Coastal Regulation Zone-1 which is an ‘ecologically sensitive area’.
The chairman of the Kerala State Coastal Zone Management Authority was directed to visit the project site along with officials from the Kerala forest department and the Centre for Earth Science Studies to “assess the damage/destruction carried out in the area”.
The ministry has sought their report within 15 days. “For those behind the project, mangroves are just shoots and leaves. But for the rest of us, the endangered mangroves are the lifeline of the coast,” said Bhaskaran Velloor of the Kannur District Environment Committee that opposes the park.
Pappinissery Eco-Tourism Society head N Unnikannan and local panchayat chief K Narayanan insist the objective of the park is to promote nature-based tourism. But Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad, a science and literary council, found little merit in the society’s assertions, saying the park would not help the cause of the environment.
Source: The Telegraph, July 15, 2010
IANS, July 15, 2010