Govt dismisses activists’ protest against felling 22k trees at Mopa

Panaji: Conservator of forests Anil Kumar, on Monday, dismissed the appeal filed by the Federation of Rainbow Warriors challenging the permission granted by the deputy conservator of forests North Goa Kuldeep Sharma for felling 21,703 trees for the construction of Mopa airport.
The appeal hearing went on for almost three hours.

The conservator of forests as well as the principal conservator of forests refused to entertain the concern of the activists that trees were being felled haphazardly without being marked and sans supervision by the department. Tree felling began last week, taking advantage of the long weekend, Sandeep Kambli from Mopa said.

“The matter sought to be raised by them in the appeal proceeding today has already been covered by them in front of principal bench National Green Tribunal (NGT). It is beyond my purview to take a call in this matter. Since NGT is already seized on all the matters in the case, I have dismissed the appeal,” Kumar said.

General secretary, Federation of Rainbow Warriors, Abhijeet Prabhudessai said the department, instead of agreeing to mark the trees, requested them to approach the NGT for relief. “The conservator of forests is the appellate authority under the act and the NGT has asked us to solve the matter at this level, but we are being sent back to the NGT. They are sending us to Delhi to protect our trees here (in Goa),” he said.

Swapnis Shelekhar said, “The NGT order says that we can approach the competent authority if trees are being illegally felled. The competent authority is the forest department. If the forest department cannot save the trees then which other department can?”

General secretary, Federation of Rainbow Warriors, Abhijeet Prabhudessai said the department, instead of agreeing to mark trees, requested them to approach the NGT for relief