SERAULIM: The recently-constituted biodiversity management committee of the Seraulim village panchayat will focus on creating a people’s biodiversity register as stipulated under the Biodiversity Act 2002.
Speaking at a function held on Sunday to bring the committee into effect, Goa State Biodiversity Board member-secretary Pradip Sarmokadam urged the villagers and the committee to ensure that the act is implemented in toto so as to conserve the traditional knowledge and resources of the village.
“The first focus should be on conserving and documenting traditional resources of the village. This should be documented through a people’s biodiversity register. Then you have to ensure sustainable use of the natural resources which are getting contaminated – whether they be fish, flowers, fruits or vegetables. And finally, ensure that there is an ‘access and benefit’ sharing…,” Sarmokadam said.
The Seraulim biodiversity management committee has been reconstituted: sarpanch Domingo Fernandes is the chairman while Shirang Agrasani has been named as the secretary.
Maria Fernandes and Christina Rebello are the women members.
Sima Shanke represents the SC/ST communities on the panel, and Vincente Fernandes and Rosario Fernandes are the other members. Stating that there is a pressing need for creating an inventory, Sarmokadam expressed his happiness at the village taking up the initiative wholeheartedly.
In Goa there are more than 72 varieties of mangoes that are documented by the Indian Council of Agriculture Research; but there must be over 100 mango varieties. There are 29 varieties of fish that have been found to be alien and are killing the local varieties of fish. This has happened because there are no inventories of local varieties. The Biodiversity Act 2002 protects these natural resources, he explained.
Climate change, the desertification brought about by climate change and its effect on biodiversity forced the government to bring in the PBR.
Speaking on the occasion, Benaulim MLA Churchill Alemao acknowledged that natural resources are getting contaminated due to the changing lifestyle of people.
“…Locals have to come together to make sure that the natural resources are not contaminated… we must keep them for future generations,” he said.
The villagers attending the function said the landfiling resorted to make the way for the western bypass passing through their village will destroy the biodiversity and the paddy fields.
“Seraulim has always been a green village, and many people are returning to farming. But in the name of development we are destroying what our forefathers left for us. Take for example the western bypass. If land is filled for the project then we will lose our fields that we will otherwise cultivate to raise food crops. If the motorway is propped up by the stilts then we can save our fields and continue to grow crops,” said a villager Vincente Fernandes.
Empathising with the villagers, Alemao said that he met with officials of the Union road ministry over the people’s concerns.
“Last week I went to Delhi where I met Union minister Nitin Gadkari impressing upon him that if you want to spend Rs 300 crore for a distance of 3.5 kilometre spend it, but we want the bypass propped up by stilts… What is more important is to have the nearby Sal river cleaned up because even if we run the motorway on stilts, where will the river water go,” he asked.