“Neither men nor women should go to Sabarimala. It is a tiger reserve. Leave it to tigers.” This was suggested by environmentalist A. Achuthan as a solution to two of the most discussed issues in Kerala post-flood. “The floods should have been a lesson. But we are wasting our time, energy, and resources over a trivial issue, when the State needs large-scale rebuilding,” he said.

Mr. Achuthan was addressing a convention on ‘Rebuilding of post-flood Kerala’ under the aegis of the Revolutionary Marxist Party of India (RMPI) in Kozhikode on Monday. “We are talking about rebuilding roads and houses, but rebuilding the environment is rarely discussed,” he observed.

“To rebuild the State, we need soil. But to get good soil, we need to rebuild the environment first. Expanding green cover and forest spread is the first step towards getting good soil. Planting forest is impractical, but we can conserve the remaining forest. Leave it as it is and slowly it will spread out. As the forest spreads out, we will have more rain, more water in rivers, and eventually more ground water deposit. Ground water deposit is the treasury. The land will be parched if we lose it,” Mr. Achuthan explained.

Recalling the survey in Sabarimala in which he participated, the environmentalist said: “We had then submitted a report to the government that any more development in Sabarimala would disrupt the alignment of the rocks that formed the mountain, which would lead to a landslip that would destroy the shrine. But nobody paid heed.”

Mr. Achuthan said all political parties were using ‘development’ as a piece of bone to lure the vote bank.

He concluded that any rebuilding without giving due importance to rebuilding the environment was baseless.

Political commentator Joseph C. Mathew, Western Ghats Protection Committee chairman T.V. Sajeev, and RMPI State secretary N. Venu spoke.