Shivamogga: Local residents and leaders in the Malnad region have voiced intense outrage over the Union govt’s repeated attempts to declare Western Ghats areas as ecologically sensitive areas (ESA) based on Kasturirangan Committee Report.Expressing severe anger in Sagar Wednesday, senior Congress leader and activist BR Jayanth said the Union govt has issued notifications since 2013 despite repeated opposition from the state govts of Karnataka and Kerala and the local population of Malnad. He said the recently issued draft notification was the seventh such draft notification.Condemning the report as completely anti-people, Jayanth said it was prepared solely through high-level official discussions without understanding ground realities or consulting rural populations across more than 560 named villages in the state. He said it was an entirely official-level, unilateral decision forced upon the region under the guise of ecological conservation.Jayanth said existing wildlife zone designations have already led to widespread havoc caused by wild elephants, wild boars, monkeys and gaur, leaving farmers distressed over destroyed crops and loss of human life, particularly in Kodagu and Chikkamagaluru districts. He said imposing harsher regulations would further affect farmers who already struggle to protect their yields from wildlife.He warned that implementing the report would break the backbone of the Malnad agricultural economy by enforcing strict bans on chemical fertilisers, pesticides, borewell drilling and agricultural machinery.Jayanth further said rural infrastructure development, including new roads, schools, hospital buildings and electrical connections, would come to a standstill. He claimed the measures would restrict the free movement of residents and livestock and reduce entire villages to the status of an “open jail”.Calling top-down enforcement without public consent undemocratic, Jayanth urged the govt to convene gram sabhas to discuss the matter directly with residents and grant local communities and gram sabhas the right to demarcate sensitive zone boundaries.He urged authorities to protect the interests of the Malnad rural population by formulating rules that foster development without framing unnecessary, harsh laws.Activist GT Sathyanarayana and others were present at the press meet.
