The Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council has termed unacceptable, the August 10 order of the State government entrusting the Forest department with taking further action on the Supreme Court verdict on ‘buffer zones’ around protected areas.
The farmers in the affected areas will be denied justice. No one has been tasked with reporting the objections to the Central Empowered Committee. With just three weeks left to raise objections, no preparations seem to have been made. While the August 10 order states that inhabited areas will be excluded from the buffer zone, ‘inhabited area’ has not been clearly defined, the KCBC said in a press communique.
