E.M. Manoj
KALPETTA
Environmental organisations have urged the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) and State Forest Department to reject the recommendations given by the South Wayanad and Kozhikode Divisional Forest officers for the construction of the proposed Anakkampoyil-Meppadi twin tunnel road, an alternative to the Thamarassery Ghat Road linking Kozhikode and Wayanad districts.
In a letter to the MOEFCC and State Forest Chief, the leaders of the Wayanad Prakruthi Samrakshna Samithi said the reports, uploaded in the Parivesh portal of the MoEFFCC, recommending the project was only to protect the vested interests of some political masters and the construction mafia. As the recommendations were against the basic concepts of the department to conserve forest and wildlife and as it would adversely affect the forest and wildlife in the region, it should be revoked, the organisation said.
The proposed tunnel will pass under the Camel Hump mountain complex, but the biodiversity in the region was yet to be studied well as many parts of the complex were not easily accessible. However, the complex has been playing a vital role in determining the microclimate of the hill district, rain and monsoon pattern in Kozhikode, Malappuram, and Wayanad districts.
BirdLife International had identified the region as an important bird and biodiversity area in the country and one of the priority sites for conservation.
When C.K. Vishnudas, an environmentalist who had compiled data for BirdLife International recently, had mentioned that the region was the habitat for 140 species of birds, 41 species of mammals, 100 species of butterflies, 20 amphibians and 29 species of reptiles. Ten of the 14 avian species in the region were threatened species and it was also a rare habitat of the Nilgiri marten in Wayanad. As many as 17 species of plants were also reported in the area recently. But the South Wayanad DFO mentioned only one third of the total species in the area, the Samiti alleged.
The Kozhikode DFO had failed to mention about the biodiversity in the forest area under his jurisdiction.
Though many rivers originated from the area, both the officials had failed to mention it in their reports. However, they had claimed the rights of the Forest department to the granite products to be mined from the tunnel during the construction.
