Conservationists, who have managed to get a stay on the laying of a black-topped road through the Krishna Wildlife Sanctuary (KWS), have moved the Hyderabad High Court Judicature for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana States to order the government to repair the damage that has been done to the environment.
Imran Siddiqui filed a public interest litigation (PIL) urging the court to issue an order to the government to undo the damage that had been done to the environment while laying a road through the wildlife sanctuary. The petition had to still come up for hearing, Mr. Siddiqui said.
The Andhra Pradesh government sanctioned funds and began work on the road through the KWS which is a habitat of the endangered ‘Fishing Cat’ without securing permission from the appropriate authorities. The High Court, while staying the road work, asked the government to get the proper permissions. As a follow up to the stay, Mr. Siddiqui filed another (PIL), urging that the court order the department concerned to undo damaged caused to the ecology by road works.
Fishing Cat Working Group member and Eastern Ghats Wildlife Society biologist K L N Murthy said work for laying a road through the sanctuary was also a violation of Coastal Regulation Zone rules.
‘Ecotone’
In ecological terms, the stretch of land through which the A.P. government was trying to lay a road was called an ‘ecotone.’ It was the point were land and water met known as a transition area. The flora and fauna in this inter-tidal zone were highly vulnerable. The lives of the Fishing Cats, an endangered species, were intertwined with inter-tidal flora and fauna, he said. The damage done by road works could only be fully estimated by a detailed environmental impact assessment (EIA) survey. “Some of the damage will be irreparable, but there is always scope to mitigate the damage,” Mr. Murthy said.
Mr. Murthy said that the Eastern Ghats Wildlife Society had launched an online petition to the Supreme Court explaining how Andhra Pradesh Government was laying a road in violation of the Indian Wildlife Projection Act, 1972 and CRZ Rules. “Every time some one signs the petition a mail goes to the Supreme Court and when the Andhra Pradesh Government approaches the apex court it already had an idea about the issue, Mr. Murthy said.
