Yet in another historic attempt to conserve India’s second largest brackish water lake, the Central government has notified an area of two kilometres from north to south all along the western boundary of the Pulicat Bird Sanctuary within the Pulicat Lake in Andhra Pradesh as an Eco-Sensitive Zone (ESZ).
The Central government has notified the ESZ through a gazette (No. 1365) published on June 26, considering responses from all the stakeholders who responded positively to a draft notification, issued by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) in January 2014.
“It is necessary to protect the ESZ from ecological point of view, prohibiting any industrial activities including salt cultivation within the notified two-kilometre area. However, the State government (Andhra Pradesh) should prepare the ESZ management plan by June 2017,” the gazette reads.
Initially, the catchment areas of all springs must be identified and plans for its conservation should also be incorporated in the plan. The Tourism Department was asked to prepare a tourism map in consultation with the forest authorities.
Coastal aquaculture practices, fishing by trawlers in untraditional manner were among a few activities to be banned within the ESZ, in which rainwater harvesting would be allowed.
As many as 23 villages including Duggarajapatnam in Nellore district are falling in the ESZ. “Pulicat is a wetland of international importance and can be declared as the Ramsar Conservation Site. The proposed port at Duggarajapatnam is likely to impede the flow of water into the lake, affecting the salinity and jeopardizes the survival rate of migratory birds,” Delhi-based ornithologist Amarjeet Singh Bishnoi told The Hindu .
Coastal aquaculture practices, fishing by trawlers in untraditional manner are among a few activities to be banned within the ESZ, in which rainwater harvesting will be allowed
