Former IAS officer and social activist E.A.S. Sarma has asked the district administration to take steps to stop destruction of mangrove plantations in the Visakhapatnam Port-HPCL-Airport region.
Writes to Collector
In a letter to Collector Pravin Kumar, he said destruction of mangroves was in violation of Coastal Regulation Zone notification issued by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.
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He reminded about his letter to the Chairman of the Visakhapatnam Port Trust (VPT) not to disturb the mangrove plantations that existed around the VPT-HPCL-Airport region in 2012 as any destruction of the plantations would constitute an offence under the CRZ notification.
“Unfortunately, as a result of non-compliance on the part of VPT with the statutory requirement and the indifference on the part of the regulatory authorities concerned at the district level, the process of denudation of the mangroves continued unhindered. I have enclosed the relevant Google Earth timeline pictures to show how the area covered under the mangroves had shrunk in size,” he said.
Mr. Sarma also referred to the CRZ notification which conferred the status of CRZ-I on mangroves surrounding estuaries and enclosed a Bombay High Court judgment directing the Maharashtra Government to treat the mangroves as a ‘reserve forest’ in terms of the apex court's judgment in the well-known Godavarman case.
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