RAIPUR: The Chhattisgarh government has decided to open the rare and ecologically sensitive ‘Green Cave’ in Kanger Valley National Park in the once Maoist-affected Bastar district to tourists, a move that has drawn strong objections from scientists and experts.
With Maoist activity in the region having significantly declined, the state is exploring ways to place more sites from Bastar on the national and international tourism map, viewing the Green Cave as a potential attraction.
“The cave’s inclusion would boost local employment opportunities and accelerate regional development. It will add a new dimension to tourism in the valley,” State Forest Minister Kedar Kashyap said.
The naturally formed Green Cave, located in the Kotumsar area, has evolved over thousands to millions of years through geological and hydrological processes.
Experts said it survives only under highly specific natural conditions, including brief daily exposure to sunlight, constant temperature, very high humidity and low nutrient availability.
Scientists cautioned that such cave ecosystems are among the most fragile in the world, functioning as closed and stable systems where even minor disturbances can cause irreversible damage. “Increased dust, noise, vibration and altered humidity due to tourist footfall can lead to both immediate and long-term impacts on the cave environment,” said Prof Mahesh G. Thakkar, Director of the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences, Lucknow.
“Opening the Green Cave to public access without comprehensive baseline scientific, ecological, and environmental impact assessment studies is extremely risky and scientifically unsound. Such actions can lead to irreversible damage. Once disturbed, these systems rarely, if ever, recover on human time scales”, the professor elaborated.
The cave ecosystems have taken centuries to recover, but in several instances, damages have been permanent.
"Physical contact with cave walls, even if unintentional, can destroy microbial mats and biofilms that took thousands of years to form. Artificial lighting can promote the growth of invasive algae (“lampen-flora”), fundamentally changing the cave’s ecology, the environmentalists shared with TNIE.
Ironically, there are reports of civil works already approved near cave openings to facilitate tourism, and this may result in irreversible degradation of the cave ecosystem, even before tourism formally begins.
If tourism is ever permitted, it should be highly regulated, minimal, and science-led, prioritising conservation over recreation, the experts exhorted.
Nitin Singhvi, an environmental enthusiast, has complained to the Additional Chief Secretary (Forest), warning that tourism would introduce excess carbon dioxide, heat, moisture, dust and vibration, altering the cave’sinternal chemistry and damaging its green microbial layers.