THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The UDF government during Oommen Chandy’s tenure in 2011 had decided that the farmers and local people coming under the buffer zone of forests should not face any difficulties. Accordingly, the then chief wildlife warden had issued an order. When the LDF government came to power, it reviewed the file and came up with the recommendation that the wildlife sanctuaries and national parks should have a one-kilometre buffer zone around them.
At a time when the buffer zone issue has snowballed into a major controversy, especially since the SFI Wayanad members vandalised Wayanad Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s office, an old GO has surfaced showing the LDF government’s failure. In 2011, a committee was constituted by the UDF government with the chief wildlife warden as the convener, and an ecologist, block development officer and tahsildar as members to ascertain the eco-sensitive zone areas around the wildlife parks and national parks. This committee’s decision on a draft notification avoiding the human-inhabited areas from the ESZs was approved by the cabinet on May 8, 2013. This proposal was submitted before the Union forest and environment ministry on May 13, 2015.
The GO issued by Asha Thomas, additional chief secretary on October 31, 2019, states that the Centre had issued a draft notification in 2015. An expert committee meeting was held in New Delhi in 2016. The committee then asked for clarifications from the state. The Opposition has now alleged that due to the laxity of the LDF government, the details demanded by the Centre were not provided on time.
The GO itself states, “By 2018, the draft notification got cancelled and the Centre’s directive of maintaining a one-kilometre ESZ came into effect. Due to the 2018 flood and the subsequent environmental disasters, the LDF government wrote to the Centre stating that it had to prepare a new draft notification based on the guidelines prescribed by the Union forest and environment ministry and Supreme Court as well as the data released by the expert committees and National Centre for Earth Science Studies.”Opposition Leader V D Satheesan has said this GO should silence the detractors who are targeting the UDF for not doing anything to address the buffer zone issue.