Thrissur: A panel constituted to work on demarcating ecologically-sensitive zones around national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in the state on Monday visited the Silent Valley National Park in Palakkad and held deliberations with the public.

The panel members, comprising MLAs T N Prathapan, N Shamsudeen and state wildlife board officials, decided to recommend to the Union ministry of environment and forests to declare the entire 148-sq km buffer zone around the park as an ecologically-sensitive zone.

Bank’s pre-appraisal mission says worrying increases in cost estimates need serious review

The World Bank has expressed reservation on the ‘slow progress’ in completing acquisition of the remaining land needed for the second phase of the Kerala State Transport Project (KSTP) that aims at world-class development of 367 km of State highways. The pre-appraisal mission led by World Bank senior transport economist Simon D. Ellis, who was in the State recently to review the project, said the “progress on land acquisition which has not progressed since the last mission and the worrying increases in cost estimates need serious review.”

The commissioning of the natural gas pipeline of Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) will be subject to the approval of the Oil Industries Safety Directorate (OISD), according to officials of GAIL.

Speaking at a meeting convened by District Collector Rathan Kelkar here on Wednesday on the laying of natural gas pipeline, passing through different parts of the district, the GAIL officials said that there was no need for any safety concern as the pipeline would be commissioned only after getting the approval of the OISD. The meeting was held to discuss the progress of the pipe-laying work and steps to pay compensation and ensure safety.

The police here have beefed up measures to check unauthorised mining of sand in different parts of the district.

The police action followed reports of large-scale unauthorised mining of sand from rivers to defeat regulation of sand-mining activities under the Kerala Protection of River Banks and Regulation of Removal of Sand Act, 2001. The police here said that they had already intensified steps to nab those who violated the provisions in the Act.

In a bid to arrest the rapid depletion of mangroves, the state forest department has mooted a proposal to acquire mangroves in private land along the Kerala coast, perhaps for the first time in the

656 acres will be acquired under second phase

The Western Ghats Protection Committee (WGPC) seeks a detailed study of the tremors felt in certain parts of Kasaragod and Kannur districts on October 14. It feels that the tremors could be the fallout of uncontrolled and illegal granite and laterite mining in the region.

A meeting held here on Monday condemned the false propaganda that the Madhav Gadgil report on the Western Ghats had anti-farmer suggestions in it. The biodiversity of the Western Ghats sustains farming in Kerala and the State would not have simply existed if not for the ghats.

The area around forests has had several human-animal conflicts

Solar fences will henceforth secure human settlements and farmlands in the three forest divisions of Wayanad from wild animal raids that have lead to several man-animal conflicts in recent years. Solar fences will be installed along a length of 300 km in the forest divisions of Wayanad North and South and the wildlife division, says K.J. Varghese, Managing Director, Kerala Forest Development Corporation (KFDC).

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has said that the State government will supplement the compensation available to farmers, who had lost their crops in floods and landslips in Kozhikode and Kannur district early this month, under Central norms.

Thus they would get two to three times the compensation compared to what was available under Central norms, he said after a meeting of the Cabinet here on Tuesday.

Solar fences will henceforth secure human settlements and farmlands in the three forest divisions of Wayanad from wild animal raids that have lead to several man-animal conflicts in recent years.

Solar fences will be installed along a length of 300 km in the forest divisions of Wayanad North and South and the wildlife division, says K.J. Varghese, Managing Director, Kerala Forest Development Corporation (KFDC).