The Forest Department has expressed its reservations about a revived proposal the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) had prepared earlier this year for setting up a 70-MW hydroelectric project a

The State government is planning to declare the 148 sq. km. buffer zone of Silent Valley National Park as the new Bhavani-Kadalundi Wildlife Sanctuary “for ensuring long-term protection of the entire bio-diversity of the area” that include the unique rain forests of Silent Valley.

The draft notification on constituting a new wildlife sanctuary in the State sent by the Forest Department underlined the ecological, faunal, floral, geomorphologic, natural and zoological significance of the area.

Environmental organisations have come out against the reported move to revive a proposal to set up a mineral water-bottling plant in the buffer zone of the Silent Valley National Park.

When the proposal was made two years ago, the State government and the district administration had objected to it, with the District Collector submitting a report that the plant, planned on the banks of the Karuvarathode, a tributary of the Bhavani, near Mukkali, would affect the water table and cause serious ecological imbalance.

The Electricity Minister Aryadan Muhammed has invited the ire from the environmental and social organizations for his statement for the advocating the Pathrakadavu hydel project in the buffer zone

We conducted a survey in Kerala from December 2009 to March 2010 to document Nilgiri Tahr Nilgiritragus hylocrius (Ogilby) populations in fourteen sites that ranged from Neyyar Wildlife Sanctuary in the southern Western Ghats to Silent Valley, north of the Palghat Gap. The total sightings of the Nilgiri Tahr over the course of the survey were 235 animals, of which yearlings and kids constituted 12%.

KG Kumar

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala Forests Minister Benoy Viswom has urged the Union Minister of Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh, to propose the Silent Valley National Park in the State for inclusion in the World Heritage list of the UNESCO.

THRISSUR: Forest Minister Benoy Viswom has said that development should be by protecting the environment. Environmentalists are not against development if it does not affect the environment.

Thrissur: The buffer zone around the ecologically-sensitive Silent Valley National Park will be extended by acquiring land around it, Kerala Forest Minister Benoy Viswom has said.

G. Prabhakaran

Twentyfive years after Kerala

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