PANAJI: The degradation of ecology due to infrastructure development without assessing the impact on the environment and ignoring ethical responsibilities needs to be reversed and ecosystem services reinstated to pristine status, speakers at a webinar on World Environment Day stated.
The virtual programme on ‘Restoration of ecosystem’ was organised, among others, by the department of environment and climate change.
Mahesh Patil, a member of Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) and Manoj Borkar, a reputed biologist spoke on ‘Ecorestoration approach – a case study of bauxite mine’ and ‘Eco-restoration and relictual species: Goa’s Tarantulas at crossroads?’ at the webinar.
Of the more than 900 species of tarantulas globally, India has about 53.
IUCN has assessed 14 of these large-bodied spiders for conservation and redlisted eight.
“Currently only four species have been documented from Goa’s Western Ghats and more await discovery,” Borkar said.
The ecologist highlighted pitfalls of aggressive infrastructure development.
“Out of four, two tarantulas — the Indian Violet and Lesser Goa Mustard — occur in a small isolated population in the precincts of the Sahyadris and are threatened by the fast pace of linear infrastructure,” he said.
Borkar said that Goans have an ethical obligation to preserve the state’s rich endowments of bio wealth for posterity and suggested creation of “rescue habitats” to conserve them.
He said that he and his collaborator from the department of climate change in IIT, Hyderabad, have done a study on using one of Goa’s tarantula species as a bio-indicator of heavy metal pollution.
Patil described the acceptable post-mining land uses, which includes commercial, residential, recreational, agricultural or public facility improvement as well local community needs.
“Schemes related to agriculture, forestry, fisheries and livestock, which are being implemented in Jharkhand, and local tourism infrastructure can provide livelihood opportunities to stakeholders,” Patil said.
In Goa, Sesa Goa, now Vedanta, is one of the few mines that has regreened its mine at Sakhali and started horticulture and pisciculture.
The state has more than 250 mining pits which lie unutilised.