CM in denial of Landscape Project but Chief Secretary headed for Sydney

The UNDP project called High Range Mountain Landscape Project seeks to enlarge the ‘protected areas’ of the high ranges, still unsettled by the Gadgil and Kasturirangan reports, by 11,650 hectares.

Already 37,000 hectares of the high ranges are protected areas, green swathes where development activities are a strict no. The additional 11,650 hectares, which the project wants converted into protected areas, are mostly made up of plantations, habitations and tourism architecture.

Intriguingly, the Chief Minister was kept in the dark about the Landscape Project. When Idukki MP Joice Geroge raised the issue during the MPs conference in June 27, the Chief Minister’s first reaction was to deny the existence of such a project.

When Joice produced relevant documents, a senior forest official admitted that the Chief Minister was provided the wrong information. When Joice argued that the high ranges would be subject to stricter land use regulations than even the ones proposed by Gadgil, Chandy said that the project would not be implemented. However, the MPs intervention and the Chief Minister’s response were not included in the minutes prepared by the Chief Secretary.

“When I got the minutes of the meeting I was shocked at the omission. I spoke to the Chief Minister and had also sent him a registered post asking for the correction. I am yet to get a reply,” Joice George said.

Devikulam MLA S Rajendran, who had attended the “stakeholders workshop of the Landscape Project” on March 2013, said he was fooled.

“I was not told that the meeting was about the project. Not a word about the project was discussed either,” he said. However, forest officials said the project was in a highly evolved stage to be withdrawn. The UNDP has already sanctioned '200 crore for the project and the implementation has long begun.