New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday directed that each protected forest such as national parks and wildlife sanctuaries must have an Eco-Sensitive Zone of one kilometre and banned mining activities within such parks across the nation.
Issuing a slew of directions, a bench headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao said the role of the State cannot be confined to that of a facilitator or generator of economic activities for immediate upliftment of the fortunes of the state.
The State also has to act as a trustee for the benefit of the general public in relation to the natural resources so that sustainable development can be achieved in the long term. Such role of the State is more relevant today, than, possibly, at any point of time in history with the threat of climate catastrophe resulting from global warming looming large.., it said
The bench ordered that no permanent structure will be allowed within such ESZ and said if the local law or other rules provide for an ESZ of more than one kilometre then the earlier provision would continue to apply. Each protected forest, that is national park or wildlife sanctuary must have an ESZ of a minimum one kilometre measured from the demarcated boundary of such protected forest in which the activities proscribed and prescribed in the Guidelines of 9th February 2011 shall be strictly adhered to, it said.
Writing a 66-page order for the bench, Justice Bose, however, held that for Jamua Ramgarh wildlife sanctuary of Rajasthan, the ESZ shall be 500 metres so far as subsisting activities are concerned. The apex court order came on a batch of applications filed in a pending PIL of 1995 and they raised two sets of issues the first one was related to mining activities in and around Jamua Ramgarh, a wildlife sanctuary in Rajasthan.
The second set of issues was related to prescribing eco sensitive zones surrounding the wildlife sanctuaries and national parks.
While fixing the one kilometre range of ESZ to prohibit the mining activities near national parks, the bench was of the view that there cannot have uniform Guidelines in respect of each sanctuary or national park for maintaining ESZ.
In the event, however, the ESZ is already prescribed as per law that goes beyond one kilometre buffer zone, the wider margin as ESZ shall prevail. If such a wider buffer zone beyond one kilometre is proposed under any statutory instrument for a particular national park or wildlife sanctuary awaiting a final decision in that regard, then till such final decision is taken, the ESZ covering the area beyond one kilometre as proposed shall be maintained, it ordered.