Call to conserve wetlands.
CPI leader and former Forest Minister Binoy Viswam has called for stern and effective steps to protect wetlands, especially at a time when Kerala, the land of rivers, too has started witnessing acute water scarcity.
He was inaugurating an environment seminar organised in connection with the district-level golden jubilee celebrations of the Kerala Legislative Assembly at the Catholicate College auditorium here on Wednesday.
The Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act was a landmark legislation passed by the Kerala Legislature in 2008.
The Forest Conservation Act of 1980 was the most effective Act aimed at environment conservation.
It was a golden chapter in the independent India’s history of legislations and the political will shown by the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, in enacting the law was praiseworthy, he said.
The former Minister said the United States’ decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change would be a big blow to the global efforts for environment conservation.
Struggle against airport Addressing the seminar, John Fernandez, MLA, recalled that Pathanamthitta could add a new chapter in environment conservation through the historic popular agitation against the controversial Aranmula airport project that would have required conversion of a vast expanse of wetlands and paddy fields.
He also stressed the grave need to check indiscriminate razing of hills and granite quarrying.
Veena George, MLA, was the moderator.