Call for NGT-monitored sustainable mountain development plan for the Nilgiris
The Nilgiri Documentation Centre is urging the National Green Tribunal to implement a sustainable development plan for the Nilgiris district. They are calling for a moratorium on major development projects to address ecological damage, over-tourism, and the mismanagement of land use.
Why it matters
It highlights the growing conflict between rapid commercial development and the preservation of fragile mountain ecosystems in India.
The Nilgiri Documentation Centre (NDC) has sought a National Green Tribunal (NGT)-monitored sustainable mountain development plan for the Nilgiris.
The NDC has called for the constitution of a “high-level, interdisciplinary panel” to implement short-term measures to arrest the damage currently being inflicted on the hills, and long-term efforts to “bring back” the district to a sustainable mountain development model, said honorary director of the NDC, Venugopal Dharmalingam, in a press release.
Till such a plan is drafted and a scientific assessment of the present state of the Nilgiris ecology is completed, the government should announce a moratorium on major development projects.
“The people of The Nilgiris have appealed to the NGT to save the unique but beleaguered hills and bring them under established principles of sustainable mountain development,” he said.
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