Saving Goa's Canopy

The government needs to work on incentives for people to hold on to private forests rather than sell them

- Reboni Saha

With the end of the monsoon came a delightful explosion of butterflies. “Someone must have forgotten to weed their garden,” observed a naturalist. Actually, the neighboring forest undergrowth was not set on fire last summer, allowing much of the wild ground cover to return and nourish biodiversity. This wild unruly growth protected in summer by tree canopies is what rejuvenates life and preserves the water table.

As people, we have imbibed the early colonial distaste for tropical wilderness, cementing driveways to be neat, sweeping every leaf away for burning instead of leaving it to decompose and cutting down local ‘jungle’ trees for beautification.

In the microcosm of Goa, official permissions continue to clear large swathes of land, architects continue to design buildings that obliterate natural features, and our politicians squander away green areas through myopic policies.

Ecotourism promotion and ad hoc change of land use under the Investment Promotion Board is but a few of these. So lazy is the policymaking that only those with private profit incentives get priority while real issues are left to languish.