Experts warn of ‘Greenfield’ mislabeling as mining restart looms over Goa

Goa Khabar : The new mining lease tracts in Bicholim auctioned in 2022 have been erroneously classified as “greenfield” (new projects), according to environmentalists Claude Alvares and Rahul Basu, both associated with the Goa Foundation and the Goenchi Mati Movement. This classification, they said, ignored prior environmental degradation from mining activities that began during the colonial era.

At a time when mining is scheduled to restart under a new framework, as affirmed repeatedly by various government spokespersons, Alvares and Basu highlighted both the positive and negative aspects of mining during their talk at a recent MOG Sunday session held at the Pilerne-based Museum of Goa, titled ‘Mining: The New Regime.’

A greenfield project involves building from the ground up on a new, undeveloped site, while a brownfield project reuses or redevelops existing infrastructure. “If it is a brownfield project, the previous leaseholder has to present the historical record of environmental data and submit it to the pollution control board, which is then used for the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA),” explained Alvares.

Although the land was previously used for mining by earlier leaseholders, its previous history was declared irrelevant when granting a new lease, they said. As per the law of the land, all leaseholders are required to restore the land to the condition in which they received it. According to Basu, if today’s degraded reality is treated as the greenfield baseline, then 50 years from now, restoration would return the land to the degraded condition of 2022, in which half the hill, its water body and its crops are gone.

Furthermore, Alvares said that by advocating the use of grass in deforested areas instead of plants and trees, the Goa Foundation was able to promote ecological regeneration more quickly and cheaply. “We collaborated with the forest department and they adopted this method and are very happy with it because it’s almost free compared to all other means of replanting,” said Alvares.

According to Alvares, while previous leaseholders traditionally retained most of the mineral value, the new auction-based system is projected to deposit more than Rs 87,000 crore in a state government corpus. Basu also pointed out that funds earmarked under the DMF (District Mineral Foundation) for mining-affected regions and people were instead diverted during the COVID-19 pandemic, urging judicious use of the fund for those people and areas impacted by mining activity.

The duo also raised concerns that the National Green Tribunal (NGT) is at risk due to the lack of expert committee appointments, potentially stalling legal recourse. “The majority of the members of the National Green Tribunal are judges, lacking experts from the field,” he said.

On a positive note, the recent mining reforms have led to the creation of one-kilometre buffer zones around wildlife sanctuaries where mining is now prohibited, they said. In addition, 154 leases in Western Ghats eco-sensitive areas have been protected from mining, and a 20 million tonne cap has been imposed on the total annual ore removal in Goa, the experts also said.