The Ministry of Environment has been seeking a guarantee that the proposed second International Airport would be constructed in Nijgadh, Bara, after the Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Civil Aviation Ministry requested it to clear the way for cutting down the trees at the earliest.
Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation Rabindra Adhikari on Monday met Minister for Forest and Environment Shakti Bahadur Basnet to persuade the latter to approve the file that was forwarded one and a half months before. The Tourism Ministry had submitted an action plan on cutting down a total of 770,000 trees—15,000 big and 575,000 pole shaped—in an area of 2555 hectares in the first phase. Minister Adhikari requested Minister Basnet to table the action plan at Cabinet meet as soon as possible.
However, Forest Minister Basnet has been delaying the file citing need for further discussions on that. Minister Basnet has remained adamant on his position that the process to cut down the trees would begin only after the construction of airport becomes certain.
Minister Basnet is worried that the airport construction project might hit a snag after the trees were cut down. There is no objection for the proposed international airport construction in 8045.79-hectare area of Kohalbi Municipality-8 and Jitpur Simaraha Sub-Metropolitan-1. Minister Basnet is also not opposed to building the airport and he is also in favour of the project.
However, some environmental and conservation activists have been publicly expressing their worries that construction of airport by felling 24,05,821 trees would have a significant impact on the ecology and wildlife habitat as the area is migration corridor of elephants. Raising the issue of environment while undertaking any development project can’t be interpreted as anti-development.
It is rather an advocacy for sustainable development. Development in real sense is different from the understanding of 1960s when the construction of big infrastructures, industries and factories by destroying the nature was considered development.
Learning from the negative impacts of development works done in 1960s due to lack of attention to environmental and other aspects, long-term development concepts have been introduced and implemented all over the world.
Debates are being held in Nepal about the recent floods and landslides in Kerala, India. It is known to every that the floods and landslides are the result of turning a deaf ear to the suggestions given by environmentalists 30-40 years ago.
Environmental impacts are studied and debated before commencing any project all over the world and experts protest against it. But the key message of the protest is to pay attention to the environmental impacts while undertaking development projects. And also think about the ways to compensate the damage caused by the development.
We have been raising the issue about environmental impacts due to construction of Nijgadh airport through news reporting, article, and editorial. It definitely doesn’t mean that we are against development. In fact, we are true supporter of development in a real sense. It is our concern that the campaign to plant new trees should be initiated after starting the process to cut down trees. According to Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Report approved by the Ministry of Environment, a total of 61,270,525 new tree saplings should be planted to compensate for felling 2.4 million trees.
Therefore, criticizing anyone as anti-development elements for raising the issue of environment is nothing but our failure to grasp the relation between development and environment.
We are well aware that an agreement is made to plant news trees for compensation before initiating any new project. There is tendency of only spending the budget and not planting the trees.
The debate we are looking for is about planting trees without any delay. The second thing is to seriously consider changing the project location if that will lessen the environmental impact.
Thus, the position maintained by Forest Minister Basnet with Tourism Minister Adhikari is a welcome step. Firstly, there must be a guarantee of the construction of airport, or a guarantee of airport construction modality, preparation of detailed project report and investment.
There are some bad precedents where the construction work has not commenced decades after cutting down the trees. Instead of creating a chaos by felling the trees, it should move ahead with the progress of the project.
We have been witnessing some of the negative effects because of the construction of infrastructure without taking the environmental aspects into consideration. Hence, we call on the concerned sides to pay heed to environmental aspects. The advocacy for environmental conservation is aimed at averting the destruction that might happen in the guise of development. Thus, the argument is in favour of development in a true sense, and everyone should understand it in the right way.
