On September 2, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, announced the decision to reserve 600 acres of Aarey land near Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) as a reserve-forest. This comes after a long struggle by the green activists that have been fighting for the cause for over a year.
In October 2019, despite protests from Adivasis, activist and students, 2,141 trees in the Aarey area were cut to construct the Metro Car shed for the line 3. Section 144 had to be imposed in the region and 29 people were taken into custody for obstructing the cutting of these trees. Later a lot of politicians including the current Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and current environment minister Aaditya Thackeray.
When the Shiv Sena came to power, the Aarey activist had even participated in the swearing-in ceremony and reminded them of their promise. Almost a year later 600 acres have been reserved as the forest but there has been no announcement been made on where the Metro car shed will be shifted.
Why is Aarey important?
The rainforests of Amazon are known as the ‘lungs of the world.’ Mumbai’s Aarey Milk Colony, with its 1,280 hectares of forest land, is called the ‘last lung of Mumbai.’ They are one of its kind urban forest area and is rich with flora and fauna that is unique to the area.
Post this announcement of announcing Aarey as the forest, Mumbai Live connected with Stalin Dayanand to know what this victory means. For those unaware, Stalin has been fighting this battle for almost five years now. In 2015, Stalin Dayanand led Vanashakti had filed an application to declare Aarey as a Forest and an Eco-Sensitive Zone (ESZ).
Speaking of the latest development of Aarey he called this a mini victory. The reason for this cautious approach as per Stalin is that the 600 acres that have been reserved as the forest is mostly the area that has a very limited human intervention. “The entire forest area is 1,280 hectares. We want to know the comprehensive plan that the government has chalked out for the area”.
When we quizzed Stanley regarding the allegations put up by some people that the construction work for Metro 3 is still on-going in the area and this is just a diversion tactic he said, “The entire construction work was put on a standstill over four months back. There was some work regarding waterlogging that was happening. Also, there was a ramp for which the work had started before the lockdown and it is almost complete so once that is done, the contractor will vacate that site”.
Stalin also shared that while they are celebrating this small victory but also looking forward to a more comprehensive plan on how they plan to develop Aarey into a conservation zone.
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