The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Campaign soon to mobilise support to save Pallikaranai marsh

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 26, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Campaign soon to mobilise support to save Pallikaranai marsh

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, APRIL 25. The `Save Pallikaranai Marshland Forum', set up to preserve the Pallikaranai wetland, plans a campaign to mobilise public opinion for protecting the bio-reserve.

The forum will organise roadshows, cultural events and film screenings to have the 593 hectares declared reserved forests under Section 26 of the Tamil Nadu Forest Act.

``The official efforts to declare the marshland protected area seem to have been put on the backburner. We intend taking the issue to the people as the onlaught on Pallikaranai is continuing unabated,'' said Jayshree Vencatesan, joint director, Care Earth, a non-governmental organisation.

The campaign material for the awareness drive will include a documentary film, Iyarkaiyin Maranam, (along with the English version, Nature's Death), which were formally released at a function to mark the Earth Day last week.

The films were jointly produced by the NGOs, Pasumai Thaayagam, Centre for Social Work and Research and Peace Trust.

According to Ms. Vencatesan, the ecology of the wetland was being stressed by dumping of garbage (around 2,000 metric tonnes generated by the city every day), reclamation of land for construction work and letting in of untreated sewage.

Care Earth, which has been spearheading the campaign to have Pallikaranai declared a reserved zone, has made recommendations for restoration of the Pallikaranai marsh.

The immediate curtailment of westward extension of dumping operations, cordoning off the dumping area through laying of a barrier and afforestation on this site area are among the proposals.

The NGO has called for cultivating only native trees in the area and setting up a drainage network.

The Kilkattalai-Thoraipakkam link road that has bisected the marsh has not provided sufficient culverts for free draining of water from the northern side into the Oggyiammadavu.

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