Keralam to argue for restricting ESA to 98 villages and 8,590.69 sq km

Keralam would reiterate its demand to restrict the Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) in its Western Ghats region to 98 villages spread over 8,590.69 sq km, as the last date for filing objections to the Centre’s notification of ESAs expires on Friday (September 25, 2026).

The objection, which demands special treatment and categorisation for the State, also pitches for restricting the ESA to forest and the leased forest plantations. The proposals are likely to come up for the consideration of the State Cabinet on Wednesday (September 23, 2026).

The controversies surrounding the ESA, which had been rocking the State ever since the Madhav Gadgil-led Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) report, have come back with renewed vigour as the Union Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change had reissued the draft ESA notification across the Western Ghats for the seventh time in a decade. The 60-day window for the public to file objections will end on September 25. Public protests and resentment are brewing in several ESA villages of the State as apprehension about possible restrictions on several activities are being raised.

However, conservationists, who term the protests as the handiwork of vested interests, vehemently argue against any dilution of the norms. They also demand that the conservation regime should be strengthened as the Ghats play a crucial role in supporting the lives and ecology of at least six States, including Keralam.

Miscalculation

The State would strive to convince the Union government that there was a miscalculation regarding the total extent of ESA in the State. The Union government had sought clarification on why the ESA was reduced to 8,590.69 sq km and 98 villages from the earlier 9,993.7 sq km and 131 villages as submitted earlier. The State would advocate for excluding human habitations from the purview of ESAs. The State would also highlight its increased forest cover as indicated in the annual survey reports of the Forest Survey of India, the sustainable tiger population thriving in its forests as revealed in the tiger census and a host of legal regimes for the conservation and protection of forest and ecology to underscore its arguments, sources privy to the developments said.

Keralam would also argue that the Cardamom Hill Reserve in Idukki shall be excluded from the purview of ESA and treated as a cultural landscape where human habitations have existed since the early 1930s. Several grama panchayats of Idukki, which have 23 of their villages falling under the ESA, have come out against the classification and passed resolutions. The district had been the epicentre of public protests from the days of the WGEEP report.

The State would also seek to exempt a host of activities from the classification of Red Category industries, which would be banned in the ESA. Pumped storage facilities, which are used for power generation, dairy units, incinerators and diesel generators of 5-kV capacity and above shall also be excluded from the Red Category as they are essential for the people of the ESA to continue with their lives, the State would demand.