Pics: Spoorthi Ullal
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)
Mangaluru, Jan 26: Sahyadri Sanchaya staged 'Save Western Ghats' campaign in front of the office of Dakshina Kannada district deputy commissioner on Thursday January 25 in a unique manner.
Dinesh Holla, who planned this programme, was wearing black dress while the others wore masks and 'NOTA' badges to express anger against the government. The move of cutting down trees to build office of the deputy commissioner at Padil here, disregarding opposition of environmentalists was condemned. The harm done to the nature was replicated with the help of a fallen branch of a tree, and death of hatchings that have just come out of the eggs.
Addressing the gathering, Dinesh Holla said, "Due the destruction of trees in the Western Ghats we will definitely face drought in the coming days. Trees have been axed for the sake of constructing the DC's office. No one is bothered about preserving trees. No one wants to listen to the cries of trees. The Western Ghats is completely controlled by the drug mafia and minister Ramanath Rai has lost control over his department. When we urged him to deploy helicopters to control the forest fire recently, he made irresponsible statements."
Activist Suma said, "The district administration should have raised voice against axing of trees for DC's office, instead it has preferred to support it without showing any concern towards protecting the trees. They are only concerned about only concreting the roads in the city."
Activist Shasidhar Shetty said, "We had a lot of expections from Ramanath Rai as he is a minister from our district. We thought he would protect the environment which is being affected by industrialization. Instead, he is supporting the mafia and becoming the reason behind the destruction of nature. A sincere officer who stood against sand mafia has been transferred. The present DC is doing a tremendous job but he too may get transferred on the pretext of some irrelevant reason."
Former Karnataka Sahitya Parishat president, Harikrishna Punaroor, leaders of the organization like Harish Adyar, Dinesh Kodialbail, Shashidhar Shetty, Yatish Salian, Dr Annayya Kulal and others took part in the programme.