Goa’s new airport: Death of an ecosystem, science and due process

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Editor's note: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday inaugurated Goa’s second international airport at Mopa village, in the northern part of the state. With it, a long-running saga that ran through most of my environmental journalism career comes to an end. Yet, there is no better example of how wilful ignorance, disrespect for scientific findings and weak regulation impact India’s natural world.  The issues raised by the project are important, especially so at a time when countries are negotiating a new global agreement on biodiversity. Nations are figuring out a so-called 30x30 goal: 30% of the earth under some form of natural protection by 2030. Will biodiverse lands in India be protected, and if so, would they really be protected? Mopa airport, now known as Manohar International Airport, is a case study. The airport stands on the remains of a laterite plateau ecosystem. Such plateaus are common to India’s west coast and are, as per experts, more biodiverse than an equivalent patch in a forest. (For more: read a report I wrote after visiting these magnificent lands during the monsoon). The rare …