GOA is getting a new airport. It is coming up at Mopa, a small plateau in the state's northern Pernem taluka. In the pipeline for some 15 years, the airport got a green clearance on 28 October 2015.

While the clearance was still being considered, a group of environmentalists did a month-long study, between December 2014 and January 2015, of the Rs 3,000-crore airport's proposed location.

This is what they found in the area where the government wants to build an airport serving an estimated 31 million passengers a year on a 80 lakh sqmts of land that serves 

• 44 freshwater springs
• 174 species of birds
• 37 mammals
• 41 reptiles
• 4 sacred groves.
• 40 lakh cashew trees besides several betel nut, jack fruit, mango and coconut trees.

It has since emerged, through several such independent studies, that the environmental clearance to the Mopa airport is a SCAM.

Goa government has began land acquisition for the greenfield airport at Mopa in North Goa.

The project threatens several endangered wildlife and plant species, as it does to a unique water recharge system that provides for thousands of people as well as countless ecosystems.

Green clearances are granted based on a study called the Environment impact assessment. Instead, the EIA for this airport mentions the presence of mice, cats and dogs where, it turns out, leopards and bisons roam. A TOTAL SCAM !

Mopa is probably the best example of how EIAs, and the entire environment clearance process, actively threatens ecological sustainability in this country.

In addition to threatening endangered plants and animals, building an airport at Mopa would likely cut off a major source of water to thousands of people. The monsoon rain is soaked by the porous laterite rocks on the plateau, and this water eventually finds its way into springs and as groundwater.

A study by the renowned groundwater expert Himanshu Kulkarni shows that the Mopa plateau is anything but barren land. It recharges over 2 billion litres of water every year. That works out to over 6 million litres per day, nearly as much as a medium-sized dam holds.

This water flows out of perennial springs and into streams. Besides fulfilling local water needs, it supports the rich wildlife and tree cover in the region as well as countless habitations by feeding rivers.

Even though the airport directly blocks several springs -- the runway will literally be built over at least three -- the clearances allow it to draw water from an irrigation canal, which is fed by the Tillari dam in Maharashtra.

And Tillari has been struggling to provide enough water to households and for irrigating fields in the region. The people displaced by the project have frequently been damaging the canal, demanding that they be properly compensated first.

Sadly enough, as the environmentalists found, the exceptional concentration of life on the small Mopa plateau is because ecosystems elsewhere have been destroyed.

Large Lands in Pernem and coastal Maharashtra have been bought by politicians and business houses for their vested interests displacing local villagers, killing wildlife, deforestation to build Hotels & Residential apartments, Cities, industries, power plants, resorts and roads to compete with some of the most rare flora and fauna in the world. 

Goa For Dabolim Only, is one such organisation fighting this crime and greed of Ministers with unanimous support from Goans, but it is facing major setbacks with the corrupt Government of Goa. 

Mopa Airport project is facing stiff opposition from the people of Goa and is embroiled in three court cases. Two of these cases have been filed with the National Green Tribunal in Pune, presenting the various unaddressed environmental concerns of the people and disputing the validity and the integrity of the EIA, based upon which this contentious project is sought to be imposed.

Mopa airport will be an environmental disaster, with many poor and oppressed people losing their lands and their livelihoods and above all, Wildlife and the ecosystem will be killed for an airport that is not required ! 

Fake need of Infrastructure for development of massive projects like MOPA airports are undertaken, statistics are distorted to present a rosy picture of development at the price of wildlife, nature, water system and forests.

Government doesnt care if thousands animlas are killed, birds are displaced and many more thousands trees are cut down to fill their greed. 

Pls join me and the people of Goa in this fight to save this Ecosystem and Wildlife which is under threat by the Government of Goa.

Please sign this petition to Minister of Environment Forest & Climate Change to save this Ecosystem.