The Supreme Court on Thursday prohibited mining within a one-kilometre radius of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, observing that such activity is hazardous for the wildlife, Live Law reported.
Reiterating its April 2023 order that had imposed similar restrictions on mining in Goa, the court said the direction would apply nationwide.
A bench of Chief Justice BR Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran passed the judgement while hearing a petition about notifying Jharkhand’s Saranda forest area as a wildlife sanctuary and the Sasangdaburu as a conservation reserve, PTI reported.
The bench directed the Jharkhand government to notify the Saranda forest area as a wildlife sanctuary.
It added that the rights of the Adivasi and forest-dwelling communities in the region should be protected in accordance with the Forest Rights Act, PTI reported.
All schools, rail lines and dispensaries in the area would be protected, the bench was quoted as saying by Live Law.
With an area of 82,000 hectares, the Saranda forest was once a natural habitat for various Adivasi groups and several species of plants and animals, and is famed for its abundant green cover.
It stands atop one of the world’s largest single deposits of iron ore – over 2,000 million tonnes. The region was also an important elephant corridor till the early 1990s and it is famously said that even the sunlight found it difficult to penetrate inside the dense forest.
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