The ‘Aravalli Virasat Jan Abhiyan’ (AVJA), a coalition of environmentalists and activists, on Thursday said it will launch an ‘Aravalli Sanrakshan Yatra’ from Gujarat on January 24 to save the mountain range.
The yatra is expected to traverse 700 km from Gujarat to Delhi in about 40 days.
On December 29, the Supreme Court kept in abeyance its November 20 judgment upholding a government expert panel’s definition that restricts the world’s oldest surviving mountain systems, the Aravalli, to hills with an elevation of 100 metres or above, and to hill clusters, slopes, and hillocks located within 500 metres of each other.
Neelam Ahluwalia, member of Aravalli Virasat Jan Abhiyaan, said that through the yatra, they will engage with rural communities dependent on India’s oldest mountain range for their sustenance and livelihoods in every district and showcase the destruction of North West India’s lifeline for clean air and water.
“The Aravallis have been bleeding for the last few decades as a result of deforestation, licensed and illegal mining, real estate development with hill after hill being razed to the ground and waste dumping poisoning our aquifers. Aravallis require strict protection, not senseless definitions to exclude the majority of the areas from legal protection and so-called ‘sustainable mining plans’,” Ms. Ahluwalia said.
