Goa Foundation

Tomorrow, Saturday, 29th August, Aparna Rajagopal, will be in conversation with Sanjiv, Founder of Sensible Earth. Quite a treat to drop in on a conversation between a former lawyer turned organic farmer (located at all places, in Noida) and one of Goa's most dedicated practical environmental activists. Aparna is an extraordinarily strong and dedicated organic farmer. When I first met her, she had just begun, bringing in handicapped horses and donkeys to look after. She still is that way. Her farm is a warm zoo of all kinds of creatures large and small. But she learnt organic farming the best way: she began looking up everything organic on the internet. Perhaps India's first successful google farmer. She never looked back. I have visited her farm a couple of times thereafter, had a meal, taken notes on further advancements. But most important is the extraordinary peace that exudes in a place in which animals feels loved and fully secure, even if some of them are going to do nothing "productive" for the rest of their lives.

So come meet Aparna tomorrow. And get to know Sensible Earth as well. 4pm. Salvador do Mundo. Two very experienced and wise people sharing the time of their lives.

Goa Foundation’s persistent PIL action leads to restoration of hill at Arpora

The High Court of Bombay at Goa has brought to a close a four-year-long legal battle over the illegal cutting of a hill at Arpora, after the hill was finally restored to a stable condition.

The case, P.I.L. W.P. No. 20/2022 — Goa Foundation v. Village Panchayat of Arpora-Nagoa & Ors., began with a citizen complaint and ended with the restoration of the damaged hill. The matter is an important example of how citizen action, sustained over several years through the courts, can secure actual environmental relief even when the authorities initially fail to act.

The Goa Foundation first complained to the Village Panchayat on 31 March 2022, after observing hill-cutting and development activity behind the Park Regis Hotel at Arpora. Heavy machinery was being used to cut the hill. The Foundation pointed out that the land was shown in the Regional Plan as a No Development Slope, where such activity could not lawfully be undertaken.

The Panchayat did not stop the work. Instead, it told the Foundation that it could not act because the complaint had not identified the person responsible.

With the hill-cutting continuing, the Foundation approached the High Court on 12 April 2022. The very next day, the Court directed the Flying Squad to immediately stop the activity.

A subsequent inspection by the North Goa Planning and Development Authority (NGPDA) revealed the scale of the damage. The hill had been cut vertically by approximately 4–5 metres over a length of about 100 metres, and horizontally by around 30 metres. Excavation had also been carried out for a road approximately six metres wide, involving cuts of another 2–3 metres.

The authorities subsequently found that the hill-cutting had been carried out without the permission required under Section 17-A of the Goa Town and Country Planning Act, 1974.

The High Court also took the authorities to task for their failure to act on their own. In its order of 6 September 2022, the Court described the NGPDA’s explanation for its earlier inaction as a “highly lame and insensitive plea”, observing that authorities responsible for preventing illegal hill-cutting could not wait for complaints before acting. The Court also criticised the Village Panchayat for evading responsibility.

On 20 September 2022, the NGPDA held that the hill-cutting violated Section 17-A and directed restoration of the hill to its original condition. The following day, the Village Panchayat revoked the construction licence and similarly directed restoration.

On 4 October 2022, the High Court admitted the petition and made it clear that no fresh application for hill-cutting permission could be entertained until the site had been restored. Further construction was also restrained.

Four years of persistence to ensure genuine restoration

Obtaining an order for restoration, however, was only the beginning.

Over the next four years, the Goa Foundation continued to monitor the restoration through repeated site inspections, discussions with the Town Planning Department, technical experts and the private party.

In January 2024, the Court rejected an attempt to claim that the hill had already been restored, noting that the work had been undertaken without the involvement or technical input of the Town Planning Department. The private party then undertook to prepare a scientifically based restoration proposal.

The Foundation continued to insist that restoration had to be genuine and technically adequate, rather than merely cosmetic.

Ultimately, in October 2025, the Town Planning Department engaged the Goa Engineering College (GEC) to determine scientifically how the hill should be restored. GEC submitted its recommendations in January 2026. The private party subsequently carried out further restoration in accordance with those recommendations.

In its report dated 29 June 2026, GEC found that the slope had been restored to a stable condition and that the restoration works complied with its technical recommendations.

When the matter came before the High Court on 24 August 2026, the Court recorded that the primary relief sought by the petition — restoration of the hill — had been achieved and disposed of the petition.

The Goa Foundation says the case demonstrates the importance of citizen vigilance and sustained environmental litigation.

The hill was not restored because the authorities acted promptly when the illegal cutting began. It was restored because a citizen-led environmental organisation noticed the damage, complained, approached the Court when the complaint was ignored, and then remained involved for more than four years until the restoration was independently verified as adequate.

The Foundation hopes that the case will serve as a reminder that environmental laws cannot be effectively enforced if authorities wait for citizens to point out every violation. At the same time, it demonstrates that persistent citizen action can make a real difference: environmental litigation need not end with an order — it can result in the actual restoration of damaged natural resources.

Anthony de Souza
Executive Director
Goa Foundation

goafoundation.org

Pankaj Sekhsaria will deliver the Carl D'Silva memorial lecture coming week. Caculo Mall, Panjim. 30th August, commencing 4.30. Come hear a most earnest wildlife specialist of this country relate how we are planning to murder the Great Nicobar island for the benefit of crony capitalists.

Capt Dhond is doing more to enhance awareness of the terrible ecological consequences of allowing Mhadei waters to Malaprabha than us. The man is indefatigable. And always to be welcomed! 26th August is the date.

GOA ON A PLATEAU

This Sunday, MOG SUNDAYS will focus on how the plateaus (tablelands, sadas, pathars) of Goa are becoming the next area for colonization by unworthy elements. The session will celebrate the 3rd chapter of Fish Curry & Rice, Goa’s monumental publishing work on its natural environment and what the public is doing in the face of the colonization.

Environmentalist Claude Alvares (editor, Fish Curry & Rice), Prof. Malapati K Janarthanam (former head of the Botany department of Goa University and a legendary figure who conducted the pioneering studies on the plants growing on these plateaus), and Arun Ganesh (mapping wizard) will discuss the biodiversity, environmental challenges, and future of these fragile landscapes.

The session will also feature a screening of a great documentary film by Varad Giri exploring the uniqueness of the plateau ecosystem and the life it sustains. Be there. Check out if you can assist Goans to halt the reckless demolition of these magnificent wilderness areas.

🗓️ Date: Sunday, 9th August, 2026
🕚 Time: 11:30 AM
📍 Venue: Museum of Goa, Plot No. 79, Pilerne Industrial Estate, Bardez

Free Entry | RSVP compulsory
Please WhatsApp your name to +91 7722089666

Tomorrow's the day, Mumbaikars who love Goa!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dae8DT5K9m1/?igsh=MTJkcDNpZXEzdDRrNg==

What stories does Goa hold beyond its familiar image? Join us for Double Take: Goa, Remembered and Reimagined, a conversation with Vivek Menezes and Nishant Saldanha exploring the intersections of ecology, culture, memory, and visual storytelling. 📅 22 July 2026 📍 IFBE, Mumbai Register now via the link in our bio.🔗

"Fish Curry and Rice" to emerge in Mumbai. Mumbai's Goa lovers in for a treat! 22 July,6.30 pm. Be there!

Events this week of note:

Enough is Enough campaign! Assemble at Town Planning Office on Friday morning @10 am 17 July to meet the Chief Town Planner and demand an end to 39A notifications under the Town and Country Planning Act. Huge number of plots have their zoning changed from paddy lands, hill slopes, plateaus, mangroves and natural cover to settlement, at the requests of the real estate industry. This must stop, or we will all get very angry.

Everyone who has attended an EIE meeting and heard Justice Ferdino Rebello should make it a point to attend or send someone. You will be able to sign a collective memorandum on the spot.

Sunday, 11.30 am, Museum de Goa (MOG) special discussion on Goa's biodiversity in the context of Chapter 2 of Fish Curry and Rice. Main speakers include FCR author (Claude Alvares), Dr Pradip Sarmokadam (State biodiversity board chief) and Chef Sai Sabnis, on how not to starve even when there is no food available in the stores: look around you, there's an entire army of plants you simply ignored and which is ever willing and available for a meal.

During the monsoon, only one place really in Goa where you sample things that delight the mind and push the exquisite. That's why the Museum de Goa always runs full houses during the monsoon. This season, though the rain has fled, MOG continues with its intellectual barrage for those always greedy for more. This Sunday, we even get to work with Chef Sai Sabnis on why we should begin to look at the vegetation around us and check out what's good to eat from it, natural and wild. Big Boss of Goa Biodiversity Board (who started Govan, the branded indigenous foods unique to Goa's ecosystems) will also be available for a chat and things.

Turning Goa's Mining Wealth Into Public Wealth. 🔗 Read the full piece – link in bio.

Views are personal.

Author:

Aanchal Singh
Goa Institute of Management.