India develops and uses more energy. Because the country needs to "feed" and alternative sources of energy. India currently has 13,000 megawatts of power windmills, but the population still does not look favorably at it ...
From Mumbai to go a hundred miles to the north. To the mountain villages can be reached Karpuda winding narrow roads full of holes. This little town lies on the mountain Sahjadri, on a plateau nearly a thousand feet high. The surrounding hills are covered with rain forests, and only a little further protected area starts Bimasankar, one of the last dwelling in which a large squirrel.
Most of the population belongs to the people Karpuda-Mahadeo Koli, a community that comes from the Indian natives. These people are the forest around them is seen as a source of survival, says village elder Madage Ganpati. "Our women every day in the forest collecting firewood. There are also herbs, wild fruits and honey that we use, and sell, "says Madage.
Ten minute walk across the field is enough to reach the protected area Bimašankar. There, on a slope, dense forest begins. But the trees are now in the clouds of dust of concrete mixers and heavy trucks. Improvised a metalled streets, and nobody thinks vegetation.
"On this wooded hillside to build windmills. Since the start of construction in the forest can not enter - the guardians of the company do not allow us access. Thousands of trees have been falsified by these works, "says Madage. He explains that women from Karpuda now have to work around trees, over five times longer.
Villagers no one asked anything
Karpud is one of three planned windmill park on the slopes Bimasankara. The company "Enerkon India" here raises enormous total of 142 wind turbines with total capacity of 113 megawatts. Authorities have made available to them even 194 hectares of protected forest areas. Work began last year and it's noisy - Punch with dynamite and bulldozers, the streets, dug the foundations for the massive wind towers. Village streets are extended to trucks could drive a large propeller and a generator.
The villagers of the works were not notified, and about compensation for the destroyed forests and farms was not a word. The residents of neighboring villages Kude protest and block the road. However, most of them illiterate, know little about their rights and can not cope with the patrons and building authorities.
A journalist Atul Kale, from the neighboring town of Keda, supports the people. "The local population is from the beginning was against the project. Forest authorities have promised them that not a single tree will fall. However, hundreds of thousands of felled trees. The villagers realized that the windmills will destroy life, and that the whole project will have no benefit. So are bitter, "the Kale.
Atul Kale company claims that "India Enerkon" stifling the resistance of the people by threats and bribery. He doubts that many local officials are corrupt. Only in this way is possible, says Kale, that the work continued uninterrupted even after he had procured in December injunction construction.
To big players small people and forests are completely irrelevant
India has long opted for renewable energy that saves the environment. However, the irony is that the very construction of windmill parks severely violates nature. Everything is subordinated to the profit of investors, in this case the Chinese giant, "China Light and Power," based in Hong Kong. An example teaches that the big players and small forest people quite irrelevant.
For journalists Atul Kale is not disputed technology, but the way it brings: "Of course I'm for clean energy production this kind of wind. But why has to be built right here in the dense rain forests? Why not build a country where the goal anyway? "
