15/09/2026
Protection rarely arrives as a headline.
It arrives as a line in a village list.
On 27 July 2026, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change published a fresh draft notification, S.O. 4106(E), proposing 56,826 sq km of the Western Ghats as an Ecologically Sensitive Area.
Jambrung appears in Annexure C at serial number 1032, listed as a whole village rather than a split one. It is one of 59 villages from Karjat taluka, and Raigad, with 437 villages on the list, has more than any other district in Maharashtra.
What would this mean on the ground? Mining, quarrying and sand mining would be banned, with existing operations closed within five years or when their lease ends. There would be no new thermal power plants and no new "Red" category industries. New buildings of 20,000 sq m or more, and townships of 50 hectares or more, would not be allowed. Projects would need Gram Sabha consent, and any diversion of forest land would have to be made public.
What does not change matters just as much. No one would be displaced. Farming and plantations continue. Homes can be repaired and renovated, and land ownership stays as it is. The State Government would enforce the rules and publish an annual report on the health of the Ghats.
Here is where we stand.
We welcome Jambrung's inclusion. The guests who walk with us from Mumbai and Pune come for the forested slopes and monsoon streams, not for concrete. Protection is not the enemy of livelihoods here. Degradation is.
But the draft leaves gaps that matter in Karjat. The pressure here is rarely one 20,000 sq m project. It is plot after plot of farmhouses and second homes, each too small to be noticed, together large enough to change how water runs down a hillside. The river flow conditions apply to hydropower, not to dams built for water supply. And the draft says nothing about small, locally run stays, the kind of livelihood that gives a village a reason to keep its forest standing.
This is still a draft, not law. Versions have come and gone since 2014, and village names and survey numbers may yet change. If you live, farm or work in the Western Ghats, look for your village in Annexure C and send your comments to [email protected].
The 60-day window from 27 July closes around 25 September.
If a village is worth protecting on paper, who will speak for it before the paper is final?
