As a responsible citizen, I cannot remain insensitive to the audacious and unscrupulous encroachment of our environmentally sensitive areas. After having ?urbanized? our highly vulnerable coastal zones, the giant mechanical teeth of heavy machinery are grinding and chewing our mountain and hill slopes, which constitute an important ecosystem for Mauritius. The two pictures bear testimony to my apprehension.

In so doing, our island is slowly being depleted of its natural capital and of its natural resources. By all standards, this is a glaring example of unsustainable development and lack of good environmental governance from the Mauritian authorities. Such massacres of our fragile environment render the environmental objectives and strategies of the National Environment Policy ( NEP) for the Republic of Mauritius , considered as a highly sensitive and vulnerable small island state, as empty slogans.

In the NEP report, it is clearly stated that Mauritius needs an environmentally conscious society where each citizen has a responsibility and duty to protect the environment. What then are the duties of our authorities? Should they go on allocating building permits along our mountain slopes? In so doing, the protective natural vegetation, which constitutes an important binding force, is being removed thereby making these slopes highly unstable.

<B>Prem SADDUL