Centre for Responsible Tourism, Goa

Institute Piedade, Panjim, Goa

E-mail: [email protected] website: http://www.responsibletourism.com

Telephone: 0832-242821/9423888255/9326428375

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PRESS RELEASE

From BEAUTIFUL …….. To BARREN

GOLF COURSE and RESORT in TIRACOL

The Golf Course Project by M/s Leading Hotels Private Ltd. in Tiracol, Keri Village is opposed by the villagers of Tiracol and concerned citizens of Goa since it displaces the locals from their ancestral place, disrupts their sustainable livelihoods and destroys the rich biodiversity of the area.

The Project consists of a golf course and a resort with almost 200 villas in a highly eco-sensitive zone which is rich in bio-diversity wherein it will destroy the fields, the vegetation, the forest and the green zone. 

In the development of a golf course, many acres of land is cleared of natural vegetation and habitat, graded, and planted with what is often non-native grasses, trees, and shrubs. All that pretty green grass takes a lot of water, fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides to maintain. It is to be noted that considerable amounts of chemicals are used in the preparation of a golf course and in fertilizing the grass which causes contamination of ground water aquifers, surface water bodies, and the ocean. These are toxic, too, and thus make golf courses a threat to the environment and health. Native plants and animals get destroyed/driven out.

Moreover, the bulk of the foreign exchange earned from golf courses and golf tourism does not stay in the local economy.

The project is envisaged in a total area spreading to 342 acres of land displacing families from Tiracol. The people have for centuries worked and lived happily on the cashew plantations, which is their main source of livelihood. The rich Tiracol river resource of fish has substantiated the livelihood of the villagers. The project will destroy their cashew plantations and pollute the river thus directly affecting their sustainable traditional occupations.

M/s Leading Hotels expensive advertisements to transform a barren Tiracol into a beautiful village are extremely hollow even to a simple visitor to the area. Tiracol is not just uniquely perched but one of the most beautiful villages in Goa.

CRT expresses solidarity with the struggling villagers of Tiracol who are steadfastly fighting against the Golf Course Project of the Leading Hotels which will displace the villagers, end their sustainable livelihood and destroy the ecology and environment.

The Centre for Responsible Tourism (CRT) supports the Tiracol Rakhonn Manch in announcing a Public Meeting on 7^th June at 3.30pm near the Tiracol Fort to expose the lies and fraud connected with the project for public knowledge. 

Fr. Freddy Braganca                                                                          

Gen. Secretary                                                                                               

Daniel Pereira, a priest from the Archdiocese of Goa was brought up in Tiracol sharply criticizes the plans of Leading Hotels to creat a golf course and villas in Tiracol. He challenges their claim that their project will convert Tiracol into paradise from the barren land that it now is. He terms Leading Hotels Enterprises into a form of  “Narcism and unbridled capitalism”

He contests the arrogant claims of Leading hotels in their expensive two-page advertisements. He evens calls into question Leading Hotels attempt to whitewash their criminal intent in Tiracol by invoking plans for putting in CSR actions. Pereira thinks that the hotels CSR would amount to Corporate Social Repression – not responsibility.