Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government will recommend to the Union Ministry of Environment & Forest to completely exclude human habitat areas from the eco-sensitive zones (ESZ) around wildlife sanctuaries.

The recommendations to amend the draft ESZ notification will be submitted to the Union Ministry within October 4. And the report on the Malabar wildlife sanctuary on October 5. These decisions were taken in a high-level meet chaired by state Forest Minister K Raju on Tuesday.

Chief wildlife warden Surendrakumar has shot off missives to all divisional forest officers (DFO), seeking them to submit the map and proposals for amendments to exclude human habitat areas.

After the CM approves, the recommendations would be submitted to the Centre.

As per the Union Ministry's directives, 0-10km area around the protected forest region should be notified as eco-sensitive areas.

However, the LDF government decided to slash this down to just 0-1km. New seven wildlife sanctuaries were also included in the list. The Kerala cabinet that met on October 23 last year approved this recommendation, which was then submitted to the Centre.

Kerala had submitted a list of 23 wildlife sanctuaries then. Of this, the Union Ministry had released a draft notification on Shendurney, Mangalavanam, Mathikettan, Malabar, Kottiyoor, Idukki and Aralam. The draft notifications on 16 wildlife sanctuaries would be released soon.