[i]Via e-mail: manmohan@sansad.nic.in Fax: 91-11-23019545 / 91-11-23016857[/i] Dear Dr. Manmohan Singh(Current PM of india): petition to Designate the Gulf of Mannar as a UNESCO World Heritage Mixed Natural and Cultural Site. The Gulf of Mannar World Heritage Site campaign welcomes the report of the expert committee headed by Dr. R.K. Pachauri as a substantial breakthrough in our continuing efforts to urge the Government of India to abandon the Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project (SSCP) and ensure that the Gulf of Mannar is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage mixed Natural and Cultural Site. The Pachauri report states that an alternative route for the controversial Sethusamudram project is not economically and ecologically feasible and confirms that the project is too risky and poses an ecological threat to the Gulf of Mannar Marine Biosphere. The report also reflects many of our oft-repeated warnings and contentions that a decision to continue with the SSCP means dredging and destroying one of the worlds few remaining ecological hotspots. Therefore, to create a shipping canal in that fragile region would be an environmental disaster and a crime against nature. We reiterate again that the SSCP is a threat to the sensitive Eco region and a huge risk, no matter what route you pursue. We demand that it should be immediately abandoned. The undersigned believe it would be massively ironic, contradictory, and scandalous, for the Government of India to ignore the Pachauri report that confirms the infeasibility of the SSCP. It further validates what we have asserted all along that the shipping lanes will cause oil spills and marine pollution in the area which will harm the rare corals and thousands of marine turtles and rare sea animals such as the dugongs. The region will be irrevocably blemished and mankind will lose forever this precious biodiversity hotspot. What is highly contradictory is that as a mark of its commitment to biodiversity conservation, India will be hosting the eleventh Conference of Parties (COP11) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October 2012 at Hyderabad, where top world leaders and experts will contemplate ways to save the earths biodiversity and environment. The slogan selected by your government is, Prakruti Rakshti Rakshxta Nature Protects if She is Protected. Nothing could be more diametrically opposed to sustaining the value of this slogan than the environmental assaults that the SSCP will unleash in the Gulf of Mannar. That is where the dredging will take place, rapidly devastating a region of rare beauty, vibrant soft-coral reefs, numerous endangered species, and traditional sustainable cultures and livelihoods. The Resolutions we made at our November 2008 meeting at the Linnean Society in London Resolutions delivered to your office - confirm the unanimous agreement among political, religious and scientific communities in India and abroad, that the SSCP is an ill-conceived venture with the potential to destroy permanently the unique and fragile marine ecology of the Gulf of Mannar (See attached: The London Resolution on the Gulf of Mannar as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Linnean Society of London, 25-26 November 2008). Detailed studies conducted by international organizations such as the IUCN recognize the Gulf of Mannar as an international priority site for many reasons its biophysical and ecological uniqueness; the fact it is home to many rare and endangered biodiversity; its economic, social and cultural value; its national and global significance.....(continued..)