Kerala Tourism Minister A.P. Anil Kumar has stated that his department would approve of only environment-friendly tourism projects that came out of the ‘Emerging Kerala’ initiative.

Reacting to queries here on Sunday over the demands raised by six members of the Assembly in a blog, the Minister said no tourism project that posed threats to the State’s bio-diversity would be taken up by his department.

Apart from the apprehensions and opposition raised by the Left Democratic Front and environmentalists over the Emerging Kerala event, the six MLAs, all of them from the ruling United Democratic Front and terming themselves advocates of green politics in the State, had posted on their blog on Sunday demanding that the government should ensure that no harm was done to the State’s biodiversity, environment and priceless natural wealth when new investments came in.

They had also wanted environmental impact assessments to be made a pre-requisite for every project among other demands.