Mopa Greenfield Airport is a proposed international airport in North Goa. It will be spread over 2,200 acres of land, making it the largest land acquisition in independent Goa. The land is situated on a laterite plateau, consisting of forests, grazing lands, orchards and farms under seasonal cultivation, falling under the territory of six villages situated on the slopes of the plateau. Farmers and traditional cattle grazers, known as dhangars, will be among those affected.

The process of land acquisition began in 2008, but the airport project caught public attention in 2009, when civil society organisations, citizens and even sections of the Roman Catholic church protested with banners stating "Goans for Dabolim Only" and "Maka Naka Mopa" (I Don't Want Mopa). The government claims that a new airport is necessary as the Dabolim airport, which is a defence airport, cannot be expanded.

The affected farmers have alleged that the government has not outlined a rehabilitation plan for the oustees, offered poor compensation rates and forcibly acquired their land. In 2013, they decided to approach the Supreme Court to challenge the land acquisition by the government. The farmers, along with the non-profit Federation of Rainbow Warriors, challenged the environmental clearance (EC) granted to the airport before the Pune bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT). In November 2016, the NGT ordered a status quo on the relocation of the affected farmers until the case was decided upon.

To appease the farmers, the state government increased their compensation. But the farmers refused, saying that they wanted to continue with their traditional occupation and not part with the land at all. According to a [reply](https://englishnews.thegoan.net/story.php?id=26825#sthash, http://www.thegoan.net/story_preview.php?id=2933) in Rajya Sabha in December 2016, only 618 farmers were paid compensation out of the 7,869 persons eligible. The others refused to accept it.

Meanwhile, the Goa government awarded a 40-year construction and operations contract to the GMR Group for the project, which is estimated to cost around INR 3,000 crore.

In 2017, as GMR commenced construction work, people living in two neighbouring villages alleged that their homes were wrongly demolished. The residents claimed they had received no prior intimation or compensation for land acquisition and were given just two minutes to clear their belongings.

In March 2018, the state approved an additional compensation of three times the original rate to those displaced by the project. In August that year, the NGT upheld the EC granted to the project citing public interest but imposed additional conditions.

Environmental groups, however, continued to protest against the project and the displacement of dhangars. They pointed out that while the EC mentioned that the project site was barren, a government survey revealed that more than 55,000 trees at the site were going to be felled. They filed an appeal against the tree-cutting at the NGT.

When the NGT upheld the EC, the people appealed the case before the Supreme Court. In March 2019, the apex court struck down the NGT's order and suspended the EC. It ordered the government to re-assess the project. After the government completed the process, the apex court revived the EC in January 2020 and allowed the project to be completed. According to the government, the airport would become operational by 2022. After the Supreme Court's decision, there has been no reports of further opposition to the project.

On January 29, 2021, two lawyers who were supporting the anti-Mopa protesters were arrested by Pernem police after a government engineer, also the surveying officer, filed a police complaint against the locals for stopping him from discharging his duty during his visit to Dadachiwadi area in Dhargal panchayat. Both lawyers, Suryakant Chodankar and Jitendra Gaonkar, were released later in the evening.

The anti-Mopa protestors were primarily agitating against the additional land acquisition of 46.6693 hectares of land located in the villages of Dhargalim, Varconda, and Casarvarnem from local agricultural land-owners for the construction of the 'Mopa link road', which would connect the village of Dhargalim to the Mopa Airport.

The locals approached the Bombay High Court against the land acquisition for the Mopa Link Road in a batch of writ petitions filed in 2022. Soon thereafter, various other locals approached the National Green Tribunal challenging the construction of the Link Road on environmental grounds. However, stating that the construction of Link Road was ‘absolutely essential’, the Bombay High Court dismissed the challenges vide its order of 13 April 2022, which was the rationale which was echoed by the National Green Tribunal as they disposed of the NGT petition vide their order dated 27 September 2022.