[Reader-list] Without Sight Of Sea

[T Peter]

Without Sight Of Sea

>From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 2, Dated Jan 19, 2008

Recent policy proposals have Kerala's fisherfolk alarmed at the threat to
their livelihood. Is the government callously carving out a tourist
attraction from tsunami relief funds?
KA SHAJI
Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam
THREE YEARS after the second largest earthquake yet recorded tore through
the Indian Ocean, relief funds for lakhs of tsunami survivors across
southern India have still to reach their intended destination. However,
the Kerala tourism and harbour departments are all set to divert a good
four crore from the Centrally-assisted Tsunami Rehabilitation Project to
constructing a 500m artificial reef at Kovalam. The project, under the
departments' joint aegis, has the approval of the Thiruvananthapuram-based
Centre for Earth Science Studies, and the contract for the reef has been
awarded to a New Zealandbased marine consultancy firm, ASR Amalgamates
Solutions and Research Ltd.
Apart from the promise that the reef will open up several aquatic
attractions at the world-renowned holiday destination, tourism department
officials justify their dipping into rehabilitation money with the claim
that the reef will help break waves, mitigating the potential impact of
another tsunami. The area encircled by the reef will also double up as a
breeding ground for fish, the officials say.
Fish workers, however, are unwilling to believe their claims. "This is
just another case of tsunami funds being diverted for the benefit of
tourism lobby," says T. Peter, president of the Kerala Swatantra Matsya
Thozhilali Federation. Far from benefiting the fishing community, the reef
will ultimately mean the wiping out of its livelihood, feel Kollam
district's fisherfolk. Community-based fishing in the area will be
curtailed and at least 500 people will lose their livelihood. As for the
breeding ground, it will end up reserved for "sport fishing" for tourists
and will be of little use to the local fish worker, says Peter.
Kollam's fish workers also want to see a careful, evidence-based risk
assessment of the potential economic and environmental implications of
artificial reefs. Even if the reef is able to break waves, its potential
impact on neighbouring villages such as Vizhingam and Panathura needs to
be assessed. Similar manmade barriers have been known to divert waves to
areas where they had never previously gone, with damaging effect. Steps
constructed into the sea at Shangumugham beach in Thiruvananthapuram
resulted in waves being so diverted that a nearby road was totally wiped
out.
"This is the latest among several attempts at every level to misuse
tsunami rehabilitation funds and turn them to the tourism industry
instead," says G. Anton Gomez, president of the National Union of
Fishermen. According to him, the misappropriation of funds points to the
influence the tourism and real estate mafias have gained over policy
decisions as a result of which, fishermen are being forced to relocate to
areas that have no access to the sea and little scope for fish processing.
Tsunami rehabilitation seems to be the tourism lobby's latest cash cow.
Fishermen in tsunami-affected regions across South India are being forced
to sign documents stating that they are relinquishing lands they own close
to the sea. If they don't comply, they are denied government-provided
relief material. The move is ostensibly aimed at shifting them out of
"danger zones" — once they are "safely" removed to the interiors, where
their traditional livelihood is rendered meaningless, the "danger zones"
are handed over to the real estate lobbies.
FISHERFOLK ALSO feel themselves to be under another, more wide-ranging
threat from the government in the shape of the Coastal Zone Management
(CZM) notification, soon expected to replace the existing Coastal
Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification of 1991. With the shift to the
"management" system, it is feared that entire fishing communities will be
forced out of the coastal areas to make way for unbridled construction in
the name of "development".
"What can there possibly be in common between high-flying industrialists
promoting Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and fishing communities eking out
a living along the country's coastline? Nothing," declares Gilbert
Rodrigo, a fish workers' leader from Tamil Nadu. "But it is inevitable
that they will be clubbed together when SEZs find a mention in the Coastal
Zone Management draft notification, whereas fisherfolk do not merit even
two words."
The proposed CZM notification is reportedly based on the findings of a
13-member expert committee chaired by Dr MS Swaminathan, a scientist of
international repute who is also known as the architect of the Green
Revolution. As far as the fishing community is concerned, what the draft
proposes is not very different from the effects of a ravaging cyclone.
According to Charles George, president of the Kerala Matsya Thozhilali
Aikyavedi, the notification will ultimately result in the massive
displacement of the coastal population. More than two crore traditional
fish-workers, living in 400 coastal blocks over the 10 coastal states,
will lose the right to their traditional livelihood. "The CRZ notification
of 1991 includes livelihood protection for traditional fisherpeople, with
fishing activities allowed within the 500m high tide line. Only they had
this right. But now, with the CZM notification, this right has been taken
away," says T. Peter.
Sensing danger, fishworkers across the country have launched a fight
against government moves that are putting their livelihoods at risk.
Strategies were thrashed out last week at a national meet of fisherfolk at
Uvari coastal village in Tamil Nadu's Nagapattinam district, one of the
worst affected in the December 2004 tsunami. Not only that, fishing
community representatives from eight coastal states and experts on coastal
management joined hands to formulate a draft of a Bill on protecting the
traditional rights of fishworkers over the seas and the coastlines. "We
need a comprehensive legislation along the lines of the one recently
enacted to protect the traditional rights of tribals over forests. No
fishworker can survive without his sea and his shore and a rights Bill for
fishworkers is inevitable. Where should we go to dry our nets and to
process fish if the coast is handed over to tourism lobbies and real
estate mafias?" asks Rodrigo, who convened the Uvari meeting.
The draft's other demands include: an assured supply of fuel at subsidised
rates to fisher folk, an end to joint ventures with foreign fishing
entities, a ban on foreign fishing vessels in Indian waters, the
establishment of a fisheries ministry at the Centre, the withdrawal of the
controversial Aquaculture Authority Bill, the implementation of the CRZ
notification of 1991 and an end to legislative attempts to dilute the CRZ
notification. Another key demand is for Scheduled Tribe status for
fishermen.
According to Harekrishna Debnath, chairperson of National Fishermen Forum
and general secretary of the World Forum of Fisher People, a "do or die"
agitation has begun.
"Like land reforms, India needs aquatic reforms to give fishworkers the
right to own and manage water bodies, from seas to reservoirs, apart from
owning and managing fishing implements, boats, nets and fish distribution.
In addition, there should be a proper fisheries management policy to
include the fishing community in efforts for the conservation of resources
and marine ecology and to tackle increasing corporatisation,'' says
Debnath.
He also warns that no notification can survive without acknowledging the
existence of the 10 million human beings along Indian shores whose only
lifeline is the sea.
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