Environmental lessons from the tsunami
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COMMENTS 
Indian law prohibits encroachments within 200 metres of the high tide line and 500 metres in certain sensitive areas, for example where turtles are nesting. But the coastal regulations have been repeatedly diluted to promote commercial interests
Environment is a strange subject. It can mean totally different things to different people. The tsunami has definitely made people sit up and talk about global warming and its effects in different parts of the globe. People who normally scoff at environmental concerns are actually discussing the causes behind the disaster.
Snow in a Gulf country and melting icebergs don't upset people. But the sight of the tsunami on TV got to everyone. Raju, a young fisherman shivered as he recalled the nightmarish experience: "It was like a huge monster snake chasing us. A giant black wave. It looked like the mouth of a serpent coming swiftly to swallow us up. We ran as fast as we could but every step we took, it was five steps faster. When we looked back it was swallowing up all those who couldn't run fast. I still dream about it."
The night before the tsunami hit our coasts there were howling winds in the Nilgiris. Totally unexpected for Christmas week. It was also considerably warmer than is usual almost everywhere.
Several donor agencies and individuals have suggested that since the lives of the fishermen were precarious it might be better for them not to return to fishing. One man arrived offering to employ 100 fishermen in his factory in Bangalore . The suggestion made Father Thomas Kocherry of the National Fishworkers Forum absolutely furious. "Do the people who make these suggestions sitting in their fancy city offices know anything about fisherfolk or their lives? I am speaking for the 10 million traditional fishermen who go out in small boats and who practice sustainable fishing. Not the giant trawlers that ruin the fish and the environment. My people have carried out this livelihood for centuries. Where are they to go if not back to the sea?"
This is perhaps a good time for all environmental concerns to get a fresh hearing. It is known that the livelihoods of fisherfolk are precarious and getting even more difficult because trawlers create havoc dredging the ocean floor, destroying many species, ignoring traditional bans during the spawning season and using nets which catch all kinds and sizes of fish, causing a wasteful depletion of precious resources. Trawlers are unsustainable and wasteful, but their owners are a rich, powerful lobby. Will restrictions ever be enforced on trawling?
"There are vested interests trying to persuade the government to overturn the Coastal Zone Regulation Notification of 1991, issued under the EPA (Environmental Protection Act 1986), which states that 200 metres should be left free along beaches. These areas should be protected by mangroves etc, as nature intended. Instead, the industries and tourism ministries are trying to overturn the Act.
"The reason for the destruction of the coast is aquaculture, development and tourism. People should address that instead of making nonsensical, irresponsible, ill-informed statements about fishermen's livelihoods," Kocherry concluded.
His sentiments are echoed by environmentalists who protest that the Coastal Regulation Zone has been repeatedly revised and diluted. Claude Alvares of the Goa Foundation points out that "at the time the tsunami struck, a committee had just interviewed hoteliers, builders, contractors and real estate people for their views on the CRZ. This is ludicrous. It is asking for the views of a lobby diametrically opposed to environmental concerns. As it stands the builders and the tourism industry have encroached on coastal land, destroying protective mangroves and sand dunes". They violate all regulations and do so with impunity by bribing the officials who are paid to protect the environment.
The Supreme Court of India has noted and stated its displeasure at the fact that state governments do not enforce CRZ rules. Alvares concludes: "Nature has delivered a message at the door of Dr M S Swaminathan, chairman of the aforesaid committee. It struck Chennai, his home, and the message is stronger than anything all the NGOs and environmentalists of this country could tell him. He must disband the committee and enforce the CRZ as directed by the Supreme Court.
"The order throughout the country is that no encroachments are permissible within 200 metres of the high tide line and 500 metres in certain sensitive areas, for example where turtles are nesting. The tsunami gave us a warning. Everything within the 200-metre mark, including military installations in the Andamans, was struck. Mere humans don't need to comment."
Experts have suggested that the high tide line be reviewed and redefined, as in many places the coast has been washed away and beaches have disappeared altogether. A new map has to be drawn, as the old one is rendered obsolete and inaccurate.
V Vivekanandan of SIFFS (South Indian Federation of Fishermen's Societies) points out that "the tsunami has resurrected the entire environmentalist lobby's warning that unless the CRZ is strictly enforced calamities will continue to recur." Well-documented studies prove that in times of cyclones, mangroves take the brunt of the attack and protect the villages behind them. Mangrove forests in Tamil Nadu performed this function even this time. They were ravaged and uprooted but protected their people and villages. A casuarina grove behind the Nagapattinam Collectorate, in a village called Samathamanpettai, took the brunt of the attack, saving the village beyond it.
Aquaculture is another area that violates the CRZ. It threatens the livelihoods of traditional fisher people, creates ecological damage by introducing soil salinity, and frequently destroys mangrove forests to establish shrimp farms. The SIFFS and other fisherfolk organisations joined to fight violations of the CRZ by shrimp farmers. The Supreme Court ordered the demolition of all illegal farms in 1996 but, through a review petition, corrupt committees approved several thousands of environmentally destructive farms in direct contempt of the Supreme Court's orders.
To add to their misery, a report has been doing the rounds that the government will not allow all the fisherfolk back to the coast. Only those who can prove they lived there before the tsunami struck. When a community has lost everything, who would have documents of any kind? Even rich foreign tourists living in five-star beach hotels lost everything and have had to reapply for passports. "Indeed, where do you propose they go?" asked an angry Kocherry. "If the government had provided them decent housing, observing the CRZ in the first place, many lives would have been saved."
"The fisherfolk are traumatised," Kocherry concluded. "They have a complex relationship with the ocean. The sea is everything to them and they are angry and hurt that 'their sea-mother' let them down. Did this to them. They are in deep depression. They cannot bear to look at the sea. We plan to build thatched shelters near the beach to slowly wean them back, closer to the shore, and then encourage them to begin reconstruction of their villages and to go back to work, to fishing. This is the task ahead. It's daunting but not impossible."