Reliance vs the olive ridley turtle
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COMMENTS 
Hundreds of thousands of olive ridley turtles visit the beaches of Orissa en masse to nest. Now, along with several other threats to their existence, comes the threat of offshore drilling by one of our country's leading industrial houses
The coast of Orissa in eastern India is known around the world as one of the most important nesting sites of the endangered olive ridley turtle. An estimated half a million turtles nest here annually, in the period between January and March, on the beaches of the three main nesting sites: Gahirmatha in the Bhitarkanika Wildlife Sanctuary (Kendrapada district), the mouth of the river Rushikulya (Ganjam district) and the mouth of the river Devi (Puri district).
It's a natural phenomenon that has few parallels, as tens of thousands of turtles throng these beaches to nest. It's a phenomenon that has probably being playing itself out on this coast for millennia.
The future, however, does not look too bright for the olive ridley, whose nesting grounds are facing a series of unprecedented threats. Over the last decade or so, an estimated 100,000 turtles have died on the Orissa coast, caught in the nets of trawlers and gill-netters that continue to illegally ply the waters during the nesting season. A proposal to construct the massive Dhamra port just north of Gahirmatha too has, for some years now, been hanging precariously over the future of the turtles. The project is to be financed by ICICI Bank; those interested in it include two of India 's most powerful industrial houses -- Larson & Toubro and the Tata Group.
Add to this the most recent threat by another of India 's large industrial houses, the Reliance Group. This one is about oil and natural gas.
It's tough to be an olive ridley turtle in the Bay of Bengal these days, considering the might of those pitted against it. That too at a time when the price of international crude has reached an all-time high.
As far as Reliance is concerned, specific points of contention and concern are two exploration blocks in the Bay of Bengal -- MD 10 and NEC 25 -- that have been awarded to it. MD 10 is only about 60 km east of the turtles' nesting site at Rushikulya; NEC 25 is about 75 km northeast of the Gahirmatha nesting beach at Nasi island.
When news of the awarding of these sites first became known, conservationists expressed serious concern about the impact on the turtles.
In December 2003, the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF), GOI, ordered the creation of a multi-disciplinary expert group (MEG) to look into the issue and make recommendations to the government on further course of action. The team comprised a number of experts who went into the matter in reasonable detail, in the period between December 2003 and March 2004, when the report was finally completed.
In many ways, the report's recommendations have come as a disappointment to the conservation community that was hoping it would be in favour of the olive ridley.
The committee recommended that MD 10 should be left alone, but that exploratory drilling could take place at NEC 25, between May and October. "The MD 10 exploratory and drilling zone area," the report says, "(is) located 58-64 km away from the coast, (and) there are strong recorded and confirmed evidences of diffused congregation and migration of olive ridley turtles here...The MEG considers both the areas (NEC 25 and MD 10) as their natural habitat and the MD 10 area to be of greater significance as the migration path of olive ridleys for certain parts of the year. With no research studies having been (done) in distant offshore areas, no information of such certain congregation and migration of olive ridleys is available at present."
This could mean that Reliance will get clearance for NEC 25 when the matter comes up before the MoEF in a few days from now, June 24 to be precise. While this is the MEG's broad recommendation, there is one opinion within it that stands out as a voice of dissent.
Biswajit Mohanty, member of the MEG and secretary, Wildlife Society of Orissa, has, in his independent views attached to the report, disagreed with the go-ahead for drilling at NEC 25. He points out that no material was produced to illuminate the issue of turtle movement at NEC 25. Other turtle scientists and experts on the MEG are also reported to have agreed with the fact that no studies have been conducted in this area on the presence or movement of turtles and whether they used the NEC 25 area for activities like feeding and mating.
Significantly, the decision to leave MD 10 alone was based on satellite tracking studies on the turtles that were undertaken in 2001. Four nesting turtles at the Devi river mouth were fitted with transmitters as part of a United Nations Development Programme-Government of India (UNDP-GOI) project carried out by the Dehra Dun-based Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and the Orissa forest department. The movements of these turtles were tracked for a few days. And the results provided conclusive evidence that turtles migrate through the area that is now exploratory block MD 10. "No such experiment," Mohanty points out, "was carried out at the Gahirmatha nesting beach or at the Rushikulya river mouth nesting beach which leaves a huge gap in our knowledge-
When fixing satellite transmitters onto four turtles, out of an estimated half a million, on one beach and during one nesting season, can reveal such crucial information, one can only imagine what secrets might be revealed if more such experiments were conducted. This is precisely Mohanty's argument, particularly when more than 100,000 nesting turtles were reported at the Nasi II beach in Gahirmatha, in March 2004. For these wandering minstrels of the world's oceans what's a distance of 70-odd km? It's a relatively well-known and accepted fact that the turtles travel huge distances to and from the beaches of Orissa, before and after nesting. Turtles tagged in Orissa have been recovered as far away as Sri Lanka !
While the beaches along Orissa's coast are clearly the olive ridley's main nesting sites, beaches further northeast, those along the coasts of West Bengal and Bangladesh, also play host to nesting turtles every year. It's likely, and most experts agree on this, that the turtles move to these regions either after nesting on the beaches of Orissa, or possibly bypassing them. There is no tag-based evidence here, but logic and knowledge presently available seem to indicate this.
If it is indeed the case, then it's likely that the turtles move through exactly the region denoted as NEC 25, as proof exists of turtle movement in MD 10. The basic question that needs to be then asked is: Would it not be a huge mistake if any activity was initiated when no studies at all have been undertaken in this area, and there is no information that conclusively proves the turtles don't move in the waters of block NEC 25?
Mohanty eloquently elaborates on the relevance and application of the well-established and accepted 'precautionary principle'. "Due to this wonderful natural event (mass nesting) occurring here every year," he notes, "Orissa is known all over the world for its sea turtles. These sea turtles are Orissa's living Taj Mahal, priceless beyond doubt, to be treasured and protected for generations to come...When there are no studies which can provide, with a reasonable level of confidence, information about the occurrence of olive ridleys in the NEC 25 block, it would be imprudent to allow offshore drilling in this area as it is perilously close to the borders of the Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary...Can we afford," he asks in conclusion, "(to) expose one of the world's unique natural phenomena to the threats posed by offshore oil drilling? Would we not be leaving a Damocles sword hanging over their future?"
(Pankaj Sekhsaria is a member of the environmental action group Kalpavriksh. He is also author of Troubled Islands -- Writings on the indigenous peoples and environment of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. He may be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )
InfoChange News & Features, June 2004