India to prepare new rules to save its coastline

By Joydeep Gupta, New Delhi, July 5 : India is set to prepare new rules to save its 7,517 km coastline after deciding to let a controversial notification under attack from the fishing community to lapse.

The decision came after Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told a delegation of fishermen here Thursday that existing regulations that date from 1991 would not be changed without consulting them. The fishermen's objection was to the draft of the coastal management zone (CMZ) notification of 2008 which they alleged would displace their settlements along the beaches and halt fishing near the coast.

The draft CMZ would be allowed to lapse, said a senior official in the ministry of environment and forests. The process of making fresh rules to save India's coastline will then start anew. The draft CMZ notification will lapse July 22 unless the government acts on it. The government plans to let it lapse, said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The draft notification, largely based on a report by eminent agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan, had been attacked by small fishermen all along its winding coastline.

In its report of March 20 this year, the parliamentary standing committee on science and technology and environment and forests had also cast doubts over many of the provisions in the draft notification. The fishermen, who said their traditional livelihoods would have been jeopardised if the draft notification became law, have been up in arms for months against it.

On Thursday, members of the National Fishworkers Forum and Kerala Swatantra Matsya Thozhilali Federation (Kerala Independent Fishworkers Federation) confirmed that Ramesh had promised to let the notification lapse.

Ramesh told them that within two months his ministry would hold five sessions with fishermen to discuss improvements in the coastal regulation zone (CRZ) notification of 1991.

These sessions would be held at Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Mumbai and somewhere in Kerala and Goa, in collaboration with the National Fishworkers Forum.

Leo F. Saldanha of the Bangalore-based Environment Support Group, an NGO that helps the fishermen, said the minister had 'confirmed that the reform process would not interfere with the traditional and customary rights of fishing communities.

'In fact, precautionary measures would be taken to ensure the protection of traditional fishing people, their livelihoods and the coast'.

After their meeting, T. Peter of the Kerala Independent Fishworkers Federation wrote to Ramesh: 'The points you made on CMZ notification being lapsed, beginning wide-ranging consultations with the fishing community and recognising our customary rights are well appreciated. We look forward to working with you and your ministry to take these issues forward.'

In 1991 the government had banned a number of ecologically destructive activities along the coast. But it has been amended repeatedly, with some policymakers admitting it is now a mess.

Fishermen say the lack of protection of the coast is largely a result of weak implementation by the central and state governments of the 1991 notification and also its repeated dilution, Saldanha said. CRZ 1991 has been amended 25 times.

Saldanha alleged that the new draft notification had yielded 'to pressures from investor and industrial lobbies for quick and easy clearances for a variety of urban, infrastructure and coastline developments that adversely affected coastal environments and communities'.

According to the environment ministry official, the ecology of the Indian coast will be protected in three different ways:

* For Lakshadweep and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the government is going to notify a separate Island Protection Zone that combines CRZ-91 and the scientific principles of the CMZ-08 notification.

* The government will look at 'critical vulnerable areas' like the Sundarbans separately.

* For the rest, CRZ-91 will be used as framework and the government will see where changes have to be made.

(Joydeep Gupta can be contacted at joydeep.g@ians.in)