Protecting Coastal Occupations Through People-Friendly Policies

by NANDKUMAR KAMAT
Posted on 2009-03-01
INDIA'S coastal management policies are based on a random number which an ex-prime minister used in her letter sent to all the chief ministers of coastal states on November 27, 1981. Indira Gandhi directed them to ensure that the coastal zone up to 500 m from the High Tide Line (HTL) was kept free from all types of development activities. How and on whose advice the late PM arrived at the magic number of 500 m is still not known. Why 500 m and not 250, 750 or 1000 m? What was the science behind arriving at 500 m? Considering the non-uniform coastal geomorphology of India, which equation yielded this magic number? Where else in the world is this magic number popular?
The Ministry of Environment and Forests was armed with an Environmental Protection Act in 1986 and took another five years to define the coastal regulation zones (CRZs). It failed to ensure local multi-stakeholder consultations before the coastal zone management plans (CZMPs) for various states were finalised and notified. By end of September 1996, Goa got a CZMP. None of the coastal village panchayats were aware of these developments. No translations in Konkani and Marathi were made available. The magic number does not make any sense for the small coastal state of Goa where the coastline is actually the lifeline of more than hundred thousand traditional occupants. For more than three thousand years they have occupied economic and social niches well integrated in the cycle of nature.
The state government deliberately postponed decisions in demarcating the low tide line (LTL) and high tide lines along the coasts, the bays, tidal estuaries, backwaters and creeks. The state government was actually making us believe that the Portuguese who had ruled Goa and were considered as expert navigators, cartographers and hydrographers had somehow forgotten to demarcate LTL and HTL on their maps. The government also refused to look into the old survey maps for these pre-existing details.
Obviously admission of pre-existing LTL and HTL would not have benefited the government and those who were influencing its’ decision because it would have meant that coastal communities were wiser than the state. Whereas the scaled maps of office of the captain of ports even indicated the location and size of the coastal sand dunes – the government refused to pinpoint them accurately in CZMP.
Even today Goa does not have geo-indexed maps of existing sand dunes. A sand dune can be levelled overnight and the authorities then find it difficult to prove its’ documentary existence. Encouraged by the politicians of all hues and colours, post-1991, the bureaucrats and technocrats indulged into semantics of low water marks, high water marks and LTL, HTL. The deliberate creation of uncertainty was meant to benefit the unscrupulous tourism industry which went on a rampage between 1986-2006 and accounted for a massive, unregulated, haphazard construction boom between Anjuna to Sinquerim and Colva to Cavelossim. What were the impacts and consequences of this boom?
We need to pick up a copy of TERI’s ‘coastal tourism, environment and sustainable development’ (464 pages, 2003) based on European Commission sponsored project carried out between 1998-2002 to discover some relevant answers. But like many expensive academic studies this report and its’ findings did not translate into good public policies. A participant institution of the above study, the NIO which received Rs 40 lakhs in 2000 from the Goa government to survey and demarcate the LTL and HTL along the coast of Goa could not complete the work till 2007 despite being in possession of voluminous advance data. Even today the details of NIO’s LTL, HTL demarcation works are not in public domain.
The state government treats this data as a closely guarded secret. It has also created ambiguous definitions – bays are labelled as rivers. Micro-level demarcation data like the superimposition of LTL and HTL on cadastral survey maps of 1977 land survey series is still incomplete. For the technically illiterate traditional coastal communities CRZs and CZMPs are virtually meaningless. They are not responsible for the models of development imposed on them by the state. They are not responsible for the land use change and the sectoral labour shifts. The state did not come to their aid to protect their means of traditional livelihood and champion their human rights. The coastal communities of Goa nursed the coastline by planting thousands of coconut trees, which acted as wind breaks to protect the hinterland. These plantations created direct employment for toddy tappers. The area between LTL and HTL has been used for thousands of years by the coastal fisher-people as their service domain. They did not interfere with the coastal sand dunes, vegetation or drainage system. The task force chaired by Mr M S Swaminathan for Ecodevelopment of Goa (1982) had identified 57 traditional fishing villages and 20, 000 traditional fishermen. The four km stretch of Caranzalem beach sustains 150 families of fishermen who earn more than Rs 150-300 lakhs per year without any state subsidies, loans or investment. Such coastal communities are the real guardians of the coastal ecosystem. They have the first right on the coastal resources. The state government should have created an exclusive ‘traditional coastal occupations reserve’ for them instead of just forcing them to fit within the rigid framework of CRZ and CZMP. A village like Morjim in Pernem is an ideal example. Before mass tourism began impacting it, Morjim was known for dense coconut plantations, booming business of toddy tapping and well established fisheries. Traditional occupations like coconut based horticulture, toddy tapping, farming and fisheries need to be protected. There are ancient communities of fisherpeople like ‘Gabits’ and ‘Pagis’ mostly confined between Saleri to Galjibaga river basins in Canacona. Their entire life, livelihood and culture is intimately integrated with the coast and the marine resources. If they were forced to uproot from this ancient niche it would not only be a serious violation of their human rights but may lead to a major economic tragedy.
Both CRZ and CZMPs as enforced in Goa have proved meaningless because the natural guardians of the coastal public commons – the traditional coastal communities are not involved in any decision making. The state government cannot turn a blind eye to the human rights of the traditional coastal communities. CZMP would be successful only with multi-stakeholder participation. The government needs to drastically revise the CZMP for Goa strictly in consultation with coastal communities instead of photostatically applying the magic number of 500 m for the entire coastline. The sea level rise scenario would also need their support for the success of a systematic relocation and rehabilitation programme. Eco-friendly policies are useless unless stakeholders also view and embrace them as people friendly policies.