The Challenged Coast of India a Report
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The Challenged Coast of India A Report An initiative of NCPC Report prepared by PondyCAN In collaboration with BNHS & TISS Released on the occasion of COP 11- Convention on Biological Diversity Hyderabad – 8th to 19th Oct 2012 Ahana Lakshmi, Aurofilio Schiavina, Probir Banerjee, Ajit Reddy Sunaina Mandeen, Sudarshan Rodriguez and Deepak Apte Published by: BNHS, NCPC, PondyCAN and TISS A Discussion Document 1st Edition - November 2013 ISBN 978-81-927703-0-7 This document is produced under a creative commons license with PondyCAN, BNHS and TISS holding the trusteeship. It may be reproduced in whole or in part and in any form for educational or non-profit purposes with the citation as given below without permission from the publishers. Citation: Ahana Lakshmi, Aurofilio Schiavina, Probir Banerjee, Ajit Reddy, Sunaina Mandeen, Sudarshan Rodriguez and Deepak Apte “The Challenged Coast of India”, A report prepared by PondyCAN in collaboration with BNHS and TISS. October 2012. PondyCAN would appreciate receiving a copy of any publication that uses this publication as a source. All Google maps are ©2012 Google. Imagery ©2012 TerraMetrics All photos by Nicolas Chorier are under his copyright and many not be used in any form. All other photos are the property of the respective photographers, to be used only with their prior permission. Survey and Mapping teams: TISS: Sudarshan Rodriguez, Balamurugan Guru, Alpesh Gajbe, Adya Shankar, Aravind Sreedhara, Sanjay Bhangar, Nikhil Subramaniam PondyCAN: G. Rajaram, R. Alexandar, V. Vinoth, B. Swaminathan, Jatan Pathak This document will be published on the website www.thechallengedcoastofindia.in PondyCAN, 34 Francois Martin Street, Kuruchikuppam, Pondicherry 605012, India Phone: +91-413-4201972, Email: [email protected] Wesite: www.pondycan.org Design and layout: Prisma, Auroville, [email protected] Photo: JOHN MANDEEN A Native American Proverb Native A We borrow it from our children. We We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; We Dedicated to the Children of the World Table of Contents Foreword. .i Preface . .iii Acknowledgements. v Executive summary. vii An Appeal . xiii 1. Introduction: Setting the Scene ..........................................................1 1.1. Prologue. 1 1.2. The Coast. 1 1.3. Altered coastlines . 2 1.4. Valuing Coastal Ecosystems. 3 1.5. Drivers of Biodiversity Loss on the Coast. 4 1.6. Carrying Capacity. .6 2. Focus of the Report ...................................................................7 2.1. The Convention on Biological Diversity. 7 2.2. INFC, NCPC and the CBD. 8 2.3. Need for Digitization and Democratization of Spatial Information. 8 2.4. Objective and Methodology. 10 2.5. Disclaimer. 13 2.6. Beyond the Horizon: Post CBD COP 11, 2012 . .14 3. Coastal ecosystems and processes .....................................................15 3.1. The littoral zone. .15 3.2. Ecosystems of the littoral zone. 18 3.3. Physical ecosystem engineers. 23 4. Coastal Communities .................................................................25 4.1. Coastal Settlements. 25 4.2. Coastal Livelihoods . 25 4.3. Coastal Spaces . .28 4.4. Coastal Tourism. .30 5. Coastal structures and their impacts ....................................................33 5.1. Armouring the Coast. 33 5.2. Coastal structures . .33 5.3. Ecological impacts of coastal structures . 35 5.4. Specific threats to coastal biodiversity - turtle habitats. 37 5.5. Impacts of coastal structures on livelihoods. 38 5.6. Case Study : Coastal structures of Puducherry and neighbouring Tamil Nadu. .39 6. Coastal development and impacts ......................................................59 6.1. Large Projects in the Coastal zone . 59 6.2. Ports and Harbours . 60 6.3. Power Plants . .62 6.4. SEZ and other large projects . 63 6.5 Other activities in the littoral zone. 64 6.6 Case Study 1: Diversity of Coastal Marine Ecosystems of Maharashtra: Rocky Shores at Ratnagiri & Rajapur Districts, Maharashtra. .64 6.7 Case Study 2: Mundra. 70 6.8 Case Study 3: Puducherry Harbour . 77 7. Legislation for Coastal Protection .......................................................89 7.1. The CRZ. .89 7.2. The Moratorium on Ports . 90 7.3. Lifting of the Moratorium on Ports . .90 7.4. The EIA 2006 Notification. 91 7.5. The CRZ 2011 and the Fishing Community. 92 7.6. Legislation to protect biodiversity. 92 8. Overview of the state of development of the Indian coast ...................................95 8.1. Introduction. 95 8.2. Coastal Ecosystems. 97 8.3. Protected Areas. .98 8.4. Water Bodies. .98 8.5. Settlements . 99 8.6. Commercial Areas. 100 8.7. Shoreline change along the Indian coast. .101 8.8. Coastal structures . 103 8.9. Ports and harbours. 105 8.10. Power Plants . .110 8.11. Other large developments: SEZs, PCPIRs. .113 8.12: Summary and Observations. 114 9. State perspectives ...................................................................119 9.1. Gujarat. .119 9.2. Daman & Diu. 133 9.3. Maharashtra. .136 9.4. Goa. 147 9.5. Karnataka. .155 9.6. Kerala. 164 9.7. Tamil Nadu. 172 9.8. Puducherry. 182 9.9. Andhra Pradesh. 190 9.10. Odisha. 200 9.11. West Bengal. 211 10 Observations, findings & recommendations ............................................217 Glossary .............................................................................224 All Annexures (I, II & III) ................................................................226 Foreword To understand the ongoing destruction of the coast of India you only have to visit Puducherry. If you stand at the city’s edge, looking out over the vast ocean, you will find the city misses something crucial – a beach. But what is even more important is the reason why the city has lost its natural treasure. In 1986 a harbour was built, stretching out to the ocean, blocking the movement of sand along the shoreline and taking away the beach. So, now the city has no sandy beach. It has only man-placed rocks to hold back the sea from taking away its land. A people have lost their playground. But more importantly a city has lost its critical ecosystem, which would protect its land and recharge its groundwater. Also, fishermen have lost their livelihood. The fact is, Puducherry’s harbour is small by any standards. And yet, it has the capacity to irrevocably change and destroy the coastline and affect the living ocean. “Beaches are rivers of sand,” because each year waves transport huge quantities of sand from north to south and south to north. Beaches are living entities – winds and waves bring sand in one season and take it away in another. All interventions in this movement change the character of the coasts. Even groynes – built to protect the coast – stop the movement of sand; they destroy beaches, and without beaches to protect the land, during every monsoon the sea moves in and takes away more land. Erosion increases, and people lose homes. The answer then seems to be to build more seawalls and groynes – all adding up to more destruction. It is this that we must begin to understand as India develops, indeed over-develops, without thought or foresight, along its last frontier. We know today that development is imploding along the coasts of this country. The growth logic is apparent – for instance, thermal power projects are sprouting along the coasts because these plants will burn imported coal, and so building infrastructure on the coasts is cost effective. Furthermore, in many cases wetlands along the coast – marshy areas, tidal flats etc – are viewed as waste lands and are being handed over to industry. We forget that these ‘wetland’ areas have enormous value – for biodiversity; for flood mitigation and for local livelihood We continue with these destructive practices also because we know so little about what is happening along our coasts. We know next to nothing about the projects – the numbers or their impacts – on the coasts, its ecology and its people. As a former member of a high-powered government committee on coastal matters, I found to my horror that we do not even have a count of the number of ports in India. The Central Government i knows only about “major” ports and leaves the rest of the business – permission to locate and build other ports – to State governments. There is no distinction between a major port and a non-major or intermediate port. It is just a matter of how many one can fit into the coast as fast and profitably as possible. Nobody, therefore, knows how many ports are being built. Nobody cares about the cumulative impact on rivers of sand. It is time this is corrected. This is why this report is so critical. It maps the projects, and this mapping presents to us the true picture of the scale of intervention on the coasts. This report will provide the way ahead. It will build our understanding of the impacts of these projects on ecology and people. It will help assess impacts of projects as single projects and assess cumulative impacts. There is a pincer attack on our coasts. As a result, the Indian coast is doubly vulnerable today. On the one hand, it is facing unprecedented pressures because of industrial and urban development. On the other hand, it will see threats of climate-change-related devastations – from growing intensities of cyclonic storms to sea surges and eventual sea level rise. All this requires increased attention and vigilance for the protection of the coast and the.