Team Herald
PANJIM: Goenchea Raponkarancho Ekvott (GRE), along with 12 affiliated union leaders of National Fishworkers Forum (NFF), submitted objections on the draft CRZ 2018 to Union Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) Dr Harshvardhan.
The unions also presented concerns of the fishing community, regarding the anti-fishermen, people and anti-environment draft Coastal Regulation Zone 2018 being finalised by the Government of India.
“Fish workers of India are largely dependent on coast and rivers for their livelihood and Indian coastline and river line has vast diversity and ecology in the world. Therefore NFF and GRE demand that the Central government enact a comprehensive land and coastal rights protection law to secure the land, livelihood and coastal rights of the fishing community,” GRE general secretary and NFF vice-chairperson Olencio Simoes.
“At a time when the national elections are less than a year away, BJP will do well to remember that denouncing and turning away from fishermen’s issues will have serious electoral impacts in coastal areas. Sagarmala, which the current government is blindly pushing, will not only displace four crore fishermen and but will destroy 3,600 coastal villages and its habitat.”
GRE and NFF also asked the Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar to immediately write to MoEF to withdraw the CRZ draft notifications at the earliest.
as the fishermen of Goa and India will fight vociferously till the demand is met.
