WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2024
Goa is endowed with 105 km coastline and nine rivers. Goa desperately needs a Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) to demarcate the high tide line, low tide line, sand dunes, fishing areas, fish/shell fish breeding areas, turtle breeding sites, mangroves, salt pans, salt marshes, water bodies, existing settlements and structures and so much more and then plan for the future. With six of our rivers taken over by the Centre under the National Waterways Act, 2016 and with the Major Port Authority Bill 2020 extending port limits to large areas of Goa, the future of people’s control over their natural resources and living in harmony with nature, does look bleak.
We do have a Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification issued on January 6, 2011, which lays down guidelines for the States to prepare such CZMPs. This is the first time the CZMP is being done.
The objective of a CZMP is clearly stated inter alia to ensure livelihood security to fisher-people; to conserve and protect the coastal/river stretches; promote development in a sustainable manner and plan taking into consideration natural hazards and rising sea levels etc. Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) was to get this done within two years. So latest the plans were to be ready by 2013. However, the Goa government slumbered and awoke only when in 2018, one Mehdad & another filed a petition before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) praying that this exercise be completed. The job was entrusted to the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) based in Chennai. Yet, the government could not get its act together. Time after time they sought adjournments and NGT extended its deadlines while recording the “continued failure” on the part of State of Goa. NGT in its order dated 27/11/2020 while observing Goa’s “huge unexplained delay” in finalising the CZMP granted time till January 31, 2021 as a last resort, subject to the condition that the concerned Secretary of the State of Goa will not be able to draw his salary from 1/2/2021 if there is any default, till compliance”. This stoppage of salary made the mare go.
Sometime in 2019, the draft CZMP was submitted by NCSCM, however, it was so shoddy and inaccurate that public uproar forced the government to withdraw the same and NCSCM was to prepare new plans. Thus NCSCM hurriedly cobbled together data and finished the plan and sent it to GCZMA on January 30 this year. Now this plan has to be approved by stakeholders through a public hearing as mandated by law. So a public hearing was immediately announced to be held on March 7, 2021 for taking objections to the CZMP as submitted. The mandatory 60 days time to peruse the plans was not even granted. The concerned stakeholders and NGOs did approach the High Court to stay the public hearing. The government got a shot in the arm when the High Court refused to stay the public hearing and directed the petitioners to approach NGT for relief. In foisting a public hearing hurriedly on the people of Goa to cover up their gross failures and delay, the government has failed to gauge the angst and deep anguish of the people, as village after village is waking up to the bitter reality that the CZMP does not reflect the ground reality of their village. The public notice published in the local dailies on January 31, 2021 itself is flawed. The villages of St Jacinto Island, (Mormugao), Tivrem (Ponda), Maulingem (Sanguem), Cavlim, Corjuem, Panolem, (Bardez), Morombi o Pequeno, Morombi o Grande (Tiswadi), etc, are not mentioned in the list of villages. The plan for Colva for example has problems galore – sand dunes, water bodies, fish net mending areas, beach houses not shown. Over 100 people from St Jacinto Island held a press conference when they realised that their houses, chapel and heritage structures did not figure on the plan. In village after village the same gaffes are surfacing. This can only happen if the NCSCM, appointed by the government, based in Chennai did not consult the local stakeholders at all and obviously did slip shod work, relying on government data and met some government authorities. The local panchayats were neither met or consulted, neither were the fishermen’s associations, the shack owners associations, the khazan tenant associations or the comunidade representatives.
Some of the plans were uploaded on the website but even here they could not get it right. The website was not working for some days and people could not access the maps, and many village maps were not yet uploaded till a week ago. A RTI disclosed that panchayats received the physical copies of the maps as late as February 26, 2021. So the people could not access the maps and where the panchayats had received the maps they didn’t have the expertise to read/understand the maps. It is interesting to note that of the 28 objections to the plans received by GCZMA, the panchayats were largely seeking explanation of the plans to be able to register their objections. That is what GCZMA should have done anyway. Map reading is complex. One has to understand to read legends and various terms like high tide line, hazard line, port limits. The plea of the people was simple – send experts to the panchayats and explain the plan to us.
Lakhs of people in Goa depended for their livelihood on the coastline and rivers that traverse through Goa. The people want the plans, as is evident that without waiting for the government, 126 panchayats sought the help of experts and got this massive mapping exercise completed and submitted to all authorities. This is indeed a commendable feat! Yet these plans were ignored. It is the people who live off their lands that have innate knowledge of their environment. NCSCM officials sitting in their armchairs in far away Chennai would scarcely know the different types of fishing being done in Goa. There are the fishermen locally known as ‘Kharis’ who are registered with the Fisheries Department, fishermen who fish using ‘futani’, ‘kobulem’, ‘katali’, ‘Onna’ – they are the ones who know the tides, the ebb and outflow at the manus (sluice gates); what kind of bait to use for catching what fish; what net size; how much of shell fish to harvest and where. If the villagers can prepare their detailed plans in a short time, it is difficult to fathom what took GCZMA all these years – with all the expertise and machinery at their hands.
Now the government wishes to have a farcical public hearing in one day for 178 villages and eight municipalities which come under the CRZ notification. The CZMP is a major exercise that has to be done well. The maps will be finally cleared by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. That will become the law. If ‘port limits ‘are shown in the khazans, well, the government can say ‘sorry, get out, you cannot catch your fish here - this is the Port limits’. If the sand dunes are not marked they will be destroyed by hoteliers trying to build as close to the water as possible. If the ‘gayre’ fresh water ponds which hold the saline water from the sea are not shown, they will be buried and salinity in the village wells will increase. If the drainages from the coast are not shown, it will lead to flooding of the villages which lie close to the coast.
The coastal ecosystem as well as the intricate khazan sytem with its terraced bunds and sluice gates is a marvel of engineering which has been preserved for centuries. Every single person living in Goa has a stake in proper plans being submitted. People are much more aware about climate change and protecting their environment for the future. So better late than never, they are trying to save whatever is still left - and the government should help them in this process. However, sadly, instead of acknowledging their contribution, they are labelled as ‘secessionist’, ‘trouble makers’ and ‘blocks to development’.
Goa is a blessed State – endowed as it with varied topography. We have dolphins and river otters that frolic in our rivers, the Olive Ridley turtles that visit Morjim and Canacona, rare corals and window pane oysters, shell fish that breed only in mangroves, healing springs, and so much more. Justice Gautam S Patel warmed the cockles of every Goan heart when he recognised this in a jugdement stating: “Goa’s greatest asset is it environment and ecology – its rivers and riverbanks, its beaches , its lakes and clear streams, its dense forests, its low hills and fertile fields, its boulders and even trees shrouded with moss and vines and lichen in the rains , its ridiculously brilliant sun
sets…” and concluded by saying, “this is a land truly worth fighting for!”The public hearing must be held. This is mandated by law. It is not at the whims or fancies of the authorities. For a public consultation to be effective and a participative one, the first requisite is knowledge of the plans. If this itself is lacking then the public hearing will be a sham... a farce just to comply with the law and get done with it. The importance of a public hearing is endorsed by the Supreme Court in a judgement of Hanuman Laxman Aroskar vs Union of India by stating: “Public consultation is a process by which the concerns of the local affected persons and others who have a plausible stake in the environmental impacts of the project or activity are ascertained with a view to take into account all the material concerns in the project or activity design as appropriate. Public consultations involves a process of confidence building by giving an important role to those who have a plausible stake. It recognises that apart from the knowledge that is provide by science and technology, local communities have an innate knowledge of the environment… by recognizing that they are significant stakeholders, the consultation process seeks to preserve participation as an important facet of governance based on the rule of law.” The judgment ends by saying that public consultation cannot be reduced to a “mere incantation or procedural formality which has to be completed to move on to the next stage”.
However, the government is making every attempt to dissuade participation. They have fixed the public consultation on the same day at the same time in both districts. People who have interests in both districts, scientists, experts have to choose one place to put forth their objections, thus effectively shutting them out from filing objections. One of the major stakeholders in the CZMP are the comunidade representatives. The government has fixed a meeting for the delegates of comunidades on the same day, again preventing an important stakeholder from attending the hearing. These are COVID pandemic times. The SOPs for mass attendance are still in place. Large gatherings are still a threat. More so elderly and seniors are still afraid to travel long distances by bus. Now if their livelihood is at stake, they have to make the bus journey from Canacona and reach Margao before 10 am – if they wish to participate and register their names to lodge their objections as the public notice states that registration has to be done before 11 am at the venue. Besides, Section 144 prohibiting gathering of more than four persons is still in place in Goa. The latest direction for the public hearing is granting five minutes per person to speak.
For the public hearing to be fair and effective, every panchayat should have received a CZMP copy well in advance. All maps should have to be uploaded. Government officials/experts should have explained the maps to the people at the panchayat level. This is not one project but a plan for entire Goa. It cannot be held only in one district but at every panchayat to be truly fair, participative and effective.
The government has the data and reports. The Dr Simon D’Souza committees on Fisheries and Khazans; the numerous studies by the National Institute of Oceanography( NIO), Dr Antonio Mascarenhas’s plan on sand dune rejuvenation, studies by various NGOs having expertise in coastal conservation are available. Recently the massive coral bleaching of coral reefs around Grand Island were sought to be rejuvenated by a meticulous process of coral transplantation. Ingole, who co-authored a research paper on corals said that Goa is lucky to have a coral patch very close to the coast and should utilise this natural asset judiciously by protecting and preserving it. Protecting Goa’s corals should have been part of the plan. It needed Venkat Charloo, a trustee of “Coastal Impact” a voluntary organisation, to save the corals and 100 fish species in the area. It needed Puja Mitra of ‘Terra Conscious’ to doggedly push for saving Goa’s dolphins. It needed a group of otter lovers like Katrina Fernandes and Kshitig Garg to relocate in Chorao to save the shy river otters who have staged a comeback. It needed Arun Madgaonkar to persistently fight the sand mafia to protect our river banks from collapsing. It needed Judith Almeida to approach the NGT to save the sand dunes in her village. So many more green activists – the Goa Foundation, Rainbow Warriors, Goa Green Brigade – are fighting with all their breath and limited resources to save Goa for future generations. We need a plan and urgently – one that recognises people’s rights and livelihood not that of capitalists who see the coasts and river banks as areas to be plundered for profit and gain.
