Last Sunday, young Aaron took us boating in the Zuari bay and we ventured to the little island in the Zuari River in the vicinity of the more popular Sao Jacinto Island. Aaron is a young 14-year-old table tennis champ who also loves to swim and uses his fibre boat or dinghy on the weekend to explore the coastal waters of Goa.
We had also taken along the ‘red boat’. It’s a light weight tin sheet boat made by simply folding it in neat lines like origami and stiffening its edges using aluminium strips and pipes. It is apparently the lightest and cheapest boat on the planet or so says its maker, Vishal Rawlley. For the last few years he has been conducting boat making workshops to promote the use of the boat and create awareness about the pollution of the St Inez Creek, flooding in the city and climate change.
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As a team of young architects, interns and professionals we had learnt to make a red boat for our office. Since we live in the city that over the years has been annually flooding during the monsoons, we wanted to be prepared and ready for such future calamities.
The new boat did well in the vast waters of the Zuari river. We rowed along the bunds of the Khazans along the Chicalim village and then to the little island led by Aaron in his dinghy. We had checked the tide timings and were well clear as the high tide was scheduled for a couple of hours into the morning. We approached the island and were thrilled to see the clear waters with loads of shells at its bottom. Aaron tells us that in the summer, one can literally walk to the island at low tide as the waters recede to reveal a pathway made by shells that miraculously appears each year because of the tidal currents. The island itself is rather small with laterite rocks along its linear edges and a line of sturdy mangroves on both sides of its linear shape. We even found a type of grass that was growing along its central spine that can perhaps withstand salinity. The vistas of the Zuari river mouth and the sea beyond were stunning. We were hoping to see the orcas, as seen by the fishermen recently, but we could only see small fishing boats zipping past to and fro along the river. The only eye sore on the island were the scraps of plastic waste that had got washed ashore. Milk packets, atta packets, pet bottles, biscuit wrappers, etc, were all strewn along the rocks and tangled on the mangrove roots as the tides brought these to land. From here, literally in the middle of the river and in sight of the sea beyond, one really gets a clear view of how vulnerable our coastal villages and towns are in light of climate change, sea level rise and impending natural calamities. Standing in the middle of the island, lined by mangroves, we felt protected from the waves hitting the shore and the strong winds blowing from the sea, inland.
We had recently joined the man-groove initiative, of planting mangrove seedlings at a couple of locations at Chicalim and Divar island along with Fr Bolmax Pereira and Hyacintha Aguiar. The idea was to help with regeneration of mangroves along the riverine edges that had been destroyed due to development of the area for infrastructure projects or had been felled illegally as mangroves are a protected species. It is ironic that all developmental projects that are being approved and executed by the government today are only flyovers, highways and bridges. Whereas the age-old infrastructure of the Khazans, bunds and sluice gates remains neglected and unprotected. While these are now being recognised as climate resilient infrastructure, the government is doing nothing to invest in the conservation of these heritage networks nor is it planning any investment into climate resilience systems for our city and coastal villages.
This year, barely a week ago, there was flooding in Valpoi due to heavy rains while the city experienced sweltering temperatures. Last year Goa experienced the worst floods in decades with incessant rains, damage to property, washing away of a couple of bridges and submerged roads in North Goa disrupting interstate connectivity. Some years ago, Canacona experienced flooding because of cloud burst. In many parts of the State, coastal sandy beaches are experiencing erosion. The coastline is changing, islands are disappearing. Climate change is already here. Erratic rainfall, cloud bursts, rising water levels, landslides and annual flooding episodes.
In every village, one hears of land filling of wetlands and fields. Flooding, flooding and more flooding! Nobody, particularly our local representatives and the government refuses to acknowledge the connection between landfilling, felling of trees, concretisation and flooding.
Is Goa prepared? Do the smart city plans recognise this urgency? Is climate resilience incorporated in our ODP’s and regional plans? What about the CZMP? Do we have a shoreline management plan? Do we even have a disaster management plan?
For now the least we can do is make our boats and find our mangrove shelters as our safeguards and armour for climate change while our governments keep busy with inaugurating the Mopa airport, celebrate Atal Sethu and zip away on our National highways. Thank you Aaron for giving us our first lesson for survival.
(Tallulah D’Silva is an architect and silver awardee of the Golden Door Award 2020 for truth and integrity)
