MARGAO: Ahead of the hearing that is to take place before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) next month, various groups of traditional fishermen from Mormugao met in Baina and came down heavily on the Mormugao Port Authority (MPA) for pushing ahead with contentious projects they believe will lead to their displacement and have huge ramifications on tourism, the environment and general public.
It may be recalled that various fishing societies such as Baina Ramponkar and Fishing Canoe Owners, St Andre Canoe Owners, St Francis Xavier Fishing Canoe Owners, Goenchea Ramponkarancho Ekvott (GRE) and Goencho Ekvott, had earlier filed an appeal before the NGT to challenge the Environment Clearance (EC) and Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearance granted to South West Port Limited SWPL, a project of JSW, to enhance the cargo handling capacity from existing 7.5 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) to 15 MTPA.
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Against that backdrop, on Monday, Living Earth Foundation (LEAF) conducted a training workshop with the appellants that was aimed at educating the fisherfolk about their rights pertaining to the process of Public Hearing for Port Project at MPA, implications of the final Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP), MPA’s port
limits and projects where EC is awaited.
LEAF founder Adv Sreeja Chakraborty, explained why the fishermen who she is representing are aggrieved with the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report and want more information and transparency in documents regarding the other projects.
She pointed out that the EIA report had a lot of misleading and copy-paste
information about other projects in other states and that it was done lethargically and does not reflect the ground reality.
She also felt it was wrong on the MPA’s part to completely not acknowledge the presence of the fishermen.
Adv Chakraborty also emphasized that they are not taking an adversarial position with the Port but that they are looking at how to solve the issues so that everybody can exist peacefully and sustainable development can happen in terms of what India commits to the foreign countries.
She further touched upon how the laws through which the Port Limits were declared are antiquated and a lot has changed since then.
She also referred to how the fishermen who have been the custodians of the environment and oceans not just in Goa but worldwide, are totally dependent on a clean and green environment and a healthy ocean.
“So, taking all these points into consideration, if somebody is declaring a blanket port limit, over an area which is important for Fisheries, which is important for tourism, this has to be rethought,” she added.
She further lamented that this was not placed under public domain but that the fishermen only found out about it under RTI when they were approaching the court for another matter.
The Environmental lawyer questioned whose responsibility it was to explain what the Port Limit means to the public. “India is a party to a lot of international conventions, wherein public discourse on environmental decision-making is the core of such treaties. So, if this is what India as a government is committing to the
international community in terms of climate change, then why is the implementation on the ground totally different. It does not match and there are a lot of inconsistencies,” she added.
She also opined that the benefits that are accrued or derived from the Port’s commercial activities are very short term but the impact of its pollution is very long term
“Now if you put port development and fisheries together, it has to go hand in hand, it cannot be such that the ports will exist at the coast and extinguish the fisheries sector completely. So where would one lakh people go? The port does not have a solution to replicate the livelihood that is already there,” she added.
The fishermen who had gathered for the workshop also concurred that such major infrastructure projects are being built in such a way that it is devoid of public consultation and not what the public wants.
GRE General Secretary Olencio Simoes and Vice-President Camilo Souza warned that the Port Limits will restrict all sections of the public, be it fishermen, shack owners or tourists from visiting the beach and it will be the end of all such local traditional occupations.
They also criticised how due Port limits have overruled the CRZ lines in the CZMP map even though the CRZ norms are meant to protect the coastal communities and fragile coastal ecology, which would be destroyed if the MPA projects become a reality
While Simoes also referred to frightening predictions made by scientists about the impact of climate change, Souza warned that entire Goa will suffer from coal dust pollution as
the trucks and trains carrying coal will pass through
the State.
Fishermen leader Custodio D’Souza recalled how they had won a court battle in the past against capital dredging and that they
had recently raised these issues before the Union Fisheries Minister Union Fisheries Minister Parshottam Rupala.
