Report by the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board to the National Green Tribunal dated March 9, 2023. Report of the Joint Committee appointed by the National Green Tribunal in the matter of Original Application No. 592/2022 with respect to the petition filed by All Traditional River Fishermen Association, Karnataka. The …
ECOLOGISTS have opposed the proposed 31-km Colombo-Katunayake expressway, writes Mallika Wanigasundara in a Panos report. They claim it will dislocate approximately 2,500 families, affect the livelihood of 2,000 fisherfolk and destroy about 35 ha of biologically rich marshland. The environmentalists contend the flood problem will be aggravated as the expressway …
The Union agriculture ministry's plan to draw up a national fisheries policy for the integrated development of fishing in India has drawn flak from organisations representing coastal fisherfolk in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Goa, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Gujarat. The fisherfolk have objected strongly to the Union government's policy of supporting …
FISHERFOLK in Alaska set up a floating picket line of about 100 fishing boats and other vessels, blocking tankers heading for Prince William Sound, for three days in August. They were protesting Exxon's failure to deal with the after effects of the March 1989 oil spill from the Exxon Valdez, …
FOR THE 400 families belonging to the Mudially Fishermen's Cooperative Society (MFCS), Justice Shyamal Sen's order in Calcutta High Court on June 14, 1993, was a tremendous relief for it restrained the Calcutta Port Trust (CPT) from filling up or damaging in any way an MFCS-run wetland nature park that …
RESPONDING to a West Bengal proposal to seek massive external aid to conserve the Calcutta Wetlands, the Union ministry of environment and forests (MEF) has recommended they be designated a waterbody of national importance. Such a recommendation would not only protect the wetlands from rapacious real estate developers, but also …
1865: Acquisition of a 1-square mile area by the municipal authorities for dumping the city's garbage. 1868-1872: Construction of a railway line and a canal were constructed across the square mile area. 1884: Completion of the drainage scheme with canals and sluices across the wetlands for the disposal of sewage …
SRI LANKA'S National Aquatic Resources Agency (NARA) has said there is no need to impose a total ban on dolphin catches, reports Mallika Wanigasundara. A NARA study shows that such a ban would endanger the livelihood of the country's fisherfolk. While admitting that accurate information on the size of the …
A FOUR-tonne stela -- an upright slab usually used as a gravestone -- discovered accidentally by fisherfolk at the small fishing settlement of La Mojarra near Vera Cruz, Mexico, has enabled archaeologists to crack a complex pictorial script widely used in Central America 2,000 years ago. Part of the engravings …
"THE PADMA takes away as much as it gives," says Kuber, the protagonist in Padma Nadir Majhi (Boatman on the River Padma). It is a line that both sums up the vulnerability of fisherfolk and forms the theme of this award-winning film. Goutam Ghose's stark saga, set in Bangladesh, won …
KERALA'S coastal waters have become a battleground, putting traditional fisherfolk, who don't have an alternative vocation, against operators of mechanical monsters looking for quick profits from the sea. Linked closely with the dispute is the fate of the marine ecosystem. Conflicts between traditional and mechanised fisherfolk take place all along …
WHILE the European Community has rejected vehement French demands for a ban on the import of cheap fish primarily from Russia and other non-EC countries, it has agreed to monitor fish exports from these countries more closely. France -- one of the biggest fish consumers in the EC -- had …
FISHERFOLK and environmental scientists are blaming industries set up along the Sindh coast for causing serious health problems by emitting increasing amounts of carbon monoxide and lead into the environment, says a Panos report by Najma Sadeque. Of late, many people in Karachi, including children, have suffered brain haemorrhage and …
JUST 5 km north of Kerala's state capital, the 4,000 fisherfolk of Thumba village ready fishing lines and canoes, oblivious of the roar from the Indian Space Research Organisation's launch site nearby. Their catch is mainly kozhuva, hooked along the 7-km natural reef. But with the arrival of fishing trawlers, …
A SRI LANKAN research team has dismissed as "biased" and "rushed" a UN study that claims the country is among the world's top five dolphin- catchers. The release of the team's report this month is keenly awaited by Colombo, which fears that if Sri Lanka continu6s to be identified with …
THE TREMENDOUS surge in prawn farming, fueled by the high prices they fetch abroad, is threatening ecological disaster for the Sundarbans, a fragile area of mangrove swamps in West Bengal. Several major business houses, including the Tatas, ITC, Britannia and Hindustan Lever have been allowed to operate hatcheries. The local …
FISHERFOLK get to see little of the fabulous profits prawns fetch exporters. Between harvesting and exporting, the prawns multiply money 80 times over. Prawn seedlings are sold to middlemen at Rs 20 to Rs 50 a kg in summer -- when the seedlings are abundant -- and Rs 150 to …
TIGER prawn collectors face an enemy called the kamot, a small species of shark that infests the saline waters of the Sundarbans. Kamots have sharp teeth and they can slice off a limb. In 1992, the health department of Bangabella recorded 87 kamot attacks, most of them fatal. One of …
A CLASH of interests between traditional fisherfolk and owners of modern fishing trawlers is nothing new in Kerala's coastal districts. But the normally quiet village of Anchuthengu in Kollam district is caught in just such a struggle and has been riven by unprecedented acts of violence since last October. The …
GUJJARS are up in arms because they resent being thrown out of their homes by the proposed Rajaji National Park in Uttar Pradesh. In coastal Orissa, Chilika fisherfolk are protesting the allocation by the government of a slice of their environment to the House of Tata. What binds these disparate …
THIS REMARKABLE book transcends the crucial limitations of both Marxist social theory and conventional anthropology by consciously avoiding "economism" and "culturism". While recognising "the independent transformative power of capitalism", Ram places "culture and sexuality at the centre of capitalist transformation and the new division of labour between men and women". …
