Death Of An Industry

THE Rs 7,000-crore sunrise aquaculture industry, which earned Rs 2,000 crore a year in exports and employed about one lakh people, is ready to disappear into the sunset.

On February 5, the Supreme Court (SC) dismissed the industry’s special leave petition to review its landmark order of December 10. This set the stage for the closure of 85,000 hectares of aquaculture ponds along a 6,000-km long ecologically fragile coastline, on the grounds that they were causing soil degradation and erosion and releasing pollutants into the sea.

The judgement delivered by Justices Kuldip Singh and Saghir Ahmad said that "all aquaculture industries/ shrimp industries/ shrimp culture ponds operating/set up in the coastal regulation zone (CRZ) as defined under the coastal reg-ulation zone notification shall be demolished and removed before March 31, 1997". And directed the district collectors and superintendents of police to file a compliance report by April 15.

By barring aquaculture units from using lands used for agriculture, salt pans and for common purposes of villagers, mangroves, forest lands and wetlands, the order virtually bans new units. Also, the CRZ extends to all waterways— seas, bays, estuaries, creeks, rivers and backwaters. Now, a new Central Government body will "protect the coastal areas and deal with the problems created by the shrimp culture industry."

The industry may have dug its own watery grave with its intensive farming to grow at 100 per cent a year. As the grip of Taiwan, Philippines and Thailand on the world aquaproducts market loosened, India seemed ready to be the next production base. But it failed to learn from the mistakes made by these countries— intensive farming has ruined their land and water system, ground water salinity had multiplied and seeds are more susceptible to infection. It’s perhaps the reason the West has not allowed its coastlines to be used for shrimp farming, and 80 per cent of the farm - cultured shrimp are obtained from developing nations. No Indian shrimp farm has set up treatment facilities. Industry now talks of allotting 5 per cent of the culture area for waste settlement.

Reeling under the judgement, the industry, in its review plea, questioned the scientific basis of the N E E R I (National Environment Education and Research Institute) report on which the SC order was based. It claimed this was based on highly superficial observations on sea/brackish water, a dynamic medium which has constant changes in salinity, oxygen, temperature and density.

It cited the 1994 N E E R I report given to the Marine Products Export Development Authority which concluded that water effluents discharged from the shrimp farms were the least harmful of all domestic and industrial pollutants. Also, effluent samples taken by N E E R I for its 23 April ’95 report conformed to standards prescribed for marine coastal areas in the Environment Protection Rules, 1986.

Says M. Shakthivel, president, Aquaculture Foundation of India: "Aquaculture, especially shrimp farming, deals with very sensitive creatures which can’t tolerate even the slightest pollution. The waste water of shrimp ponds contain only organic wastes which can be assimilated by nature." The industry says the effluents from the shrimp ponds raises congregation of fish up to 10 times in the discharge areas.

The other bone of contention is the interpretation of the CRZ. The notification enumerates the prohibited activities within the zone, but excludes industries "directly related to waterfront or directly needing fore shore facilities". The definition, industry claims, includes aquaculture , while environmentalists claim that it includes only shipbuilding, salt, fishing and traditional aquaculture methods.

Thirdly, the order inadvertently encourages the traditional/modified traditional farms to become intensive and pose the same problem after a period. Says Shakthivel: "These farms can reach the status of extensive farms even within the zone. Then why should scientific extensive farms within the zone, which are on raised land, be banned? Also, as traditional farms are on the same agricultural land, the order implies that aquaculture is a part of agriculture." But the environmental lobby rejects this. Says S. Jagannathan, a Gandhian from Thanjavur district whose petition resulted in the SC order: "If traditional farmers become extensive, they too should be closed."

The worst blow for the industry comes with the winding up operations. It has been ord e red to shell out a whopping Rs 3,000 crore as worker compensation. Few can predict whether the industry can pay up by May 31, the scheduled date. Ironically, fewer still can gauge the impact of the removal of billions of shrimp seeds on the estuarine ecosystem, coastal resources and biodiversity.