Threatened Idyll

TILL 1976, Narara Island, in the Gulf of Kutch, approximately 20 km from Jamnagar in Gujarat, was glorious Blue Lagoon terrain. Lush live coral reefs lurked just three feet below the sparkling waters. You could spot an abundance of marine flora and fauna: sea anemones, mud crabs, star fish, oysters, octopuses, multi-hued puffer fish. Birds too: egrets, painted storks, spoonbills, crabplovers roamed free here while overhead flamingoes soared in seemingly choreographed formations against picture book blue skies.

No longer. Thanks to insensitive, rapacious public and private corporations, Narara's unique coral reefs are dying and its marine and bird life steadily diminishing. The destruction begun by the Digvijay Cement Factory, Tata Chemicals and Tata Salt Works in the early '70s—their dredging activity began choking and killing the coral reefs—was accelerated by the Indian Oil Corporation in '76, when, in violation of the Union Ministry of Environment's guidelines of obtaining a no-objection certificate under Section 4A of the Indian Forest Act, it built a jetty to offload oil consignments from the Gulf. The Gujarat State Fertiliser Corporation (GSFC) followed suit in '87.

Encouraged, industrial giants Reliance and Essar are planning to build petrochemical refinery plants and jetties in the area. Reliance has acquired 12,000 acres to build its Rs 12,000-crore facility, Essar has acquired 1,500 acres to build its Rs 1,000-crore factory. Waiting in the wings: Birla's Ballarpur Salt Works and Vadilal groups with plans to build new jetties, the latter for its liquid petroleum gas plant. That in effect means four new jetties besides the existing two which, between them, have already destroyed almost 48 km of coral reef. The building of four more may well sound the death knell for the coral reefs which, incidentally, are in an area declared protected Marine Park and Sanctuary by the Centre in 1982.

Shockingly, no one seems to care. No one except a fiery, Jamnagar-based Bank of India clerk, honorary wildlife warden, conservationist and compulsive reptile collector; Suresh Bhanushankar Bhatt, 44, counts an 8-ft long python among his prized possessions. Since 1990, Bhatt has staked both time, personal financial resource, even his life (he's received death threats from anonymous thugs) in waging a lonely battle to save the reefs. "These are a national treasure. Unique because they lie three feet below the surface unlike those at the Andamans and Australia that are 15-20 ft below the surface. It's outrageous that the government is a party to destroying our shared natural heritage. Someone should stop them," he declares. Like Bhatt tried to. In '90, he filed a public interest petition against the GSFC, in '94, another against Reliance on behalf of the Wildlife Warden Association of Gujarat in the state high court. His plea: stop the destruction. Both petitions were rejected on the grounds that "the projects were a must for national growth". Bhatt refuses to buy the court's argument: "Gujarat has the longest coastline in the country. Why can't the industries shift their plants further down the coast to Somnath and Porbandar where there are no coral reefs or such abundance of marine life and birds? There's land near the seashore there too." And answers his own question:"They won't because though land is near, the sea is rougher there. Therefore, higher operational costs and their reluctance to shift base. Never mind the destruction caused."

 Essar Vice-President R. Srinivas' reaction: "Unsubstantiated charge. A parliamentary committee exonerated us from environmental damage charges." Bhatt's reaction: "Committees are about trade-offs. The National Energy and Environmental Research Institute Committee was flown in, wined, dined by Reliance last year. Result: Reliance gets a clean chit. Their report was shredded to bits by independent researcher Tartiq Aziz of the World Wide Fund for Nature just months later." Reliance Corporate Communications Vice-President Tony Yesudas' reaction: unconvincing. "No comment. You can see the video we've made justifying our project."Also, unconvincing.

Cause to despair? But Bhatt's not giving up. He continues to petition, conduct marine education tours of Narara for kids from Gujarat and neighbouring Maharashtra who come to attend the subsidised three-day summer camp the state government has been holding here for the last 15 years. "They plant mangroves that help desalinate waters. See the corals, birds threatened with extinction. See dead fish washed ashore, choked by oil slicks. Maybe these future opinion makers will generate the backlash we need to stem this destruction," he says quietly. And then maybe the corals will breathe freely, fish will frolic and birds will soar at Narara again.