Nightmare from the Sea

D N Singh There has never been a time when Orissa has not suffered from the onslaught of natural calamities. Be it flood, tidal invansion or drought, all these have plagued the state side by side.Now, with the monsoon activated by the recent depression in the sea, many more calamities seem to be waiting to happen. The state government appears to be gearing for the bad times ahead but the trend of the problems seems irreversible. What happened in West Bengal is already history but, we have refused to learn from all such warnings from the nature. The frequency of climatic disorders have become a cause of concern, and they get worse with every passing year. Hundreds of people die, thousands of cattle vanish and thousands of shelters disappear in the chaos. The question is, what has triggered such an imbalance? It is abundantly clear that the main reason behind the rot is human activity. Against any kind of oceanic invasion, forests always play the role of a formidable barrier. The rich concentration of mangrove forest in the coastal fringes of Orissa have been doing their job from time immemorial. Kendrapada, Jagatsinghpur, Bhadrak and Balasore districts in fact enjoy the protection of the mangrove forests against tidal incursion. But the mangroves along the coasts of Orissa have remained threatened for more than two decades due to high population density and all kinds of nefarious activities like prawn cultivation and unlawful paddy cultivation. Way back in the 70s remote sensing pictures taken by the Salyut- 7 had revealed that every year 2.5 sq kms of mangrove forests were being lost to human development. The situation now is extremely precarious. Corporate Trap Any discussion of mangrove forests is incomplete without mentioning the world famous Bhitarkanika Wildlife Sanctuary (now a National Park) which is virtually caught in a labyrinth of corporate greed and unholy political nexus. Its fate now appears sealed by state-condoned mafias involved in the ` pink rush ` (prawn culture). Considered as the second largest mangrove swamp eco-system in the country, which helps counter high salinity, and acts as a barrier to strong winds and tidal invasions, it is today itself in danger. Spread over 672 sq kms, the sanctuary area has a tidal creek passing through it flanked by mangroves that come within the National Park area. These mangroves are limited to about 145 sq kms. Increasing human intervention and over-dependence on the mangrove forests for bio-mass has left it honey-combed. Further South, sparse mangrove vegetation occurred along the coast from Mahanadi’s mouth to Devi river’s mouth and more degraded mangrove could be seen towards Dhamra mouth upto Chandbali in Bhadrak district. But rapid depletion of mangrove due to peripheral pressure from over three to four thousand prawn ponds and population explosion of unlawful Bangladeshi infiltrators have created problems like storms and cyclones. Over 20,000 hectates of the mangrove cover which once dotted the entire coast-line and the hinterlands, is now under siege to commercial activities and human pressure. Despite the hue and cry from several quarters there is no check on the continued exploitation of mangrove forests. In the 1971 cyclone, thousands of people died and five villages along Satavaya in Kendrapada were swept into the sea. We did not bother to heed the warning. Then came the more bitter lesson on October 29, 1999 in the shape of a killer Super Cyclone in which over ten thousand people were reported dead, more than 4 lakh cattle perished and an unaccounted number of trees fell. We yet refused to learn a lesson and the government so far has not prepared any effective action plan to save the mangroves. ` Aila ` was yet another warning we may choose to ignore ! Records have it that till, 1940, the entire Mahanadi Delta was covered by mangrove forests. Today, islands like Hukitola, Jambu, Rajnagar, Kharnasi, Batighar etc wear a denuded look. When the Paradeep port was constructed in the 60s, more than 2,500 hectars of mangrove forests were razed and subsequently, due to lack of any care, the rest of the mangrove cover totally disappeared from the Paradeep-Dhamra belt. Since then Paradeep has emerged the most cyclone-prone area in India. Population explosion, politics and prawn culture, among these three catalysts behind the destruction of mangrove forests, ` prawn culture` has emerged as the most lucrative. It is now spreading rapidly along the world`s mangrove forested coasts, leaving pollution and pending disasters in its wake. Dubbed as the ` demon of the coast`, the plague of prawn culture has over the years become the ` billion dollar nightmare` for our safety.