Asia-Pacific, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Development & Aid, Environment, Headlines

CLIMATE CHANGE-INDIA: Business as Usual on the Kerala Coast

Max Martin

THRISSUR, Kerala, Jun 1 2007 (IPS) - Andrews Ambrose never misses a chance to share the wisdom he gained from 40 years of life as a fisherman on this coastal strip. He has to his credit two books and a map of the seabed.

The month of May saw Andrews chettan (elder brother), as he is popularly known, at ‘Vibgyor’, the environmental international film festival here, talking about the combined effects of ‘’the earth is getting warmer and the coasts getting invaded”.

Amidst film screenings and high-brow discussions on degradation of forests, hillocks and pristine villages, what the bespectacled, sarong-clad Andrews had to say rang clear: “Disasters will be more frequent and worse as the sea-level rises due to global warming – our hamlets will be the first to go,” he said. “The prospects are worsened by rampant sand-mining, destruction of the protective sand bars, sand dunes and mangroves.”

Andrews brought home the message of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that, last month, predicted that as global warming melts the polar ice caps, sea levels will rise by 18 to 59 cm this century. “Coasts are projected to be exposed to increasing risks, including coastal erosion, due to climate change and sea-level rise,” noted the IPCC scientific report titled ‘Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’. “The effect will be exacerbated by increasing human-induced pressures on coastal areas.”

The ‘Impacts’ report echoes this concern: “Sea-level rise and human development are together contributing to losses of coastal wetlands and mangroves and increasing damage from coastal flooding in many areas.”

Andrews is concerned that it is still business as usual. In his native Kollam district, about 250 km south of Thrissur, as local fisherfolk brace themselves for the monsoon, activities such as sand mining that can only exacerbate the effect of rising sea levels continue.

Close to the modest union office he runs in Vadi village, Andrews indicates the sea-scarred beach. “It is the result of badly-designed wave-breakers built to launch fishing boats.”

Each season, the Arabian sea claims large chunks of the shore in several parts of Kerala.

In the village cluster of Alappad the callousness is stark. A 16 km strip of land, Alappad is sandwiched between the Arabian sea and a canal and is, at places, less than 50 m wide. Yet, bulldozers are busy gouging out black mineral sand between the tides, unmindful of an angry sea that is lapping at the village’s main road.

Close by there is a park dedicated to the memory of the 33 people who died here in the 2004 Asian tsunami. Alappad was the worst-hit place on the Kerala coast.

The tsunami halted sand mining activity, but only briefly. The business continues along the coasts, rivers and estuaries of Kerala despite local protests and court interventions. In Veli village, the local fisherfolk started protesting against it after their open-air theatre ground was flooded by sea water as a result of mining at a nearby estuary.

Coastal mining can change the contours of the coast and patterns of the waves. “Mine or dig – you lower the level (of the coast),” says M. Baba, director of the Centre for Earth Science Studies located at the state capital of Thiruvananthapuram. “As per the CRZ (Coastal Regulation Zone) norms you cannot take sand from the coast.”

“India’s CRZ notification of 1991 aims to protect the fragile ecosystem and decongest the coastal area,” points out Baba. Environmentalists are now protesting against its dilution to allow more industries, ports and tourist resorts.

In Kerala, reckoned among the world’s 50 great destinations on the ‘National Geographic’ map, coastal resorts are only the latest threat to the coasts.

At Mararikkulam beach in Alappuzha district, land developers have bought up and fenced off the coast, making it difficult for fishermen to land. Building on the land’s edge can pollute, kill marine biodiversity and make the coast more vulnerable to disasters.

It is not only coastal land strips and sand dunes that are disappearing due to mining and building, but also the coast’s protective green cover. “In my youth I used to sail in the backwaters and the shores were full of mangroves. Now they can be found in just one of two places here,” Andrews said.

Mangroves grow in coastal swamps and their tangled roots absorb the shock of waves by their spring-like action. “Kerala was one of the safest and best dwelling places, till people decided to do away with mangroves,” said A. Mohandas, a mangrove expert in Thiruvananthapuram.

As for the government response, Kerala state fisheries commissioner D. Sanjeevaghosh acknowledged the urgent need to study what climate change will do to the state’s coasts. “There should be long-term planning and ecological protection to reduce the disaster risk of coastal areas.”