The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Documenting the fears of fisher folk

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 17, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Documenting the fears of fisher folk

Staff Reporter

The film examines how their lives are affected by ‘development’

Bangalore: The coast — where the ocean meets the land, where life began, where a fourth of India’s population lives and where the forces of globalisation are now ominously poised to change everything, from the livelihood of fishing communities to the rich coastal ecosystem.

“Resisting coastal invasion” a documentary by prolific director K.P. Sasi, screened here recently, chronicles the travails of fishing communities whose very survival is threatened by the industry lobby and by Coastal Zone Management notifications.

Mr. Sasi, travels along the Kerala and Tamil Nadu coast where fishing communities marginalised by development projects echo the same fears: “Where would we dry our fish? Where do we dock our boats and store our nets? Where do we live?” Fishing villages in Kolavipalam in north Kerala are threatened by the sand-mining mafia. Haphazard development in Thiruvananthapuram causes sea water flooding that destroys homes. Coral reefs are threatened by the Sethusamudram project.

Mr. Sasi analyses the role of the Government, non-governmental organisations and international politics in pushing the “anti-people” notification. Even as the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification meant to regulate development activities gets watered down with every consecutive amendment; he points out there was one area where it was used rather efficiently, that was in preventing fishing communities from returning to their land after the tsunami.

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