‘Proposed Sagarmala project will destroy livelihood of fishermen’

Centre urged to abandon the ‘anti-fishermen’ activities

Folk team of National Fish Workers’ Forum, which was on protest rally from Kanniyakumari to Chennai, halting in Ramanathapuram on Saturday.

The National Fish Workers Forum (NFF) has expressed apprehension that the proposed Sagarmala project, promoting port modernisation, new port development and port-linked industrialisation in the coastline and the Marine Coastal Regulation Zone (MCRZ), would destruct the coastal environment and destroy the livelihood of the fishermen.

Making a brief halt here on Saturday after launching the protest rally at Neeodi in Kanniyakumari on July 10, visiting coastal hamlets, R.V. Kumaravelu, Vice-Chairman of the forum, said the Sagarmala and the draft MCRZ posed a serious threat to the livelihood of fishermen and urged the Centre to abandon the ‘anti-fishermen’ activities.

He said the rally had been launched to sensitise the fisher folk to the impending threats and bring to the fore the problems faced by fishermen. The 22-member team so far covered 60 hamlets and proposed to cover over 200 hamlets, including 30 in Puducherry, before ending in Chennai on July 27. They carried a banner ‘save the coast, save the fishermen’ and sought a new dawn.

The team comprising folk and stage artists and orators staged programmes creating awareness on the need to protect coastal environment, preserve marine biodiversity and oppose industrial activities, he said. Fishermen in Kanniyakumari were opposed to the Enayam port and those in Idinthakarai, the epicentre of protest against the Koodankulam nuclear power plant, lived in constant fear, he said.

Condemning the Sri Lankan Navy for arresting the fishermen and confiscating their trawlers when they ventured into the the Palk Bay for fishing, he appealed to the fishermen to phase out bottom trawling and stop pair trawling and use of banned fishing nets.

A. Palsamy, the forum’s national secretary, said the MCRZ was totally against the fishing community. As the entire coastline in the country would be thrown open for development, fishermen would face a large-scale evacuation from the seashores, he said.

The Sagarmala and MCRZ notification would also affect the eco-system and marine bio-diversity, he added.

Debasis Shyamal, another national secretary from West Bengal, who was part of the rally, said similar rallies would be taken out in other coastal States in the country. The executive committee would meet in Chennai and chalk out the future course of action, he added.