Fishermen and their families protesting against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant. Credit K. S. Harikrishnan/IPS

Mahalakshmi, a housewife married to a farmer, is afraid for her family’s future. The fifty-two-year-old woman is also frustrated that Indian authorities have “betrayed” poor villagers.

A huge nuclear power plant under the control of the government-run Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) is the source of her woes.

The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP), situated 24 kilometres from the world famous tourist town of Kanyakumari on the southern tip of the Indian peninsula, is likely to be commissioned this month.

Speaking to IPS, Mahalakshmi and dozens of women in Kudankulam, a village in the Tirunelveli district of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, charged that the energy project would ruin their futures, homes and livelihoods.

The plant is slated to produce an initial 1,000 megawatts of power, according to the NPCIL, no small contribution to a country saddled with a severe energy deficit.

But the proposed nuclear station has brought sleepless nights to scores of locals, who fear a disaster similar to the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan in March 2011, and the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe.

Locals have risen up in widespread protest over the proposed plant, which they claim has not been equipped with the best possible safety measures.

One of these protestors, Arul Vasanth, told IPS that politicians, scientists, and bureaucrats have made every effort to crush agitation against the potentially lucrative KKNPP.

“We, the poor, are at the receiving end of all false promises given by the authorities,” he said. “The risk has been put on our shoulders so the people will aggressively fight till the end.”

Indeed, the vast majority of those participating in the protests live below the government-declared poverty line.

Opposition to the energy project first began when India inked the KKNPP deal with the erstwhile Soviet Union in 1988.

Agitation gained momentum in 1997 when the country signed another agreement with Russia to revive the deal.

The controversial Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant. Credit K. S. Harikrishnan/IPS

Now, in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, which drew the world’s attention to the horrific dangers of nuclear power, the people in Kudankulam have brought their fight into the open.

People from the Idinthakarai, Koottappalli, Perumanal, Koothankuli and Uoovri villages, located close to Kudankulam, fear health consequences arising from the plant.

Talking to IPS, well-known anti-nuclear activist K. Sahadevan questioned the efficacy of government measures to safeguard the health of local people living in the vicinity of the plant.

“Radioactivity-related health hazards are a major concern for the people residing near the plant,” he said, referring to a survey of houses very near to the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station, which revealed a high prevalence of cancer and tumors.

Dr. Binayak Sen, human rights activist and member of the Planning Commission’s Steering Committee on Health, said in a statement after visiting the site that the Kudankulam plant posed serious health consequences, not only for those residing in the immediate vicinity, but for inhabitants of the entire region.

Opposition to the plant has created deep cracks in the villagers’ daily lives. Frequent protests by farmers, fisherfolk, students and coastal dwellers have sent a strong message to the authorities but simultaneously interrupted income-generating activities.

Explaining the ground situation in the villages, Peter Milton, an agitation leader in Idinthakari, told IPS that people are worried and frustrated about their future.

Farmers say the government has failed to compensate them for large swaths of arable land that have now been declared part of the official “construction site”.

One small-scale farmer who has suffered many bureaucratic hurdles in claiming compensation for his land told IPS he favours other sources of energy – such as wind farms – over the proposed atomic power station.

A group of students at St. Annes Higher Secondary School in Kudankulam also expressed distress over a future lived in the shadow of nuclear catastrophe.

“A disaster in the plant will eliminate our dreams. That is why we are agitating,” the students, who wished to remain anonymous, told IPS.

Meanwhile, police and intelligence agencies are stepping up their suppression of protestors. “The threat of the police has put more strain on our lives. Even students and women are not exempted from the harassment,” said Milton.

According to media reports, 269 persons have been arrested in connection with the agitation. Agitation leaders claim the number is much higher, with pending cases running into the thousands.

T. Peter, secretary of the National Fish Workers Forum, told IPS that many people have been taken into custody under the charge of sedition. He alleged that the establishment is trying to “sabotage” the protest movement and crush it with an iron fist.

“The fisher folk residing in the coastal area of Kudankulam are (acutely) aware about the impacts of a nuclear (accident) at the KKNPP. People living in coastal areas between Thiruvananthapuram and Tuticorin will be (particularly) affected if a disaster occurs,” he added.

The Russian envoy to India, Alexander M. Kadakin, branded the anti-nuclear protests “gimmicks” and “games” while speaking to reporters in Chennai.

Regardless, India’s highest judicial bodies have expressed alarm about the lack of safety measures at the proposed plant, going so far as to halt the process altogether.

Litigations are now pending before the Supreme Court of India and the National Green Tribunal.

In November, the Supreme Court instructed the Union Government to deploy all necessary safety measures at Kudankulam.

“There must be no compromise on safety and rehabilitation. We are making it absolutely clear that all the guidelines and safety measures for handling disasters must be put in place before the plant is commissioned,” according to Justices K S Radhakrishanan and Deepak Misra.

Attempting to allay fears of a disaster, nuclear scientists have expressed satisfaction over the safety measures at the Kudankulam plant. Former Indian president and scientist Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam declared the plant to be safe, following extensive discussions with KKNPP officials and a thorough inspection of the plant’s safety features.

(END)

Buildings near the coast, like these on the Bocagrande promenade, will no longer be permitted in Cartagena de Indias. Credit: Helda Martínez/IPS

The government of this historic walled city, a bastion of tourism on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, is widening beaches and building dual carriageways on its north side to protect against the ever-worsening impacts of climate change.

Construction projects close to the Rafael Núñez international airport were begun in August 2010 and are due to be completed by 2014, but they are already sparking complaints among the artisanal fisherfolk in the area, who perceive them as threatening their livelihood.

The projects include widening Santander Avenue, in order to improve mobility, create a cycle route and help protect the coast, according to an open document posted by the local government of Cartagena de Indias in December 2009.

The widening of the road and the beach will cause “minimal (environmental) effects, according to the findings of more than 100 professionals in different disciplines, including marine biologists,” engineer Jaime Silva, the general coordinator of the infrastructure works being carried out by the private Consorcio Vía Al Mar, told IPS.

The dual carriageway already extends for seven kilometres out of the city of Cartagena de Indias, named after Cartagena in Spain and home to one million people. It originates in the neighbourhood of Crespo, where there is a tunnel 600 metres long, with an additional 400 metres for the entry and exit ramps.

Cartagena has almost 49 kilometres of coastline on the Caribbean sea. To combat erosion, its beaches are to be made 60 metres wider and protected with a rock wall for a distance of 2.3 kilometres. Furthermore, nine new sea walls will be created along this coastal stretch adjacent to Santander and Primera de Bocagrande Avenues.

“In coastal cities like ours, when sand has been eroded and material has to be dredged up from the sea, authorisation is needed from public bodies” at the national level, marine biologist Francisco Castillo, adviser to the Cartagena de Indias Planning Secretariat, told IPS.

These permits allow dredging of the sea bed, and sand to be brought from dunes several kilometres inland, to be used for widening the beach.

The project is part of a plan called “Integrating climate change adaptation into city planning in Cartagena de Indias”, which is aimed at countering problems like the gradual rise in sea level, more intense rainfall, frequent swells, flooding and other climate alterations that have been experienced so far this century.

“Permits are based on technical studies of the dunes, and bathymetric studies to measure the depths of the sea bed. It’s something like taking out a loan from the sea bed, to put sand on the coastline, and create a soft protective layer that guarantees the width of the beach,” said Castillo.

The fisherfolk do not need special studies or reports to know that the project affects them. They know it from their daily experience of fishing for a living.

“The construction works are harming us, because previously we had beaches. The water used to come up to here,” fisherman Pedro Pineda told IPS, indicating a line now covered with sand and heavy machinery, at the edge of an old sea wall.

But the sea walls lost strength and utility over the years because of “lack of maintenance”, and need replacing, Castillo said.

Eduardo Jiménez, who has been a fisherman for 40 of his 50 years, also said that “the works do us an injury, because just think, even with the present sea walls, when there is a swell, we can’t fish. And the swells come up at any moment.

“We knew they were going to carry out engineering works but they didn’t consult us beforehand. Lately they have talked to us, over in La Boquilla (an adjoining village) where I live, but people are not content. In any case, now, we have to go farther away to fish,” Jiménez said.

Nowadays, “on a good day,” he earns the equivalent of 10 dollars, he said.

“The fisherfolk and beach vendors, as well as all the local residents, were informed in an efficient and timely manner,” engineer Silva affirmed.

“We remain ready to respond to any questions from any person,” he said, and stressed that Consorcio Vía Al Mar is hiring construction workers, cleaning crews and security guards from among fisherfolk and those who used to work giving massages or selling products on the beach.

But “sometimes the work is very hard, or boring for us who are accustomed to the sea and the open air. Many of those who were hired first have already quit,” Pineda said.

Silva, for his part, pointed out that fisherfolk and other local people were being offered stable jobs until the works are completed.

He also said that the project has responded positively to proposals by workers, including informal labourers, residents and traders, and that the area is one of the zones of greatest economic growth in Cartagena in the last decade.

“Opposition and uncertainty have arisen largely because of a lack of sufficient information. But this is being solved in an effective manner, by planning and correcting social aspects,” said Castillo.

The planning adviser underlined that only at the beginning of the 2000s did the city begin to turn its gaze — however timidly — to the sea and its coastal development in the comprehensive way that was needed, including taking account of global warming.

“In revising urban planning schemes for the next few years, we will be working hard on the issue of flood risks,” he said.

“On top of the construction works, clear and convincing guidelines will be established to prevent any building on land at risk of flooding, virtually on the beach, as goes on today,” he said.

“I hope they finish it, because it’s a good thing,” a passerby walking along the edge of the beach told IPS.

“It’s true that people are uneasy about the delay in different works, like the mass transport system and the underwater outfall pipeline (to carry urban wastewater out to sea), which has been delayed for over a year,” Castillo admitted.

“But it’s normal, with large projects involving the sea and rough conditions, that planning schedules are sometimes upset, although in this case the timetable is going well,” he said.

“Cartagena is a city surrounded by the sea and made up of islands, like Manga, Manzanillo and Barú, which makes its urban and social features more complex,” the marine biologist said.

But Castillo was confident that “when these projects are completed, they will convince the community that Cartagena de Indias is growing out of its parochialism and becoming (part of) real geopolitical strategy in the Caribbean.”

Israeli's blockade of Gaza is crippling the territory. Above, selling yoghurt in Gaza in an attempt to make some sort of living. Credit: Eva Bartlett/IPS

Israel’s crippling blockade of the coastal territory of Gaza is pushing desperate young Palestinians to ever more extreme measures in the search for livelihoods, despite an agreement granting Gazans greater access to their agricultural land.

In search of work, some Gazans try to enter Israel by jumping the fence that separates it from Gaza. Others continue to be shot dead or are seriously injured by Israeli soldiers as they try to farm land bordering the fence, and still others who choose an underground path die when tunnels linking Gaza with Egypt collapse.

Yet an agreement between Hamas and Israel’s COGAT (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories) following a ceasefire in November stated that Gazans would be able to access most of their agricultural land in Israel’s self-declared 300-metre buffer zone, which runs along the border, by reducing the zone to 100 metres.

The buffer zone is comprised of some of Gaza’s most fertile land in a territory desperately lacking space. Gaza is one of the most densely populated territories in the world, with more than 1.5 million people squashed into an area 41 kilometres long and six to 12 kilometres wide.

Despite the Hamas-COGAT agreement, “the situation remains volatile and unpredictable, and the farmers are extremely vulnerable,” Muhammad Suliman, from the Gaza-based human rights organisation Al Mezan, told IPS. “Palestinians continue to be shot and killed in and near the buffer zone at certain times, while at other times nothing happens.”

Meanwhile, fishermen at work within the Israeli-imposed fishing zone, which was three nautical miles until Israel announced on May 21 that it would extend the zone to six nautical miles, are also being shot at and arrested.

Forced to rely on aid

A bitter paradox is unfolding in that while Gaza’s economic desperation has been somewhat buffered by a rise in international aid and work by non-governmental organisations in the strip, unemployment has skyrocketed, and Gaza is now one of the world’s most aid-dependent territories.

“More than 85 percent of Gazans are dependent on aid to survive, while youth unemployment stands at over 55 percent,” Suliman said.

“The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is going around begging the international community for donations to help Gazans survive economically,” a spokesperson for UNRWA, Chris Gunness, told IPS. “Wouldn’t it be better for Israel to lift its blockade and allow Gazans to be self-sufficient?”

“Unless the blockade is lifted and some of the world’s most entrepreneurial and business-minded people are allowed to leave Gaza in pursuit of business ventures, Gaza will remain increasingly desperate and dependent on international aid,” Gunness added.

Increasing attacks

According to Al Mezan, Israeli naval attacks on Gazan fishermen have escalated since the November ceasefire, including the sinking of six Palestinian fishing boats and damage to nine power generators and 41 lamplights used by fishermen at night during the first week of May. The Israeli navy also shot at Palestinian fishing boats in 13 separate incidents.

Al Mezan stated that last week Israelis shot with machine guns at a group of fishing boats off the coast of Beit Lahiya in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Israeli military boats arrested two men, Mahmoud Zayid, 27, and his brother Khalid, 25, from a small fishing boat, which was about 400 meters off the coast and approximately 1.5 nautical miles south of the Northern Israeli restricted zone.

In another attack on May 19, Israeli naval vessels opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats off the coast of Deir Al-Balah in the Middle Gaza district. The boats were also within the Israeli-sanctioned fishing zone, about three nautical miles from shore, when they were attacked.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) states that under the 1993 Oslo Accords, Palestinian fishermen were permitted to go 20 nautical miles out to sea. Since Israel imposed the blockade in 2006, the area has been reduced to 6 nautical miles, to devastating effect. In 2006, 2,500 tonnes of sardine were caught, in comparison to 234 tonnes in 2012.

According to the international aid organisation Oxfam, such economic restrictions by Israel are pushing young Gazans to risk their lives by jumping the fence into Israel to seek employment or entering the tunnels linking Gaza with Egypt’s Sinai peninsula.

Working in conjunction with Oxfam, Al Mezan reported that in the last year 101 people attempted to climb the perimeter fence, with 53 of those younger than 18. And according to Al Mezan’s Suliman, 18 Palestinians were also killed and 26 injured in the tunnels.

In one case last year, a young man, Mahmoud, and two of his friends tried to climb the fence. Mahmoud’s two friends were shot dead by Israeli soldiers while Mahmoud escaped with a bullet injury to his leg. The young man had lost his previous part-time job at a café, where he earned 4 dollars a day. Desperate to help support his large family, Mahmoud had taken the risk of entering Israel.

90 Palestinians, including 11 children and three women, were killed in the buffer zone in the last three years, and as Suliman pointed out, “while some of these were fighters killed during Israel’s military assault on Gaza last November, most of those killed were civilians.”

Twice in 20 months, dozens of fishermen have perished in shallow waters off the Sri Lankan coast due to the absence of an early warning system. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

It was several hours before dawn when Afthas Niflal, a young fisherman in southern Sri Lanka, felt the sea start to rumble beneath him.

He was no stranger to the shallow waters off the fishing harbour in Beruwala, a small coastal town in the Kalutara District, about 50 km south of the island’s capital, Colombo, but nothing could have prepared him for what he experienced on the morning of Jun. 8.

“It was like the sea rose up, taking my boat with it,” the young man told IPS three days after his harrowing encounter. “Then the wind picked up and began tossing us around like sticks.”

Within minutes, a gigantic wave had topped the small boat, pitching Niflal and his companion into the stormy waters. He estimates that it was about 2.30 a.m. when they ended up hanging for dear life on to the sides of the capsized fishing craft.

“It was pitch dark, we could not see anything and the sea was howling like a deranged monster,” he said. When an Air Force helicopter finally picked them up nearly six hours later, the two exhausted men had all but given up hope.

Once safely back on land, they learned that gale force winds, which have become increasingly common in this South Asian island nation, had left 51 fishermen dead, while 16 were still missing out at sea.

Although it took many people by surprise, the tragedy this past weekend was not the first time in recent months that unsuspecting fisher folk have lost their lives to sudden and savage turns in the weather. This time, though, the loss of life has shed a critical light on the government’s early warning system – or lack thereof.

Vague communiqués

On Nov. 25, 2011, 29 fishermen in almost the same areas perished when furious winds tore through the southern coast, rousing the shallow waters into a deadly tempest. Eleven of those who lost their lives hailed from the village of Kaparatota, about 60 km south of Beruwela.

But the incident failed to spur the government into action. According to Niflal, none of the fishermen out on the sea on the morning of Jun. 8 received any communication or warning that the weather would turn rough.

Most traditional fishermen in Sri Lanka rely on weather bulletins carried on national TV or radio stations. Often, their best chance for communication is via mobile phones that have patchy coverage up to several kilometres out at sea.

But fishermen say updates from the Sri Lanka Meteorological Department are “annoyingly cryptic” at the best of times.

Three days after the most recent storm, for instance, the department noted: “A few showers will occur in the Western, Sabaragamuwa, Central and Southern provinces”, but failed to specify the consequences of fishermen heading out to sea.

The Department’s website released its storm warning at three in the morning on Jun. 8, by which time, according to survivors, the winds had already swept inland, leaving hapless fishermen struggling in the water.

At a time when extreme and erratic weather has become the norm in Sri Lanka, these ambiguous updates are nothing short of fatal.

“We are looking into means of improving our capacity and our forecasting resources,” S H Kariyawasam, director-general of the Meteorological Department, told IPS, adding that for the past 15 months the Department has been constructing a new and improved radar, known as the Doppler Radar, capable of detecting fast moving weather systems and providing detailed forecasts on the quantity of rainfall.

Other experts say that even if they had received red alerts, fishermen, like most of their countrymen and women, would not have had the knowledge or capacity to seek safer conditions.

Sri Lanka’s early warning system, built from scratch after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that claimed 30,000 unsuspecting lives, is focused on tsunami alerts, while the mass media lacks experience in effectively communicating weather-related information.

There is also an urgent need for public awareness campaigns across Sri Lanka’s coastal belt, to educate fishers on how to respond to alerts when they come.

Meanwhile, the agency tasked with public dissemination of warnings under the 2005 Disaster Management Act, the Disaster Management Centre (DMC), says it never received a formal alarm from the Meteorological Department, and was therefore unable to spread the word ahead.

Ironically, just a fortnight prior to the latest tragedy, confident DMC officials told IPS that the country’s disaster preparedness levels were adequate to meet the challenges of increasingly fitful monsoon rains, which have wreaked havoc across Sri Lanka in the last year.

In November and December of 2012, torrential downpours left nearly 530,000 people stranded, 43 people dead and nearly 20,000 homes either damaged or completely destroyed.

Forecasts for the coming months indicate no change in these patterns, suggesting the urgent need for a hard reckoning with the country’s existing mechanisms, which were found seriously wanting last weekend when coastal communities were woken not by a national disaster alert but by the roar of 100-kmph winds barreling in from the sea.

In fact, some authorities in towns like Beruwala would not even have known that hundreds of fishermen were caught in the gale had it not been for a school teacher living close to the harbour, who phoned the nearest police station when it became clear that the storm was not a passing gust of wind.

In other coastal towns like Dehiwala and Rathmalana, about 10 km south of Colombo, residents furious at the delay in launching rescue operations barricaded the main coastal rail line with their boats, refusing to budge until Navy boats and Air Force choppers were mobilised in an official search for the missing.

It was one of these choppers that subsequently found and rescued Niflal and at least ten other survivors last weekend.

Confronted by a wave of outrage on the streets and in the media, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa appointed a committee comprised of retired weather specialists to look into the tragedy and report to him “the reasons as to why affected people were not informed of the impending severe weather conditions in order to be able to take precautionary measures.”

Although such retrospective measures come too late for those who lost their lives, they may end up preventing unnecessary deaths in the future.

Mohammed Al-Bakri from Gaza’s Union of Agricultural Work Committees points out the "no-go" zones for Palestinian fishers and farmers. Credit: Eva Bartlett/IPS.

By Eva Bartlett
GAZA CITY, Sep 29 2012 (IPS)

“From the coast to eight miles out, the sea is like a desert: it’s sandy and there are no fish.” Mohammed Al-Bakri traces a thick line on the wall map before him, following the lines of Gaza’s eastern and northern borders, continuing south from three miles off the coast.

General manager of Gaza’s Union of Agricultural Work Committees, Bakri is well-versed in the woes of the Strip’s fishers and farmers. He explains the insufficient fishing waters Palestinians are limited to, and the consequences of being on the sea at all.

“The Israeli navy attacks the fishermen, arrests them and takes their boats, even within three miles,” he says, referring to the three-mile limit the Israeli authorities have unilaterally imposed on Palestinian fishers.

Under the Oslo accords, Palestinian fishers are authorised to fish 20 nautical miles into Gaza’s sea. The Israeli authorities have illegally downsized Palestinian fishing waters, using lethal violence to enforce new fishing limitations. On a given day, Palestinian fishers are subject to Israeli navy machine gun fire, shelling, water cannoning, and abductions.

“When the fishers are arrested, they just have a boat and a net,” says Bakri. “No weapons, they are just trying to catch to sell at the market, to earn money for their families.

“More than 500 fishers have been arrested and at least 12 killed by the Israeli navy,” says Mohammed Al-Bakri.

With over 3,600 fishermen and 70,000 people dependent on income from the sea, Gaza’s fishing has been decimated by such Israeli tactics and policies. “When there is no income, fishers must depend on food aid from the United Nations (UN),” says Bakri. “But there are a lot of other needs, like housing, clothing, medical care, education.”

“If the situation continues like this, we won’t see any fishers on the sea in the future.”

Nor farmers.

Bakri refers back to the red line on the UN map of Gaza marked ‘Areas restricted for Palestinian access’. Imposed unilaterally by Israeli authorities, the “buffer zone” officially bans Palestinian farmers and civilians from the 300 metres of land flanking Gaza’s eastern and northern borders.

In reality, the UN, international NGOs, and Palestinian organisations have documented Israeli soldiers’ targeting of Palestinians even as far as nearly two kilometres from the border.

“Shooting at people accessing restricted areas is often carried out from remotely-controlled weapon stations…every several hundred metres along the fence, each containing machine guns protected by retractable armoured covers, whose fire can reach targets up to 1.5 km,” reads a 2010 UN report.

Via machine gun fire, shelling, flechette (dart) bombs, drone attacks, land razing and setting crops on fire, the Israeli army has rendered one-third of Gaza’s agricultural land deadly and inaccessible.

Palestinian farmers continue to face Israeli attacks as they attempt to farm their land, for the majority their sole source of income and food for their families.

“We need political support internationally, to pressure Israel into allowing farmers to work their land and fishers to access their sea,” says Bakri.

Heeding his call, and hoping to build “connections of mutual solidarity between Canada and Palestinian farmers and fishers,” a Vancouver-based group aims to broaden political support via their Sep. 30 ‘Day of Action For the Fishers and Farmers of Gaza, Palestine’.

“This particular aspect of the siege is quite compelling because when a society is deprived of the ability to fish and to farm, it is deprived of its ability to sustain itself. It’s part of the ongoing Nakba, and part of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine,” says Charlotte Kates, a lawyer and one of the Day of Action coordinators.

Kates and a delegation traveled to the Gaza Strip earlier this year, meeting with Palestinian fishers and farmers.

“We want to make it clear what is happening at the hands of the occupation, and how it is denying people’s right to live, to exist,” Kates says. “One of our translators could not attend our meetings: a cousin, in the ‘buffer zone’ had been murdered the same day by the Israeli military.”

Noting the close alliance of the Canadian government with Israel, Kates says “the government of (Canadian prime minister) Stephen Harper has nothing but praise for the Israeli state that enforces this siege on Gaza. On March 29, 2006, Canada became the first country in the world to impose a siege on the Palestinian people living in Gaza and the West Bank, declaring cancellation of aid to Palestine.”

Building cross-Canada and international alliances with Palestinian farmers, fishers and civil society is the Vancouver group’s focus with its Day of Action. No less important is changing Canadian policies regarding the siege of the Gaza Strip.

“We want to build a movement that can challenge the Canadian government on these policies, policies which predate the Harper government,” Kates says.

Canada is not alone in endorsing the illegal siege on Gaza – what Desmond Tutu and UN special rapporteurs John Dugard and Richard Falk, among many others, have called collective punishment.

“Last month, the European Union decided to increase their support with Israel,” says Mohammed Al-Bakri.

The Sep. 30 Day of Action will take place in cities across Canada, with “rallies, vigils, the launching of the book ‘Freedom Sailors’, and leafletting,” says Charlotte Kates.

The day of solidarity with Palestinian farmers and fishers has the backing of, among others, Independent Jewish Voices, the Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group (SFPIRG), and former Vancouver city councillor Tim Louis.

“The UN is quite aware of the inhuman condition that Palestinians are subjected to and yet there is no concrete action, except allowing humanitarian aid,” says Louis, calling for “the Canadian government stop its indiscriminate support for Israel until such a time when Israel complies with international law.”

The post Gaza Farmers Find Canadian Support appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Lakshmi and a fellow seaweed diver at COP 11. Credit: Keya Acharya/IPS

By Keya Acharya
HYDERABAD, India, Oct 12 2012 (IPS)

Indian civil society organisations see in the 11th United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP11) to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), underway in this south Indian city, a rare opportunity to highlight alleged neglect of biodiversity along the country’s extensive coastal and marine areas.

The Bombay Natural History Society, Kalpavriksh, Greenpeace India, Coastal Protection Campaign, Dakshin Foundation and PondyCAN are among groups accusing ports, power plants, shipyards and aquaculture projects of creating havoc in inter-tidal tracts and threatening artisanal fishing.

No fewer than 15 power plants, six captive ports and six mega shipyards are coming up along a small 150 km stretch on the western coastline in the state of Maharashtra alone, delegates to the Oct. 8-19 international conference were told.

On the eastern coastline of this peninsular country, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, host to COP11, there are 10 new ports and 15 thermal power projects on the anvil.

Additionally, Andhra Pradesh has proposed 70 ‘special economic zones’ in 15 of its 23 districts, including a staggering five million acres in a coastal corridor that will include airports, seaports, ship breaking units, petrochemical complexes and other polluting industries.

“None of India’s environmental impact assessments (EIA), conducted by the ministry of environment and forests, take thermal pollution of sea water into account, while existing policy does not make cumulative assessments  mandatory,” says Ashish Kothari of Kalpavriksh, a leading non-governmental organisation (NGO).

“Our EIA system itself is essentially flawed,” Kothari, tells IPS.

Whenever marine conservation actually happens it does not take local communities into account, says the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF), another leading NGO that speaks for artisanal fishing communities.

In the southeastern coastal state of Tamil Nadu, near the Gulf of Mannar, an entire community stands threatened because its women have been barred from pursuing their traditional occupation of diving for seaweed.

The area has now been declared a marine national park and comes under the protection of the forest department, leaving communities that depend on the collection of seaweed for their livelihood stranded.

Collecting seaweed has been banned by the department on the grounds that it may be detrimental to corals – though officials have little to say about a major nuclear park coming up in nearby Koodankulam that could raise the temperature of coastal waters.

Seaweed, used in cosmetic and lifestyle health products, grows on dead coral underwater and is sustainably harvested by the nimble fingers of women divers to supplement family incomes.

“We have been collecting seaweed since our forefathers’ time,” Lakshmi, 52, from Ramanathapuram district, told rapt audiences on the sidelines of the COP 11 deliberations.

“We depend on harvesting seaweed for our livelihoods, why should we destroy live coral?” she asks.

The women said they were not consulted when the park’s boundaries were demarcated, and accused forest department officials of undue harassment such as by interfering with or preventing artisanal fishing.

“They (forest department) had to seek our help recently to put out a fire probably started by a carelessly thrown cigarette butt by one of their guards,” Lakshmi said, explaining the community’s local knowledge and experience in natural resource maintenance.

“You cannot preserve an ecosystem by throwing people out,” says V. Vivekanandan of the South Indian Fisheries Federation. “The department needs to use local strength in fisheries management.”

The M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, begun by India’s best-known agricultural scientist and named after him, has spearheaded several initiatives on coastal biodiversity conservation.

Notable among these is one to promote the growth of mangroves that has led to a national consultation called ‘Securing Coastlines and Securing Livelihoods’ earlier this year.

The consultation has recommended a new approach to coastal and marine conservation, taking biodiversity issues into account and linking them integrally to the wellbeing of local communities. However, the consultation still needs to find a place in policymaking.

While laying down the principle of national sovereignty over biological resources, the CBD expected this to translate into community sovereignty with farmers, fishers and pastoralists placed at the centre of preserving biodiversity – not just their knowledge, innovations and practices.

India’s own Biodiversity Act, devised to be in line with the CBD, requires “consultation” with local communities, but there are too many instances of populations being forcibly dislocated from their traditional farming or fishing lands to make way for mega projects.

Chandrika Sharma, executive secretary of ICSF, pointed to the irony of poor coastal people, especially women, being adversely affected by development and conservation policies, while lip service is paid to empowering them in the interests of conserving biodiversity.

“Their activities are affected by government policies banning fishing in protected areas while development projects are allowed to come up,” Sharma said. “Local communities can play an important role in governing resources as they have been around for generations and know the ecosystem best.”

The post India Ignoring Coastal Biodiversity – NGOs appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Mohammed Baker (70) has been fishing for half a century. He remembers the days when Palestinian fishers could go out to sea without fear of being attacked, arrested or killed. Credit: Eva Bartlett/IPS

By Eva Bartlett
GAZA CITY, Dec 17 2012 (IPS)

Shortly after Israel and Hamas signed a ceasefire agreement on Nov. 21, the Israeli navy abducted 30 Palestinian fishers from Gaza’s waters, destroyed and sank a Palestinian fishing vessel, and confiscated nine fishing boats in the space of four days.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reported that fourteen fishers from a single family, stationed just three nautical miles from the coast of the Gaza Strip, were all arrested on Dec. 1.

Some fishers were only two miles off Gaza’s coast when they were attacked with machine gun fire and arrested by the Israeli Navy. Ranging from the ages of 14 to 52, the majority in their late teens and early twenties, these fishers hail from some of Gaza’s poorest families.

According to Mifleh Abu Riyala, a representative of the General Syndicate of Marine Fishers, the ceasefire has made no difference to Palestinian fishers.

Palestinians are allowed, under the current Israel-Hamas ceasefire, “to fish six miles out”, he told IPS, “but the Israeli gunboats still attack us, whether we are six or three miles out.”

The Oslo accords granted Palestinian fishers the right to fish twenty nautical miles out at sea, a right the Israeli navy has unilaterally vetoed, downsizing the fishing “limits” since the 1990s to a mere three miles, until this past November’s ceasefire allowed a slight increase, to six nautical miles.

“But there are no fish at six miles, the sea floor is still sandy. It is only after seven miles out that the sea floor becomes rocky and the fish are plentiful,” Abu Riyala stressed.

“It is our sea, in order to live we must be able to access it.”

Mohammed Baker (70) has been fishing for half a century. He remembers the days when Gaza’s sea was open to Palestinian fishers, and when there was no fear of being attacked, arrested or killed by the Israeli navy.

Two of his sons, Amar (34) and Omar (21), were among the 14 fishers attacked by Israeli gunboats on Dec 1. The Israeli navy has still not returned their “hassaka” (a small fishing boat).

Like many of Gaza City’s fishers, the Bakers live in the Beach Camp, one of the Strip’s most overcrowded refugee camps.

Amar, married with six children, was still being held by Israeli authorities on Dec. 5 when his father, Mohammed, recounted the events of that fateful day to IPS.

“Israeli gunboats and smaller zodiacs surrounded my sons’ hassaka and made them strip naked, jump into the sea, and swim to one of the Israeli boats,” Mohammed told IPS.

“They put a bag on Amar’s head and took him to Ashdod. Amar has asthma, I’m very worried about his health.” Mohammed has still not been able to speak with his son.

Four days after Amar’s abduction, Mohammed went to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), whose work includes visiting and monitoring Palestinian prisoners’ conditions in Israeli jails and detention centres.

“They told me Amar is forbidden from talking with anyone. He is under interrogation,” Mohammed said.

Amar now stands accused of “being part of the Palestinian resistance”, a charge based on his previous job of making coffee and tea for Hamas officers.

“My son was a ‘kitchen boy’. People who work for the government are still civilians,” Mohammed stressed, echoing the tenets of international humanitarian law.

Stripped of their only boat and a member of their family, the Bakers face even more dire circumstances than ever.

“There is no ceasefire for fishers. We’re ordinary people, we work to earn just 30 or 40 shekels (seven to 10 dollars) per day to feed our families,” Mohammed lamented.

Khadr Baker (20) was lucky that he was not killed during an encounter with the Israeli navy on Nov. 28, during which his boat was gunned down as punishment for fishing just over three miles from the Beach Camp coast.

His father, Jamal Baker (50), spoke to IPS about Khadr’s arrest, explaining that Israeli gunboats appeared without warning and began firing at close range on Khadr’s small motorboat.

“The Israelis ordered the four fishers on Khadr’s hassaka to strip and jump into the sea, which is extremely cold this time of year,” Jamal told IPS.

“They made Khadr tread water for half an hour, and kept machine gunning around him,” said Jamal. The hassaka eventually caught fire and exploded, sinking soon after.

“The Israelis took Khadr on their boat, handcuffed him naked, and beat and interrogated him for three hours, accusing him of working with the Palestinian resistance,” the boy’s father told IPS.

Without their boat, the family of ten has no income. “I sold my nets so that we can eat,” Jamal said simply.

PCHR reported other attacks on fishers that day: in one case, the navy attacked and abducted five fishers from the al-Hessi family, damaging – and eventually confiscating – the large fishing trawler they were on. The boat has not yet been returned.

In February 2009, Rafiq Abu Riyala, then 23, was shot in his back – by an Israeli soldier standing less than 20 metres away – with a dum-dum bullet, which explodes on impact.

The hassaka fisher was only two miles off Gaza’s coast when attacked. One of two breadwinners in his family, Rafiq Abu Riyala cannot now fish in cold weather. “The shrapnel bits in my back make it too painful when it is cold out,” he told IPS.

Mahar Abu Amia (40) has sixteen people to provide for. “My wife fishes also,” he told IPS. “But we have no chance: we reach six miles and they shoot, we go only three miles and they shoot. What is this ceasefire? It means nothing for us.”

(END)

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Víctor Flores and the fruit of two days' fishing at the jetty in Puerto de la Libertad, El Salvador. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
PUERTO DE LA LIBERTAD, El Salvador, Feb 7 2013 (IPS)

Boats were tying up at the jetty and there was a bustle of activity as vendors cried their wares, offering shellfish to potential buyers, while young people, sharp knives in hand, filleted sea bass and red snapper. Meanwhile, on the promenade, octogenarian musicians played old-style cumbias and boleros for restaurant patrons.

But the lighthearted atmosphere belied a sombre reality here in Puerto de la Libertad, a small town on the Pacific coast in the southwest of El Salvador.

Standing next to his small boat, fisherman Víctor Flores gazed with disappointment at the fruits of two days’ labour: just 10 fish heaped in the safe at the bottom of his boat.

“I went to sea happy, thinking I was going to feed my family, but today I don’t want to go home, I am so ashamed and sad,” said Flores.

The 44-year-old man, browned by the sun, told IPS that some years ago there was always catfish, red snapper, sea bass and mackerel on the family table.

But small-scale fishing no longer yields the same results, artisanal fishers in Puerto de la Libertad and other coastal areas told IPS.

In their view, the blame lies squarely on trawling, practised for decades by large shrimp boats that drag their nets across the bottom of the sea, gathering along the way species other than the intended catch and very young specimens that have not yet matured.

“There are various reasons; it cannot be said for certain that it is only due to overfishing,” said Enrique Patiño, head of Fundación ProPesca, an NGO based in the U.S. city of Seattle, Washington, which supports sustainable use of aquatic resources in Central America and the Caribbean.

But the most urgent action is to stop trawling, because it will have an immediate impact, Patiño told IPS.

Not just fish but other sea creatures too are at risk. Shrimp, for example, is less abundant now than it was eight years ago. The shrimp catch fell by 35 percent between 2005 and 2011, according to a report on shrimp fisheries and aquaculture published in May 2012 by the Fisheries and Aquaculture Sector Organisation of the Central American Isthmus (OSPESCA) together with the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Of even greater concern is that “since 2005 it has been impossible to calculate the fishable biomass of shrimp,” says the report by Lilián Orellana. “Lack of research monitoring and estimates of reserves of this species make it difficult to determine present stocks.”

The decline in fish catches threatens the ability of the 128 coastal communities spread along El Salvador’s 320-kilometre-long coast to feed themselves.

Fish is an essential part of the diets of some 28,000 artisanal fisherfolk and their families, and also of those who depend on related activities, such as small-scale fish vendors.

Coastal dwellers are happy when they sit down to a plate of fried fish, boiled beans and a sliced tomato, said 47-year-old fisherman Fredy Pérez.

“In El Salvador, 95 percent of the artisanal fish catch is for domestic consumption,” said Patiño, so “naturally, it is important for food security.”

Fish consumption in Latin America and the Caribbean is the second lowest in the world after Africa, at only 9.9 kilogrammes per person per year, according to the “State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2012” report published by the FAO.

In North America, by contrast, annual consumption is 24.6 kilogrammes per person.

And if bottom trawling is not stopped, access to the high quality protein in fish will continue to fall.

In April 2011, after a decade of lobbying, two federations of artisanal fisherfolk were able to persuade parliament to establish an exclusion zone of three nautical miles for industrial shrimp trawlers.

In response, the companies represented by the Salvadoran Chamber of Fisheries and Aquaculture (CAMPAC) lodged a constitutional challenge in the Supreme Court against the new law.

The new law “is forcing companies to shut down their operations, because they cannot survive the restriction”, Waldemar Arnecke, head of CAMPAC, told IPS.

Waning catches are also noticeable in the industrial shrimping sector. And the three-mile coastal strip represents 61 percent of the productive area. At present, only 30 CAMPAC trawlers are working, while an estimated 5,800 small boats are active in artisanal fishing.

The shrimpers argue that the law violates the principle of equality. “Exclusive use of the sea should not be given to some while leaving others out,” said Arnecke.

The economic importance of shrimp exports has been declining since the 1990s, replaced by the new stellar export, tuna; CAMPAC’s clout has fallen commensurately.

Orellana’s report estimates that industrial fishing provides 175 direct jobs and a further 210 indirectly.

According to Arnecke, the federations of cooperatives that promoted the legal reform do not represent the whole spectrum of artisanal fishers. In fact, CAMPAC entered into an alliance with the recently created Federación de Cooperativas de Pescadores Artesanales de la Bahía de Jiquilisco in Puerto El Triunfo, an umbrella group for 12 associations, to work on environmental projects in that southeastern area of the country.

Meanwhile, members of the Federación de Asociaciones Cooperativas Pesqueras Artesanales de El Salvador (FACOPADES) and the Federación de Cooperativas de Producción y Servicios Pesqueros de La Paz (FECOOPAZ), two federations of fishers’ cooperatives, travelled to the capital on Jan. 23 to present their arguments in favour of the law to the Supreme Court.

“We are defending food security, and for that we need to insist on the three-mile zone,” fisherman Armando Erazo, head of the oversight board of FECOOPAZ, told a press conference.

The small-scale fisherfolk complained that the shrimp industry is continually breaking the law, which remains in force.

Arnecke admitted that some boats may have trespassed into the restricted zone, and the authorities have already recorded several incidents. IPS was unable to confirm this – several attempts to contact officials at the Centro de Desarrollo de la Pesca y la Acuicultura (Fisheries and Aquaculture Development Centre), the regulatory body for the sector, yielded no response.

The post Fishers Fight Over Dwindling Catch appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Sri Lanka fishers say they are losing as much as a fifth of potential income due to illegal poaching by Indian trawlers. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS.

By Amantha Perera
JAFFNA, Sri Lanka, Mar 6 2013 (IPS)

The sea is all that 40-year-old Arul Das has mastered. From looking at the clouds or from the direction of the wind, this fisher from northern Jaffna can predict the condition of the sea fairly accurately.

Till May 2009, the sea he fished in was the most dangerous in the region. He had to keep clear of deadly skirmishes between the Sri Lankan Navy and the naval unit of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The Tigers, then fighting for a separate state for the Tamil minority in northern Sri Lanka, used the sea to smuggle arms and carry out deadly suicide attacks on the government Navy.

The Tigers often used civilian fishing boats, and that meant that Das and others like him had to be particularly careful they did not get mistaken for Tigers.

“There were fishing restrictions on the times we could go out, on the strength of the engines we used, and how far we could go,” Das told IPS.

The war ended in May 2009, when the Tigers were defeated by government forces. Das and thousands like him thought that was also the end of their troubles at sea.

But almost four years since the war ended and security restrictions were lifted, he has not been able to improve his catch. Now he faces a new mid-sea threat – Indian fishing trawlers illegally poaching in Sri Lankan waters in thousands.

On any given day, the powerful and larger Indian boats can be seen poaching across the maritime boundary in the Palk Strait, the narrow sea that divides Sri Lanka and India. These trawlers use larger nets, with some hooking concrete beams to the nets to gain better traction as they drag along the ocean bed.

Smaller Sri Lankan boats know that attempts to confront the Indian boats can end in serious losses. “Every time I have run into the Indian trawlers, I have returned to shore with damages over a thousand dollars,” Das said. Now he simply stays away from the areas where the bigger boats ply. Unfortunately, these happen to be the richest fishing waters.

Maarten Bavinck, director at the Amsterdam-based Centre for Maritime Research has been researching the impact of the Indian incursions. He told IPS that more than half the estimated 5,000 trawlers based in South Indian fishing harbours like Rameshwaran and Nagampathan depend on Sri Lanka fishing grounds for their catch.

Bavinck’s research shows that Sri Lankans have suffered dearly. His studies at two fishing villages in the north showed that fishers who would ideally go out to sea for 200 days a year have now cut this down to between 60 to 80 days. “The trawler incursions are a major reason for this low number of fishing days,” he said.

The financial impact of this reduction in fishing days is dramatic. Between 20,000 to 28,000 families depend on fishing in the northern province of Sri Lanka, according to available government data. The family members number well over 100,000.

Bavinck estimates that incomes have fallen by as much as 20 percent. In some cases the losses are as large as 300 dollars per year for a fisher whose average monthly income is around 7,000 to 8,000 rupees (53 to 60 dollars), Bavinck said.

“As one cannot feed a family on income from 60 days (at sea), these fishers necessarily have to find additional income sources, such as working as masons,” he said.

The contributions of fishing to the regional economy have also lagged. They remain a relatively small 3 percent of the provincial economy, a third of the share a decade back during a ceasefire.

The poaching is on the rise despite patrolling by the Sri Lankan Navy and its Indian counterpart along the maritime boundary that runs 463 km between the island’s northern coast and the Indian mainland. Indian boats have been sighted as far out as the seas of eastern Trincomalee and Mulaittivu, more than 300 km from the nearest Indian coast.

Nimal Hettiarchchi, director general of the Sri Lanka Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources told IPS that the authorities in both countries acknowledge the issue of poaching. “I don’t think enforcement is the answer, we need to come up with a workable solution that has support of fishermen on either side.”

The official said that discussions were continuing at ministerial level at the joint working group on fishing set up in 2011.

Bavinck agreed that any solution should be a mutual compromise. “The trawl fleet in India needs to be reduced in size, so that it matches the carrying capacity of Indian waters. This is a complex process.”

Many Indian fishers still regard areas outside the country’s maritime boundary as their traditional fishing grounds, despite the boundary that was agreed in 1976. “The Indian trawler fleet has nowhere else to go but Sri Lanka (waters),” Bavinck said.

For the time being there is usually peace. Fishers in the north tell IPS they have been instructed not to engage the Indians.

“We have been told to let them fish and go back, even the Navy seems to follow that,” said Douglas Paul, a boat owner from the northern fishing port Point Pedro.

The post After the Tigers, Fishers Face Poachers appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Palestinian fishers are hit hard by the Israeli blockade on Gaza. Credit: Emad Badwan/IPS.

By Eva Bartlett
GAZA CITY, Mar 27 2013 (IPS)

“An ark is literally a large floating vessel designed to keep its passengers and cargo safe,” say the group preparing ‘Gaza’s Ark’. But their ark, they say, is “a vessel that embodies hope that the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip can soon live in peace without the threat of the Israeli blockade.”

An initiative by Palestinians in Gaza and international solidarity activists, Gaza’s Ark entails “purchasing a run-down boat from a local fishing family,” says Michael Coleman, a member of Free Gaza Australia and on the Gaza’s Ark steering committee.

“The refurbishing will be done by Palestinians in the port of Gaza, and the sailing will be with a mixed crew of Palestinians and internationals,” says David Heap, spokesperson for Gaza’s Ark in Canada and Europe. The sailing date has not been announced yet.

Pointing to a weathered fishing trawler with a ‘for sale’ sign painted on it, Mahfouz Kabariti, president of Gaza’s Fishing and Marine Sports Association, points to fishers’ poverty.

“Why sell?” he asks. “Because of years of poor incomes from Israeli restrictions on sea, many fishers have debts they cannot pay off. Fishers were optimistic when the Israelis re-extended the fishing limit six miles. We hoped that maybe it would be extended to 12 miles.”

The Ark initiative includes exporting a token amount of trade goods from Palestinian artisans, an act which Coleman admits is “symbolic” but necessary. Exports will include date goods, embroidery, and crafts from the Aftfaluna society for Deaf Children and other associations in Gaza.

The steering committee for Gaza’s Ark comprises mainly well-respected Palestinian scholars, doctors and rights activists from Gaza. International supporters include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, various UK and Canadian former and current members of parliament, two former UN assistant secretaries general, and Hedy Epstein and Suzanne Weiss, both Holocaust survivors.

Since 2008 solidarity boats have sailed, or attempted to sail, to the Gaza Strip in efforts to challenge the Israeli-led siege on Gaza and bring awareness over it. The Free Gaza boats of 2008-2009 were followed by the Freedom Flotilla of 2010, and various non-violent attempts afterwards to bring an end to the naval blockade of Gaza.

The Freedom Flotilla is most known for the Israeli naval commandos’ execution of nine and the injury of over 50 of the flotilla activists on board the Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara while it was in international waters. The rest of the over 600 people on the flotilla boats were taken to Israel and deported home.

“It was a completely illegal act, Israel had no right to board the ship,” says Coleman.

“That has been the theme of how they stopped Freedom Flotilla 2, the Freedom Waves initiative and the Estelle which sailed at the end of 2012,” he says. “Israel has a long history of targeting peaceful, non-violent direct action with violence and sabotage.”

“Gaza’s Ark is the evolution of the flotilla movement. We’ve moved away from sailing into Gaza with aid,” says Coleman. “We now focus on sailing trade out, because it’s quite clear that if the Palestinians were able to trade, their dependence on aid would be diminished quite significantly.”

The Ark website emphasises the need for trade, their slogan is “trade, not aid.”

Aid, the website notes, “does not address the root cause of why the Palestinians of Gaza are in need: the Israeli blockade. We believe that aid provides a ‘cover’ for the actions of the Israeli government against the people of Gaza, alleviating the consciences of international powers while leaving the blockade in place.”

The Gaza’s Ark initiative aims to “challenge the blockade of Gaza from the inside out. By purchasing Palestinian exports from Gaza, buyers around the world can bring critically-needed public attention to the blockade while supporting Palestinian businesses in Gaza,” reads the Ark website.

The siege on Gaza, which was enforced by the Israeli occupation authorities shortly after Hamas was democratically elected in 2006, came into severe force in 2007 when virtually all exports were banned and imports severely limited.

The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights notes that “it is common for the (Israeli) navy to open fire on fishermen, pursue them in Gazan waters, and destroy and confiscate their equipment, including their nets and boats. Such acts constitute flagrant violations of Israel’s legal obligations as an occupying power under international law, and violate the fishermen’s rights to life and work.”

Gaza’s fishers once numbered over 10,000, but under the Israeli siege and assaults, the vast majority have given up on a trade that was passed down to them by their fathers and grandfathers.

With the siege, Israel has also enforced no-go zones along the Green Line border separating Gaza and Israel, and in Gaza’s sea, to which Palestinians under the Oslo accords have the right to fish as far as 20 nautical miles from the coast.

Since 2008, Israel has unilaterally enforced a limit of between six and three miles. Although Israeli authorities expanded this limit back to six miles following the cessation of Israel’s November 2012 attacks on Gaza, in March 2013 Israel again unilaterally declared Palestinians can go no further than three miles.

Fishers and human rights groups report that the Israeli navy shoots on, harasses and abducts Palestinian fishers even within three miles, as close at times as less than a mile from Gaza’s coast. The Israeli navy has killed and injured numerous fishers while shooting at their boats.

The post Now Gaza’s Ark Prepares to Dare Israel appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Despite providing food for the country, fisher families are among the poorest in the Philippines. Credit: Kara Santos/IPS

By Kara Santos
MANILA, May 9 2013 (IPS)

Minda Moriles, 56, has worked at sea most of her life. A resident in a coastal community in the city of Las Pinas, part of the Philippines’ National Capital Region, her earnings are dictated by what she can catch off the shores of Manila Bay.

“Life is really difficult for us,” Moriles tells IPS, referring to her family of seven. “My husband heads out at three in the morning and comes back at three in the afternoon. But we try our best to feed our family and send some (of the children) to school.”

In between taking care of the children and seeing to all the household duties, Moriles says she often accompanies her husband out to sea, hoping that the catch will be better with two.

Together, they bring in a daily income of about 200 pesos (four dollars), less than half of the minimum wage. Much of this money goes towards purchasing gasoline for a borrowed boat, which guzzles about 1.22 dollars worth of fuel a day, leaving three dollars for the family’s daily expenses.

By comparison, a recent study by the Worker’s Party, a labour rights group, estimated that an average family of six needs a daily income of about 29 dollars to survive.

It is not uncommon for fisherfolk to have large families like Moriles’s. While official figures from the 2011 Family Health Survey (FHS) peg average family size at about 3.6 children for rural areas and 2.7 children for urban areas, the average fisherfolk family size is six, with some couples having as many as 12 to 14 children.

As well as being among the largest, fisher families are also some of the poorest in the country: the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) estimates a poverty incidence of 41.4 percent for the fishing sector, way above the national average of 26.5 percent.

Poverty is highest in southern rural areas like Caraga, Region VII (also known as Central Visayas) and the Bicol Region.

Moriles says impoverished fisherfolk are in desperate need of government assistance, especially in times of calamity, as well as rice subsidies to help feed their families.

A group of concerned fishers recently opened a dialogue with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to demand financial support to augment their income.

One of the many grievances brought to the government agency was the issue of overfishing, which Pablo Rosales, spokesperson of ‘Pangisda Philippines’, a member of the Save the Fisheries Now Network, says is exacerbating poverty among fisher communities.

“Ten out of the 13 major fishing grounds in the Philippines are heavily exploited,” Rosales told IPS on the sidelines of the dialogue, citing figures from the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR).

With over 43,000 inhabitants per square kilometre, Manila is the most densely populated city in the world. Over 25 million people live along its coast and many depend on the sea for survival. The presence of over 70 fishermen per square kilometre has turned the Manila Bay into the most heavily exploited fishing ground in the country.

While the daily catch is dependent on the weather and sea conditions, Rosales says each fisherman harvests an average of three to five kilos of fish on a good day, which sell in the market for 30 to 70 pesos per kilo.

“This amounts to earnings of 150 to 350 pesos (between three and eight dollars) a day,” he says.”

Fisherfolk make between 30 and 70 pesos per kilo of fish in the local market. Credit: Kara Santos/IPS

Species like ‘hasa-hasa’ (short bodied mackerel) and ‘galunggong’ (red-tail scad) are indispensable to the local diet, with Filipinos consuming a daily average of 98.6 grammes of fish. A simple meal consists of salted or fried fish, with rice and vegetables.

But while fish are a staple food here, the lives of fishermen are anything but predictable.

“We need to spend money to (get out to sea) but when we cast our nets…there is no certainty that we will be able to catch anything that day, especially in areas where natural resources are being depleted,” according to Rosales.

Disappearing habitats

Fishermen are now demanding that overfished areas be rehabilitated, since fewer fish mean lower incomes.
But according to Dennis Calvan, executive director of Fisheries Reform, a local non-governmental organisation, overfishing is just the tip of the iceberg.

“Fish habitats like coral reefs, mangroves and sea-grass (beds) are already in critical condition,” Calvan told IPS.

A briefer prepared by the Save the Fisheries Now Network states that over 70 percent of coral reefs are in a state of degradation; less than one-third of the country’s 450,000 hectares of mangroves remain; and an estimated half of all sea-grass beds have been lost or severely degraded during the past 50 years.

In their dialogue with the welfare department, Calvan and other fisher folk asked the government to develop a poverty alleviation programme specifically targeting the poorest of the poor, including a “roadmap to recovery” for the Philippines’ oceans.

According to Calvan, the roadmap should contain “plans on how to improve income from fishing, rehabilitate important fishery habitats, protect and improve the remaining coral reefs through the establishment of Marine Protected ares and reforest mangrove areas.”

The alliance of fisherfolk is already conducting coastal cleanups and mangrove reforestation in an effort to rehabilitate the natural resources they rely on for their livelihood.

The activist alliance ‘Pamalakaya’ has been pushing for mangrove reforestation along the Manila Bay from Cavite City to the Bataan province to preserve 26,000 hectares of foreshore area.

Fisher folk are also urging Congress to pass a bill to establish a separate Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources that will be equipped to respond to major issues plaguing the sector.

At present BFAR falls under the purview of the Department of Agriculture, with limited resources and personnel: according to recent statistics, BFAR’s budget for 2013 is 24 million dollars, which Rosales believes is inadequate “for a country of 7,107 islands with an area of 2.2 million square kilometres of territorial ocean waters.”

Until the government steps up its efforts, people like Moriles will continue to struggle.

“There are days when we go without meals just so that the children can go to school,”­ says Moriles, who sees education as a ticket out of poverty.

“We’re old already. When the time comes that there are no more fish in the sea, at least my children will be able to work somewhere else.”

The post Filipino Fishers Cast an Uncertain Net appeared first on Inter Press Service.

President of Fishermen and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) Gary Aboud is arrested near the International Waterfront in Port of Spain. Credit: Peter Richards/IPS

By Peter Richards
PORT OF SPAIN, Nov 21 2013 (IPS)

The demonstration took place on land and sea simultaneously. In the end, police had arrested three people, including Gary Aboud, president of the Trinidadian NGO Fishermen and Friends of the Sea (FFOS), but protesters were undaunted. They would be back.

“We are going to re-assemble and go back to the drawing board. The action gave the government a clear indication of how serious we are,” Aboud told IPS. He now faces charges of resisting arrest, obstructing the police and protesting without permission on Nov. 13."Each air gun is emitting almost double the sound of a single jet and is equivalent to sound that occurs when you use explosives." -- Gary Aboud

At the centre of the dispute are the seismic surveys in which energy companies searching for oil and hydrocarbons in the seabed deploy air guns, which are towed behind ships and release intense impulses of compressed air into the water.

According to the U.S. -based Natural Resources Defence Council, seismic surveys have been shown to cause catch rates of some commercial fish to plummet – in some cases over enormous areas of ocean.

“What we are asking is for is the same thing every country in the world has asked for,” Aboud said, noting that the issue has become controversial enough that the International Maritime Organisation and U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) will convene a meeting in London next February to highlight ways of minimising the impact of seismic surveys.

FFOS also says a government-appointed committee is skewed heavily in favour of people closely affiliated with the energy sector here.

“It only has two fisherfolk representatives and 14 government representatives – that is an imbalance. We are recommending one scientist be appointed by the fisherfolk, one scientist by the government and the two scientists appoint a third scientist,” he said.

“The government has appointed a lot of yes men and people who work for the energy sector. If you work for the energy sector we can’t expect justice,” Aboud told IPS.

Food Production Minister Devant Maharaj, speaking at the end of the weekly cabinet meeting, disputed these assertions.

“Seismic surveys are routinely conducted as part of the exploratory process in an effort to obtain information on the location and the quantum of raw hydrocarbon in the various strata of rocks,” he said.

Maraj said that several studies have been done regionally and internationally, and documentation on the effect of seismic surveys on different species of fish can be found in a policy document titled “The National Seismic Operations of Trinidad and Tobago.”

“A draft version developed in July 2010 was circulated to committee members and other major stakeholders for comment. The policy document was also submitted to the Ministry of Energy for its consideration,” Maharaj said.

Critics argue that there should be a moratorium on seismic testing while the government creates a regulatory framework that will include making it mandatory for companies to submit an independently-conducted Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) before testing.

“All the oil companies know that the EIA is a standard procedure…so it is not just something we are saying, it is standard procedure around the world,” Aboud told IPS.

He added that a judge in Mexico recently ruled “that you cannot do seismic bombing where the fishes are spawning (and) where there is a migratory path”.

The fisherfolk here have directed their anger mostly at British Petroleum (BP) and the state-owned Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (PETROTRIN). Aboud said he has already started talks with the trade union movement here.

He also plans to hold talks with religious leaders in the hope they would empathise with what he called the “national plight” of the fishing industry.

But PETROTRIN has hit back, saying that its plans for an Ocean Bottom Cable (OBC) seismic survey was being undertaken in “conformance with the licence requirements” from the relevant authorities as well as putting in place “measures to ensure that the seismic survey is conducted in conformance with international safety and environmental best practices”.

In a full page-newspaper advertisement this week, PETROTRIN said that research has indicated that the “effects of seismic surveys on fish stock have indicated little or no negative impact” and that the mortality caused by air-emitting devices on fish eggs and larvae might amount to an average of 0.0012 percent a day.

“In comparison to the natural mortality rate of 5-15 percent per day, the seismic induced damage is insignificant,” the oil company asserted, adding “we stand by our statement that the decibel levels of the underwater pulses are similar to the naturally occurring sounds in the ocean.

“The sound from the survey does not exceed 250 decibels which can be compared to a ship sound, close to the hull, which emits 200 decibels and a bottlenose dolphin click which emits 229 decibels.”

At the start of the year, BP conducted a 275-million-dollar seismic study that the company’s regional president Norman Christie said “has given reason for even more confidence in the future of Trinidad and Tobago’s hydrocarbon industry.

“This survey will allow us to improve our understanding of our existing acreage to ensure we are maximising the recovery of the resources. The survey has stirred up quite a bit of excitement as it is the first time we are using this specialised seismic technology in the BP world,” he added.

Aboud says the oil companies’ arguments simply don’t hold water.

“They are saying they are not using explosives. We never say they are using dynamite. We say that the air gun blasts are 260 decibels. A jet aircraft is 140 decibels and human ordinary pain is 130 decibels.

“We are also saying the seismic ships are using 20 to 35,000 individual air guns and each air gun is emitting almost double the sound of a single jet and is equivalent to sound that occurs when you use explosives,” he told IPS.

The post Trinidadian Fishers Choose Jail over “Seismic Bombing” appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The seafront wall in Guanímar accelerates erosion and land loss. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Ivet González
HAVANA, Mar 25 2014 (IPS)

The road to Guanímar, a fishing village on the southern coast of Cuba, is as narrow as the future of its 252 inhabitants, who don’t want to abandon the area despite its vulnerability to hurricanes, storm surges and flooding.

“If they can’t fish, the people here won’t know how to make a living,” Maricela Pérez, 63, who lives just a few metres from the beach, tells Tierramérica with a look of anguish.

“We can’t stand to live anywhere else. We were born and raised here,” says Mayelín Hernández, a homemaker who returned to the coast two years ago.

She says many of the families who have been relocated to safer areas by the local government have returned to this settlement of 152 precarious shacks, to keep fishing in the Gulf of Batabanó as their forebears did.

“They close up their house in Alquízar (a nearby town) and they spend more time here, in the ‘quimbos’ (shacks built with materials salvaged from the remains of houses destroyed by hurricanes),” says the 41-year-old Hernández, who comes from a fishing family. She left a small rural property nine km from the coast to return to the beach.

The old dilemma of leaving everything behind for safety reasons has reemerged with the new zoning regulations being implemented in Cuba for residential or commercial areas or protected zones, such as the coastline.

The policy is aimed at combating irregular and illegal building and land-use practices and updating the land registries and zoning plans for Cuba’s 168 municipalities.

Guanímar is along a stretch of coastline south of Havana which, along with the northern coast in the capital, is the area most vulnerable to flooding and high winds during storms in this archipelago located in the Caribbean hurricane corridor

Scientists estimate that by 2050, the rising sea level will have covered an additional 2.3 percent of the national territory.

The new zoning laws put a priority on the country’s 5,746 km of shoreline, which includes the Isla de La Juventud – the second-biggest island in the Cuban archipelago – and 2,500 keys and islets, and on the enforcement of six specific laws, especially decree-law 212 on management of coastal zones, in effect since 2000.

The laws prohibit activities that fuel natural soil erosion, such as construction or the use of vehicles in the dunes; roads or walls parallel to the shoreline; the felling of mangroves; and the introduction of exotic species.

One example of strict application of the law is the city of Holguín, 690 km northeast of Havana, where sun and beach tourism is flourishing. As of July 2013, the local authorities had demolished 212 public buildings that had been built on the dunes.

“The aim is to protect the environment and carry out climate change adaptation actions,” Yailer Sánchez, an environmental inspector in the government’s Environment Unit, tells Tierramérica.

Construction of private buildings on the sand is the most frequent violation of decree-law 212, according to Sánchez. The objective of the authorities is to eliminate all illegal buildings and relocate the inhabitants within the next two years.

Because of the sensitive nature of the issue, the government says the 245 coastal communities in the area will receive “special treatment” in the process.

But the enforcement of the new zoning laws has altered the heavy calm that usually reigns over Guanímar, except during the four months of summer, when thousands of people flock to its beach, visitors fill up all of the houses and shacks, and locals do brisk business selling fried fish and other tasty snacks.

“This is the best beach around here,” says Hernández. “Why not admit it: we don’t want to leave. We quickly measured when (the authorities) came and said they were going to remove everyone with houses 50 metres from the sea…Mine’s 53 metres away,” she adds.

Narciso Manuel Rodríguez, a 59-year-old fisherman who owns his own boat, comments that “They say they’re going to give people homes away from here. But I prefer to evacuate during storms and come back, like I always have.”

The policy is to relocate the inhabitants of at-risk areas, and block construction of new homes.

Rodríguez’s daughter was resettled in Alquízar after Hurricane Charley destroyed her home on Aug. 13, 2004.

Another group of families from Guanímar was relocated to the town in 2008 after the area was hit by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

Gustav “hit with all it had” when it passed four km off the coast, the fisherman says.

In October 1944, Guanímar experienced one of the worst storm surges in Cuban history, that was up to six metres high and penetrated as far inland as 12 km.

When there is a threat of hurricane or tidal wave, the 57 families who live right along the beach pack up their belongings, including their small livestock and pets, on local government trucks.

“At those times, people feel that the risk is real,” says Guanímar town councillor Ricardo Álvarez.

The local population “doesn’t know very much about environmental problems. We don’t even get the newspaper here,” he says.

Álvarez says people need information and should participate more in decision-making. “It’s important to understand that these things are difficult for people to deal with,” he adds.

The government shop that sells the basic food and other products provided at subsidised prices under the ration card system will also have to be removed from the dunes, as a result of the new zoning laws.

“Services are gradually being lost,” Álvarez complains.

The primary school closed six years ago. And a physiotherapy hospital that offered treatment based on medicinal mud, which was devastated by the 2008 hurricanes, was never rebuilt.

“People get used to living with the danger, and have their reasons for wanting to stay where they are,” biologist María Elena Perdomo tells Tierramérica. “Educational work is needed to convince people, and when the time comes, legal measures can be taken as well.”

A study by architect Celene Milanés found that in 2012, 90 to 95 percent of residents surveyed in the beachfront towns of Chivirico and Uvero and the coastal city of Santiago de Cuba, in the east, were unfamiliar with decree-law 212.

Coastal areas are home to 60 percent of the world population, who are at risk due to rising sea levels. More than 180 countries have large populations in low-elevation coastal zones, and 130 countries have major cities within a few km of the coast.

This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

The post Despite Risks, Cuban Fisher Families Don’t Want to Leave the Sea appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Caribbean's fishing industry provides direct employment for more than 120,000 people and indirect employment opportunities for thousands of others – particularly women – in processing, marketing, boat-building, net-making and other support services. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
PYEONGCHANG, Republic of Korea, Oct 9 2014 (IPS)

Scientists here are warning Caribbean countries, where the fisheries sector is an important source of livelihoods and sustenance, that they should pay close attention to a new international report released Wednesday on ocean acidification.

The report, published by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), coincides with the 12th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 12) being held here from Oct. 6-17.We’re in a world where the ocean is acidifying very, very, very rapidly and so we need to move very, very quickly.” -- Dr. Carol Turley

“Ocean acidification can have quite specific impacts on certain fisheries, and so actually ocean acidification is especially important for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and people that rely on specific types of fishery or some type of organism,” Dr. S. J. Hennige, the lead editor of the report, told IPS.

“There are variable responses with organisms with regard to ocean acidification, but for the ones which are negatively affected by it, if you are reliant on just that one type of fish then it could have very large impacts and you may have to actually switch to a different organism or something like that.”

In the CARICOM region, the local population is highly dependent on fish for economic and social development. This resource also contributes significantly to food security, poverty alleviation, employment, foreign exchange earnings, development and stability of rural and coastal communities, culture, recreation and tourism.

The subsector provides direct employment for more than 120,000 fishers and indirect employment opportunities for thousands of others – particularly women – in processing, marketing, boat-building, net-making and other support services.

In the report, an international team of 30 experts, led by UK scientists, has concluded that ocean acidification is already underway, and it is now nearly inevitable that it will worsen, causing widespread impacts, mostly deleterious, on marine organisms and ecosystems, and on the goods and services they provide.

David Obura, director of Coastal Oceans Research and Development in the Indian Ocean, said food security, in the Caribbean and other regions of the world where there is heavy reliance on the fisheries sector, is threatened.

“Ocean acidification changes the chemistry of the sea water which means that how fish grow is affected and usually negatively,” Obura told IPS. “So productivity will go down or the certainty of knowing what the output is going to be, how much food is produced, is less certain so it undermines the production system.”

Ten years ago, only a handful of researchers were investigating the biological impacts of ocean acidification. Whilst their results gave cause for concern, it was clear that a lot more measurements and experiments were needed.

Around a thousand published studies later, it has now been established that many marine species will suffer in a high CO2 world, with consequences for human society.

Hennige said there are already examples, in the U.S., where an oyster fishery is being impacted by ocean acidification. He said the underlying cause of the problem is carbon dioxide.

“The more carbon dioxide is released from all our fossil fuels into the atmosphere, the more will dissolve in the ocean,” he explained.

“There are practices which can be put in place to offset it on a temporary basis, but the underlying problem is there is still more carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere and this problem is only going to get worse if we continue.

“It’s not a problem that is being caused by the Caribbean, this is a global problem and it’s a global solution that’s needed,” Hennige added.

Dr. Susan Singh-Renton, deputy executive director of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM), told IPS that everything in the report applies to the Caribbean situation.

“Ocean acidification is a worrying phenomenon because it means that seawater, as a supporting medium for life, is changing in a very fundamental manner. Since the ocean ecosystem is so complex, it is not possible to predict the impacts with certainty, but it is certain that the impacts will be significant for tropical islands, especially those which have built their economies based on the health and beauty of their local coral reef ecosystems,” she said.

“As coral reefs begin to decline, this will affect many traditional Caribbean fisheries targeting reef fishes, such as snapper, grouper, parrot fish, etc. that depend on the coral reefs for their food, shelter and survival.

“Also, there would likely be declines in the health and survival of animals that grow carbonate shells such as queen conch, which support very important multi-million-dollar commercial fisheries in the Caribbean. With so fundamental a change in seawater chemistry, it is also possible that other forms of ocean life, as we know them today, could be affected ultimately and irreversibly,” Singh-Renton noted.

The report’s authors said the exact magnitude of the ecological and financial costs is still uncertain, due to complex interactions with other human-driven environmental changes.

They said risks to coral reefs are highlighted in the CBD, due in part to the crucial role they have in helping support the livelihoods of around 400 million people.

Hennige said that the by the end of this century, the economic loss caused by ocean acidification would be “a trillion dollars”.

His colleague, Dr. Carol Turley, a contributing author to the report, said the downward spiral could be reversed but urgent action and funding are needed.

“Who can measure acidification? It’s really developed countries that can measure it so we need to start exporting that knowledge to countries like the Caribbean, to countries like the small island developing states,” she told IPS.

“And that’s where financing comes in because as scientists we can collaborate and give you knowledge but we need financing so that we can help you set up monitoring.

“I am worried that we are too slow. We’re in a world where the ocean is acidifying very, very, very rapidly and so we need to move very, very quickly.”

In 2013, experts warned that the acidity of the world’s oceans may increase by 170 percent by the end of the century, bringing significant economic losses. The scientists said then that marine ecosystems and biodiversity are likely to change as a result of ocean acidification, with far-reaching consequences for humans.

They also warned that economic losses from declines in shellfish aquaculture and the degradation of tropical coral reefs may be substantial owing to the sensitivity of molluscs and corals to ocean acidification.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at destinydlb@gmail.com

Grenadian fishermen prepare to head out to sea. They say they have been catching less fish and their livelihoods are threatened by climate change. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
PALMISTE, Grenada, Apr 27 2015 (IPS)

Henry Prince has lived in this fishing village for more than six decades. Prince, 67, who depends on the sea for his livelihood, said he has been catching fewer and fewer fish, and the decrease is taking a financial toll on him and other fisher folk throughout the island nation of Grenada.

I heard about the climate change but never paid too much attention towards it,” Prince told IPS, adding that “we don’t catch jacks as before.”

Jacks, a small fish widely used by the fishermen as bait, are also fried and eaten by poor families for whom they are an inexpensive source of protein.

Over the last few years, fisher folk have not been catching the jacks, which are usually found in abundance around the month of November. Due to the scarcity of jacks, fishermen have been forced to import sardines from the United States to use as bait.

Grenada’s Agriculture, Land, Fisheries and the Environment Minister Roland Bhola believes the dwindling numbers of fish in the country’s waters are a direct result of climate change.

“Our fishermen are reporting less and less catches in areas where there was once a thriving trade,” Bhola said.

“We have been able to associate that with the issues of climate change … the destruction of our coral reefs and other ecosystems like mangroves,” he said.

“The catch is one day good, one day bad as far as I am looking at it,” Ralph Crewney, another fisherman, told IPS.

“For the last few months we hardly catch anything. Last June, it was just at the last moment that we made big catches.”

Grenadian fishermen Henry Prince (right) and Ralph Crewney see beachfront living as a virtual birthright, despite the risks posed by climate change. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Crewney, 68, has been living on the seashore for close to 20 years. He noted that in recent times the sea is getting a lot closer to his small shack. But he has no immediate plans to move.

“I feel comfortable here because I like to be away from the noise,” he explained.

Other families in the area are now thinking about relocating to communities in hilly areas but are reluctant to move too far from their source of livelihood.

Fishing families in the Caribbean see beachfront living as a virtual birthright, with an alarming 70 percent of Caribbean populations living in coastal settlements.While storms and beach erosion have long shaped the geography of coastal environments, rising sea levels and surge from more intense storms are expected to dramatically transform shorelines in coming decades, bringing enormous economic and social costs.

In the CARICOM region, the local population is highly dependent on fish for economic and social development. This resource also contributes significantly to food security, poverty alleviation, employment, foreign exchange earnings, development and stability of rural and coastal communities, culture, recreation and tourism.

The subsector provides direct employment for more than 120,000 fishers and indirect employment opportunities for thousands of others – particularly women – in processing, marketing, boat-building, net-making and other support services.

Experts say that while storms and beach erosion have long shaped the geography of coastal environments, rising sea levels and surge from more intense storms are expected to dramatically transform shorelines in coming decades, bringing enormous economic and social costs.

Scientists and computer models estimate that global sea levels could rise by at least one metre (nearly 3.3 feet) by 2100, as warmer water expands and ice sheets melt in Greenland and Antarctica.

Global sea levels have risen an average of three centimetres (1.18 inches) a decade since 1993, according to many climate scientists, although the effect can be amplified in different areas by topography and other factors.

On Apr. 16, delegates attending a one-day National Stakeholder’s Consultation here urged the authorities to re-establish the National Climate Change Council as the island moves to strengthen measures to deal with the impact of climate change.

They said while Grenada had made progress on dealing with climate change and the environment, it still has some way to go to become climate resilient and to develop the capacity to implement climate resilience actions.

The one-day consultation was jointly organised by the World Bank and the Grenada government.

A government statement issued after the consultation said that the re-establishment of the Council will help “drive the climate change agenda of integrating climate change at the national planning level, the mainstreaming of climate change adaptation” as well as monitoring and reporting.

Grenada’s Environment Minister Roland Bhola says the small developing country has very high vulnerability to climate change. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

The Climate Investment Fund (CIF) Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience (PPCR) recently approved a 10.39-million-dollar grant funding for a Caribbean pilot programme for climate resilience.

Grenada along with St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Dominica, Jamaica and Haiti stand to directly benefit from this grant.

A 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the devastation wreaked on Grenada by Hurricane Ivan in 2004 “is a powerful illustration of the reality of small-island vulnerability.”

The hurricane killed 28 people, caused damage twice the nation’s gross domestic product, damaged 90 percent of the housing stock and hotel rooms and shrank an economy that had been growing nearly six percent a year.

Grenada and its tourism-dependent Caribbean neighbours are thought to be among the globe’s most vulnerable countries.

Scientists say the island has a high risk of being adversely impacted by climate change in several areas. These include coastal flooding due to natural disasters and storm surges. They also point to marine ecosystems being affected by increased ocean temperature, and increased freshwater run-off resulting in coral reef destruction and food chain interruption which affect fishing and tourism industries.

Over the last 25 years, the fragile Grenadian islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique have also been bombarded by storms, hurricanes, higher tides and sea surges.

This resulted in severe loss of mangrove vegetation along the coastline, beach erosion, damage to soil and serious threat to the local tourism industries which depend heavily on the pristine condition of the beaches and health of the marine life.

Meanwhile, as countries prepare to adopt a new international climate change agreement at the Paris climate conference in December, Bhola said Grenada is looking forward to the implementation with great anticipation.

“My country, Grenada, a small developing country, has very high vulnerability to climate change. A successful agreement for us therefore has to reduce the risks that we face from climate change and has to assist us in coping with the impacts on our country, our people and our livelihoods,” Bhola said.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Gazan fishermen Ibrahim Al Quka and his brother Sami Al Quka, who had his hand shot off by the Israeli navy even though he was within Israel's restricted fishing zone. Credit: Mel Frykberg

By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Jun 8 2015 (IPS)

Three Palestinian fishermen were injured last week after Israeli naval forces opened fire on fishing boats off the coast of al-Sudaniyya in the northern Gaza Strip, bringing to 15 the number of farmers and fishermen shot and injured by Israeli security forces recently as they attempted to earn a living.

The Israeli navy limits Gaza’s fishermen to a three nautical-mile zone off Gaza’s coast. However even fishermen within that zone have come under fire and been shot, injured and killed or had their boats destroyed or confiscated.“Gaza fishermen have come under fire and been shot, injured and killed or had their boats destroyed or confiscated … Gazan farmers trying to access their agricultural fields … are also regularly shot and injured, and sometimes killed”

As most of the shoals are further out to sea, Gaza’s fishing industry has been decimated and thousands of Gazans deprived of a living and unable to support their families.

Gazan farmers trying to access their agricultural fields within Israel’s 500 metre to 1 km buffer zone next to Israel’s border are also regularly shot and injured, and sometimes killed.

Gaza’s decimated economy has been further damaged by Israeli limits on Gazan exports to two of its biggest markets, the occupied West Bank and Israel.

Agricultural produce and manufactured goods used to underpin the coastal territory’s economy before Israel and Egypt enforced the Gaza blockade.

After last year’s war between Hamas and Israel, one of the conditions for a ceasefire was the easing of the blockade.

While Israel has allowed some goods to be exported from Gaza, this is insufficient to rejuvenate its economy.

Analysts and political commentators have repeatedly warned that Israel’s continued siege and restrictions on Gaza could destabilise the region further, leading to more violence and possibly a new war.

Destruction in Gaza following last year’s war between Hamas and Israel. Credit: Mel Frykberg

A report on the situation by the Ad-Hoc Liaison Committee of the Office of the Quartet Representative was released after a meeting in Brussels on May 27.

“Over a year on from the breakdown in talks between Israel and the Palestinians, there is still no tangible political horizon in sight,” stated the report.

“The last year has repeatedly presented us with reminders not just of where the flashpoints and difficulties persist, but also that in the absence of a political horizon, the vacuum quickly fills with animosity and violence.”

The report outlined how the removal or reduction of Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement, trade and access remained essential to securing economic growth.

“Movement and access restrictions, both physical and regulatory, hinder economic development in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and affect nearly all aspects of Palestinian life.”

Employment in Gaza and its economy would be boosted by Israel easing the blockade while the private sector would be strengthened. These in turn would reduce tensions and contribute to Israel’s security needs.

The failure of Hamas and Israel to reach any agreement is further aggravated by the stalemate within the Palestinian unity government due to the inability of Hamas and Fatah to reach consensus on jointly governing Gaza and the West Bank.

The rivalry between the two groups has delayed international aid, without which no reconstruction, redevelopment and economic growth in Gaza can take place.

The Office of the Quartet Representative pointed out five development areas that need to be focused on to improve the situation in the ground – an effective Palestinian government, movement and trade, reliable infrastructure, investment and sustainable land usage.

Meanwhile, Israel is continuing with new plans to relocate thousands of Bedouins in the West Bank and Israel after the move received the green light from Israel’s Supreme Court.

Some 7,000 Bedouins from the central West Bank, most of them situated east of Jerusalem, and 450 in southern Hebron will be “relocated” by force.

The forced removals have been accompanied by coercive measures such as the demolition of buildings and infrastructure on the grounds that they were built without permits, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

However, in area C of the West Bank, which comprises 60 percent of the territory, very few permits are issued by Israel’s Civil Administration, which controls the West Bank, because most of the land has been appropriated for Israeli settlement expansion.

“The Bedouins and herders are at risk of forcible transfer, a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, as well as multiple human rights violations,” said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.

Bedouins in Israel’s Negev settlement within the ‘Green Line’ can also be forcibly relocated after the Israeli court rejected their appeal to be allowed to stay.

“This court is not the address for creating chaos,” stated Justice Elyakim Rubinstein recently in rejecting the appeal of Bedouin residents of the unrecognised Negev settlement of Umm al-Hiran, reported the Israeli daily Haaretz.

In the ruling, Rubinstein noted that the residents – who are slated to be evicted, and whose houses are to be demolished to make way for the construction of the Jewish town of Hiran – have been living in this place for 60 years, after moving to the Nahal Yatir area in 1956 at the orders of the military governor, and that the eviction and demolition of the 50 or so structures they built will affect the lives of hundreds of people.

Despite this, the judge said he believed that the eviction was reasonable and proportional due to the fact that the land in question was owned by the state and that buildings were erected without permits.

However, the Umm al-Hiran residents argued that they were the victims of discrimination and that their property rights were being infringed.

Jews were able to obtain property rights to land on which they had settled but the Bedouins’ right to land on which they had settled was never formalised.

Edited by Phil Harris

By Malini Shankar
BANGALORE, India, Dec 26 2012 (IPS)

Of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) -development targets agreed upon by the international community, whose 2015 deadline is approaching fast – MDG 7 has proven a particular challenge, especially for sprawling, populous countries like India.

With the ambitious aim of improving both natural ecosystems and human environments, MDG 7 comprises numerous targets, from halving the percentage of the world’s population without access to safe drinking water and sanitation, to protecting global fish stocks by preventing illegal fishing and overfishing.

Having pledged millions of euros to helping developing countries achieve the MDGs, the European Union has kept a sharp eye on India, whose regulations and efforts regarding MDG 7 have been inadequate, experts say.

China and India combined are still home to 216 million people without access to clean water and sanitation.
Meanwhile unsustainable fishing practices carry on unchecked. The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute’s latest census counted 243,939 trawlers, despite an official EU ban on these fishing vessels in shallow waters off the coast.

The EU has also placed a full ban on fishing in protected areas like the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park, but commercial fishers take advantage of loopholes in the law to invade these reserves.

The post India Scores Low on Environmental Sustainability appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Travis Lupick
FREETOWN, Dec 26 2012 (IPS)

A coastal city, Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, is an area where people have relied on the ocean for food and employment for as long as they have lived there.

Despite the increasing threat of overfishing and depleted reserves, the waters remain relatively rich, and the source of income for tens of thousands. Large fish such as barracuda are the prize, but a bag of small shellfish dug from the sand of a low-tide can feed a family almost as well. Kelfala Wullarie, a fisherman from Freetown’s Aberdeen neighbourhood, emphasised the extent to which people rely on the water. “At times you catch small, at times you catch big,” he said. “You catch big, you eat.”

The post Sierra Leone’s Waters of Life appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Fishermen operating off the Karachi Harbour in southern Pakistan can earn up to 15,000 rupees (about 145 dollars) per month, but their income is dependent on their catch. As a result, many fisher families live in poverty. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Nov 3 2014 (IPS)

If you want to know what ‘sea traffic’ looks like, just go down to the Karachi Harbour. Built in 1959, the dockyard houses close to 2,000 big and small boats anchored in the grey sludge at the edge of Pakistan’s southern port city, which opens into the Arabian Sea.

Life on the jetty, an all-male domain, is anything but dull. The air is thick with the smell of fish. With anywhere from 100,000 to 150,000 men working here on a given day, mornings are crowded and noisy with vendors auctioning and buyers inspecting the catch.

Loading and unloading of goods continues uninterrupted well into the afternoon; boats are being geared up for the voyage – rations are inspected, fuel, water and ice are stocked, last minute checks of the nets, the ropes and the engines are underway.

The income fluctuates – if the catch is good each fisherman can earn as much as 15,000 rupees (about 145 dollars) that month, but there is no fixed salary. These men only get a percentage based on their haul. There is a ban imposed by the government during the months of June and July because it is the best season for prawns, the mainstay of the fishery industry here in Pakistan.

The Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers an area of about 240,000 sq km and the maritime zone of Pakistan, including the continental shelf, extends up to 350 nautical miles from the coastline.

Thus the country has the potential to become a major producer of seafood, not only for local consumption but for the global market as well. Currently, nearly 400,000 people are directly engaged in fishing in Pakistan and another 600,000 in the ancillary industries.

However, an industry that can earn valuable foreign exchange and create a huge job market contributes a dismal one percent to Pakistan’s GDP, with annual exports touching just 367 million dollars in 2013-2014, primarily to countries like China, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Korea.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

The post Inside Pakistan’s Untapped Fishing Industry appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Fayaz Ahmad Khanday plucks a lotus stem from Wullar Lake in India’s Kashmir. He says the fish population has fallen drastically in recent years. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

By Umar Shah
SRINAGAR, Feb 22 2017 (IPS)

Mudasir Ahmad says that two decades ago, his father made a prophecy that the lake would vanish after the fish in its waters started dying. Three years ago, he found dead fish floating on the surface, making him worried about its fate.

Like his father, Ahmad, 27, is a boatman on Kashmir’s famed Nigeen Lake, located north of Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar. He says the lake has provided a livelihood to his family for generations, but now things are taking an “ugly turn”.“The floods of September 2014 wreaked havoc and caused heavy loss to property and human lives. That was the first signal of how vulnerable have we become to natural disasters due to environmental degradation." --Researcher Aabid Ahmad

The gradual algae bloom in the lake, otherwise known for its pristine beauty, led to oxygen depletion. Fish began to die. Environmentalists termed the development the first visible signs of environmental stress in the lake.

But no one was more worried than Mudasir himself. “We have been rowing boats on the lake for centuries. My grandfather and my father have been fed by this lake. I also have grown up here and my livelihood is directly dependent on the lake,” Ahmad told IPS.

He believes the emergence of rust-coloured waters is the sign of the lake dying a silent death, and he holds everyone responsible. “We have built houses in an unprecedented way around its banks. The drainage from the households directly drifts into the lake, making it more polluted than ever,” Ahmad said.

Blessed with over 1,000 small and large water bodies, the landlocked Kashmir Valley, located northern India, is known as the land of lakes and mountains. However, due to large scale urbanization and unprecedented deforestation, most of the water bodies in the region have disappeared.

A recent study by Kashmir’s renowned environmentalists Gowher Naseem and  Humayun Rashid found that 50 percent of lakes and wetlands in the region’s capital have been lost to other land use/land cover categories. During the last century, deforestation led to excessive siltation and subsequent human activity brought about sustained land use changes in these assets of high ecological value.

The study concludes that the loss of water bodies in Kashmir can be attributed to heavy population pressures.

Research fellow at Kashmir University, Aijaz Hassan, says the Kashmir Valley was always prone to floods but several water bodies in the region used to save the local population from getting marooned.

“All the valley’s lakes and the vast associated swamps played an important role in maintaining the uniformity of flows in the rivers. In the past, during the peak summers, whenever the rivers would flow high, these lakes and swamps used to act as places for storage of excessive water and thereby prevented large areas of the valley from floods,” Hassan said.

Fishermen cover their heads and part of their boats with blankets and straw as they wait to catch fish Kashmir’s Dal Lake. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

India’s largest freshwater lake, Wullar Lake, is located in North Kashmir’s Bandipora area. It too is witnessing severe degradation due to large-scale human intervention. Wullar Lake, which claimed an area of 217.8 sq. km in 1911, has been reduced to about 80 sq. km today, with only 24 sq. km of open water remaining.

Environmentalist Majid Farooq says large areas of the lake have been converted for rice cultivation and tree plantations. According to him, pollution from fertilizers and animal waste, hunting pressure on waterfowl and migratory birds, and weed infestation are other factors contributing to the loss of Wullar Lake’s natural beauty. The fish population in the lake has witnessed a sharp decline due to depletion of oxygen and ingress of pollutants.

Another famed lake known as Dal Lake has shrunk by 24.49 per cent in the past 155 years and its waters are becoming increasingly polluted.

The lake, according to research by the University of Kashmir’s Earth Science Department, is witnessing “multiple pressures” from unplanned urbanisation, high population growth and nutrient load from intensive agriculture and tourism.

Analysis of the demographic data indicated that the human population within the lake areas had shown “more than double the national growth rate.”

Shakil Ahmad Ramshoo, head of Department of Earth Sciences at University of Kashmir, told IPS that the water quality of the lake is deteriorating and no more than 20 percent of the lake’s water is potable.

“As the population increased, all the household sewage, storm runoff goes into the Dal Lake without any treatment — or even if there is treatment done, it is very insufficient. This has increased the pollutant load of the Dal Lake,” he said.

According to Ramshoo, when the study compared the past water quality of the lake with the present, it found ingress of the pollutants has increased and the lake water quality has deteriorated significantly.

According to the region’s tourism department, over one million tourists visit Dal Lake annually and around 300,000 people are directly and indirectly dependent on the lake for their livelihood. The multimillion-dollar handicrafts industry of Kashmir, which gives employment to over 200,000 people, is also heavily dependent upon the arrival of tourists in the region.

A study on the Impact of Tourism Industry on Economic Development of Jammu and Kashmir says that almost 50-60 percent of the total population of Jammu and Kashmir is directly or indirectly engaged in tourism related activities. The industry contributes 15 percent to the state’s GDP.

However, Mudasir Ahmad, whose livelihood is directly dependent on the lake, says every time he takes tourists to explore the lake in his Shikara (a boat), he is asked about the murkier water quality.

“My grandfather and even my father used to drink from this lake. The present situation is worrisome and if this goes unabated, tourists would cease to come. Who would spend money to see cesspools?” Ahmad said.

Fayaz Ahmad Khanday, a fisherman living on Wullar Lake, says the fish production has fallen drastically in the last three years, affecting both him and hundreds of other fishermen.

“Fish used to be present in abundance in the lake but now the scarcity of the species is taking toll. Every day we see dead fish floating on the lake’s waters. We really are concerned about our livelihood and the fate of the lake as well,” Khanday lamented.

The fisherman holds unplanned construction around the lake responsible for its pollution. Aabid Ahmad, a research scholar in Environmental Studies, says Kashmir has become vulnerable to natural disasters as region’s most of the water bodies have either disappeared or are shrinking.

“The floods of September 2014 wreaked havoc and caused heavy loss to property and human lives. That was the first signal of how vulnerable have we become to natural disasters due to environmental degradation,” Ahmad told IPS.

But, for Shakeel Ramshoo, it is still possible to restore the lakes and water bodies of Kashmir.

“Don’t move the people living on these water bodies out.  You just allow them to stay in the lake. We have to control the haphazard constructions that are taking toll around these water bodies,” he said.

“Hutments in the water bodies should be densified with STPs (Sewage Treatment Plants) installed in every household. Land mass can be removed and the area of the water bodies would increase. Also, the sewage treatment mechanism should be better so that the ingress of pollutants is ceased,” Ramshoo said.

The post Shrinking and Darkening, the Plight of Kashmir’s Dying Lakes appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 7 2012 (IPS)

Far from the plush surroundings which hosted Rio+20, the most ambitious global conference on the environment of the past two decades, events in a fishing village in the state of Rio de Janeiro show the cost of fighting environmental crime can be as high as life itself.

The people living in a coastal village on Mauá beach on Guanabara Bay, in the municipality of Magé, 84 km north of Rio, had no time to digest the results of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development held in this city Jun. 20-22.

On Friday Jun. 22, the same day heads of states signed the conference’s final document – which was criticised for its lack of commitment on crucial issues like the protection of the ocean – two fishermen and environmental activists, Almir Nogueira and Jõao Luiz Telles, went missing from their homes.

Nogueira’s body was discovered two days later, tied to his boat which was sunk in the waters off a local beach. Telles was found dead on Jun. 25, washed up onshore in a nearby municipality. He was tied hand and foot in foetal position.

The bodies showed signs the men had died by drowning.

“‘Men of the sea are going to die in the sea.’ That is the message they are sending us,” Alexandre Anderson, head of the Associaçao Homens e Mulheres do Mar (AHOMAR), tearfully declared at a protest meeting held Jun. 29 to demand an immediate investigation by the authorities.

The murder victims were leading members of AHOMAR, an association of some 2,000 artisanal fisherfolk who are fighting against pollution of the bay that has been their home, workplace and the source of their livelihood for generations.

Guanabara Bay is heavily polluted with untreated sewage and contaminants from refineries and other industries close to its shores, and the environment is suffering.

AHOMAR raises awareness of the social and environmental impact of big industries, and tries to prevent the companies from killing off the fish on which they depend. The association has been complaining since 2007 about pollution from construction of the huge Complexo Petroquímico (COMPER, a petrochemical complex) of the state of Rio de Janeiro.

COMPER represents a major investment by Brazil’s state oil company, Petrobras, and is part of the country’s growth acceleration programme launched by the government of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011) and continued by his successor, President Dilma Rousseff.

AHOMAR alleges that construction work on COMPER, sub-contracted by Petrobras to GDK and Oceánica, has reduced the fish catch in Guanabara Bay by 80 percent, as well as causing harm to human health and local wildlife.

The fisherfolk have been targets of threats of violence, and even killings, since 2009 when they used their boats to block access to underwater and onshore construction sites for pipelines for liquefied natural gas (LNG) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

The threats intensified in late 2011, when AHOMAR mounted protest demonstrations against the decision by Rio’s state environmental institute (INEA) to implement plans to transform the Guaxindiba River, which flows into the bay, into a waterway for the transport of heavy machinery. Implementation of the plans had earlier been shelved at the environmental licensing stage.

A police station close to AHOMAR’s premises was closed down.

Anderson has a permanent personal police escort, provided by a protection programme for human rights workers, but he has nevertheless suffered threats and violent attacks.

“We want to preserve our environment because we are part of it. We fisherfolk are part of Guanabara Bay. But we don’t want to have to die by drowning in its waters,” Anderson said.

The treasurer of AHOMAR, Paulo Souza, was attacked and shot to death in front of his family in 2009, as IPS reported at the time. He was killed by five bullets in the head.

In 2010, Marcio Amaro, a founding member of AHOMAR, was murdered in his home in the presence of his wife and his mother.

Neither murder has been solved.

“It is regrettable that all these journalists are gathered here, in front of two more dead bodies, as if this were needed to call attention to a problem that has been going on for such a long time,” Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL) lawmaker Marcelo Freixo, chairman of the human rights commission of the Rio de Janeiro state legislature, told the protest rally.

“I hope the next time we meet here, it won’t be because Alexandre has been killed!” he exclaimed.

Soon after this meeting, Anderson was again the victim of intimidation in front of his home. IPS has not been able to contact him by telephone since then.

“We’re no longer just talking about a state of insecurity. People have died as a result of their activism, their legitimate resistance to the destruction of Guanabara Bay,” activist Sandra Carvalho of the human rights group Justiça Global (Global Justice) told IPS.

Activists are calling for police and federal justice authorities to investigate the deaths, which they say have “clear signs of being execution-style murders”.

“I am requesting the authorities to investigate in depth, because (the perpetrators) have already got what they wanted: they took away men of the sea from their own homes,” Anderson emphasised.

The fishing boats have not returned to their usual occupation since the murders. No one dares to go to sea, which paradoxically used to be a “haven” for fishermen when “something bad happened at home or onshore,” Anderson said. “Now our only road is to the cemetery.”

Human rights organisations are convinced that these are “political crimes”. Freixo told IPS that the companies contracted for the construction work sometimes hire security firms that rely on “intimidation, threats and even killing”.

But Freixo, who is running for mayor of the city of Rio de Janeiro, said he did not believe the perpetrators of the murders had been hired by Petrobras to carry out “hit jobs”.

He stressed, however, that the oil giant “cannot pretend it has nothing to do with these cases. It is Petrobras’s investment project and the company must take responsibility for whomever it contracts,” he said.

Everyone at AHOMAR is certain who the killers are, said Anderson.

“They are people who are making a lot of money out of the industrialisation of Guanabara Bay; they have jobs in security, or in land or water transport. They are inside the provincial and municipal governments, and also in the public security services,” he said.

In Magé and other municipalities in the Rio metropolitan area, hit squads known as “militias” exist; they are made up of active or retired state security agents and have the support of local politicians, as a parliamentary enquiry led by Freixo has demonstrated.

Freixo, too, has a police escort because he has received threats related to his denunciations of these mafia-style militias.

In response to requests for information by IPS, Petrobras sent a communiqué in which it said the oil company was unaware of the deaths and denied making any threats against the fisherfolk.

Petrobras said the process of environmental licensing in Brazil takes into account all ecological impacts as well as possible effects on the communities. Moreover “a rigorous study of the impacts of the initiatives is carried out before the licence is granted, and the licensing body establishes compensation measures and supervises their fulfilment,” the communiqué said.

Petrobras is a “socially and environmentally responsible company that demands the same standards of behaviour from its suppliers,” the communiqué said.

At their next meeting, the fisherfolk will discuss whether to give up the struggle or, instead, to take vigorous actions such as interfering with shipping.

AHOMAR is enmeshed in a battle between “the artisanal fisherfolk and big oil capital,” according to Margarida Pressburger, chairwoman of the human rights commission of the Brazilian bar association (Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil) for Rio de Janeiro.

Anderson put it a different way, saying it was not a case of David versus Goliath, but a struggle “against the devil himself”.

Fishermen dock their boats on a thin strip of sand at Kollam, in Kerala state of south India. Credit: Max Martin/IPS

By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Aug 3 2012 (IPS)

Far-flung South Asian communities, from the high Himalayan slopes to the Indian Ocean coasts, united in the face of extreme and uncertain weather, continue to hold on to the hope that the Rio+20 focus on disaster risk reduction (DRR) will positively influence national policies.

“There is hope in India, the biggest country in the region, that the final statement at the Rio+20 summit titled ‘The Future We Want’ gets translated into national policy before it is too late,” Vinod Chandra Menon, former member of India’s National Disaster Management Authority, told IPS.

Menon, now disaster management consultant to several international bodies, said the current severe drought in South Asia, caused by the failure of this year’s monsoon, should compel policy makers in the region to “walk the Rio+20 talk” and recognise that man-made activities are contributing to climate change.

“For decades there have been warnings that reckless extraction of groundwater was not only lowering the water table drastically but also disturbing the sensitive rain cycle of precipitation, condensation and recharge with serious consequences for rain-fed agriculture,” Menon said.

“It is not far-fetched to say that agricultural distress, marked by the spectacle of farmers committing suicide by the tens of thousands, is the result of an inability to translate climate change knowledge into policy,” Menon said.

According to G. Padmanabhan, emergency analyst and officer-in-charge of the disaster management unit at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in New Delhi, the Rio+20 statement’s value lies in the call for “a renewed sense of urgency” and “adequate, timely and predictable resources” to build resilient communities.

“South Asia is exposed to a variety of hydro-meteorological hazards, and is high on the priority list for risk reduction measures, especially in the context of climate change,” Padmanabhan  said, adding that the DDR call has special relevance for South Asia.

The statement favoured integration of DRR with sustainable development policies and planning, strengthening of institutions and better preparedness, warning, response and recovery. It also stressed the importance of integrating DRR with climate change adaptation.

“Rather than merely focusing on mitigation and its physical aspects, Rio+ 20 invited countries to build resilience through a more holistic approach,” Padmanabhan told IPS.

Such an approach is backed by scientific perceptions.

A 2011 report of the UN climate panel — The IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) — noted that climate extremes and even a series of non-extreme events threaten people’s lives and livelihoods, making communities vulnerable and exposed to greater risks.

“A changing climate leads to changes in the frequency, intensity, spatial extent and duration of weather and climate extremes, and can result in unprecedented extremes,” noted a 2012 Climate & Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) report summarising SREX with an Asian perspective.

“Even without taking climate change into account, disaster risk will continue to increase in many countries as more vulnerable people and assets are exposed to weather extremes. In absolute terms, for example, Asia already has more than 90 percent of the global population exposed to tropical cyclones.”

The Climate Risk Index (CRI) 2012 compiled by the charity Germanwatch termed Bangladesh and Myanmar — along with Honduras — as “most affected” by extreme weather during 1991-2010.

In Bangladesh, 251 events over these 20 years caused an annual average of 7,814 deaths (5.51 per 100,000 inhabitants) and losses of 2,091 million dollars (on purchase level parity, or PPP, a relative value).

More than 80 percent of the deaths occurred in 1991 when 140,000 people died in a cyclone.

In Myanmar (also Burma), 33 events killed, on average, 7,130 people (14.06 per 100,000 inhabitants) a year, causing an annual loss of 659 million dollars (on PPP).

For 2010, Pakistan topped the list due to a severe flood.

The SREX showed a trend of more frequent and intense precipitation days over parts of South Asia. Earlier studies by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have also indicated such a trend.

Climate change and human development

According to SREX, extensive (low-impact/high-frequency) disasters affect human development. For instance, affected areas in Nepal recorded lower primary school enrollment rates and more malnourished children.  

A 2010 study covering 15 districts of Bhutan, India, and Nepal suggested that communities perceive a decrease in annual precipitation and resultant increase in the intensity of dry spells.

The study, undertaken by the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), was part of an International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) programme.

The communities also reported an increase in erratic rainfall patterns and heavy showers when it does rain, Dhrupad Choudhury, the programme coordinator, told IPS. They also found winters warmer with reduced snowfall.

The Rio+20 ‘Future’ document talked about such changes in different geographies. As deforestation, forest degradation, glacier retreat and natural disasters hit the mountains, it called for collaborative efforts to achieve conservation, food security and poverty alleviation.

“The text provides rationale for action,” David Molden, director general of ICIMOD, told IPS. “Mountains are home to only 12 percent of the word’s population; but 40 percent indirectly depend on them for water, hydroelectricity, timber, biodiversity and niche products, mineral resources, recreation, and flood control.”

Professor Saleemul Huq at the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Dhaka, added, “The Rio+20 outcome on green economy holds promise for Bangladesh as it will enable the country to develop its own green development pathway.”

The green economy concept values nature and environmental services and promotes technologies that address the root cause of climate change – global warming due to too much fossil fuel burning.

Mizanur Rahman, programme officer of Islamic Relief Worldwide in Dhaka, said Rio+20 favours a top-down, government-oriented approach and it works. “For countries like Bangladesh, strengthening people’s capacity is also very important, but unfortunately it has not been highlighted.”

Speaking over telephone from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala state, T.  Peter, the secretary of the National Fishworkers Forum, which represents the interests of artisanal fishers, told IPS, “Getting money, under green economy or climate adaptation initiatives, is not important – but how it is spent for the safety and wellbeing of marginal people like us is.”

Peter and his colleagues are actively resisting displacement of fishers for conservation, development and DRR initiatives.

In the south Indian technology hub of Bangalore, Prof. J Srinivasan, chairperson of the Divecha Centre for Climate Change at the Indian Institute of Science, echoed the scepticism of the global green lobby. He said when the industrialised West is excused from responsibility, all other efforts naturally become weak.

“The biggest bottleneck,” Huq said, “is the reluctance of global leaders to realise that the current economic growth paradigm is unsustainable and needs to be pointed down a more sustainable pathway.”

*Max Martin contributed to this report.

(END)

Lallmamode Mohamedally, a Mauritian fisher, points to a European vessel offloading its catch at the port near Les Salines, a fishing town close to the country’s capital Port Louis. Credit: Nasseem Ackbarally/IPS

By Nasseem Ackbarally
PORT LOUIS, Aug 9 2012 (IPS)

“Look out there, the blue one…. that is a European Union fishing vessel that is threatening our livelihood,” says Lallmamode Mohamedally, a Mauritian fisherman, as he points to a boat offloading its catch at the Les Salines port, close to the country’s capital Port Louis.

He is one of the fishers who have returned after a hard day at sea with their boats almost empty. Pollution and tourist activity have reduced the fish catch on the island’s lagoons over the past few years.

But local fishers say a February agreement between the EU and this Indian Ocean island nation, which allows European vessels to catch 5,500 tonnes of fish a year for three years at a cost of 660,000 euros annually, has made the situation worse.

While there are no official figures to confirm this, the 3,500 local fishers, who now have to compete with modern industrialised fishing boats, say that their catch has gone down by 50 to 60 percent.

And the Les Salines fishers believe that the 86 vessels from companies based in the EU, which are fishing in the area, are stealing their livelihoods.

“These big vessels are scratching the sea around Mauritius and taking away all the fish,” says Mohamedally.

While most fishers want the EU vessels to leave, Mohamedally says he would not mind them operating in Mauritian waters “only if they fish like everybody else, like the Taiwanese and the Japanese.”

“Only longliners please. No seines. Those vessels catch all types of fish, small and big alike,” he says.

Long line fishing is a commercial technique that uses hundreds or sometimes thousands of baited hooks, which hang from a single line. This type of fishing commonly targets swordfish, tuna, halibut, and sablefish. Seines use surrounding nets.

However, Mauritian authorities believe that this is the only way to exploit its vast exclusive economic zone or EEZ of 2.3 million square kilometres.

Local fishing companies here are small and do not have the ability to fish on such a large scale. The 5,500 tonnes of fish that Mauritius has allowed the EU to catch each year is in stark contrast to the few tonnes the 34 fishermen of Les Salines catch in a year.

Currently the fisheries sector in Mauritius represents only one percent of the country’s GDP, and the local fish production is only 5,100 tonnes.

Mohamedally says that in the past fish were abundant three to four nautical miles from the coast. Today, the fishers travel almost 15 nautical miles out to sea, but many still come back without a catch.

“What will happen in five years time to our jobs? They are giving us an egg and taking an ox out of our sea,” adds Mohamedally, referring to the 660,000 euros annually that Mauritius has agreed in payment by the EU in exchange for fishing rights in its EEZ.

Judex Rampol, chairman of the Syndicat des Pêcheurs, a fishers’ association, is furious about this. “This is peanuts,” he tells IPS. If local fisherfolk had the capacity to fish so far out at sea, they would earn about 15 million euros for the 5,500 tonnes of fish the EU is now allowed to catch.

However, Minister of Fisheries Nicolas Von-Mally believes Mauritius needs help to exploit its vast EEZ.

“We have no fishing vessels. Should we depend on locals, many fishes would have long died of old age,” he says.

Von-Mally adds that canning factories on the island process the tuna caught by the EU vessels. However, it is sold mainly on the European market.

He adds that tuna is migratory, and if it is not caught in the Mauritian EEZ, it will swim to the zones of the neighbouring Indian Ocean islands of Seychelles and Maldives. “We’ll thus lose revenue,” he says.

Bahim Khan Taher, manager of Taher Seafoods, a small local fishing company, tells IPS that he would like to exploit Mauritius’ fish stock, but he needs modern vessels, equipment and financial incentives to fish in the EEZ.

“If we get some help from the government in terms of fiscal incentives, we could also go out fishing there. This would boost our seafood hub exports,” Taher says.

Meanwhile, environmentalists are concerned that overfishing may deplete tuna stocks in the Indian Ocean. Mauritian oceanographer and environmental engineer Vassen Kauppaymoothoo is one of them.

“The EU vessels are here because the stocks in the other oceans have collapsed. They have been overfished by vessels from Portugal, France and Spain. The only ocean where there is still some fish is the Indian Ocean,” he tells IPS, adding that 5,500 tonnes a year was overfishing and would deplete resources.

He adds that while Mauritius does not have the capacity to fish its EEZ, this does not mean that they should allow foreigners to do so. He says Morocco decided to close its EEZ to foreigners in a decision to solely keep its fish stock for its local population.

“There is no reason to loot my house because I do not have the means to exploit its wealth,” Kauppaymoothoo argues.

But the head of the EU Delegation in Port Louis, Alessandro Mariani, tells IPS that they are helping to create jobs, not take them away.

“In Mauritius alone, 5,500 jobs benefit from the tuna that is disembarked by the EU vessels,” he says.

Mariani claims that there is no competition between the EU fleet and the local fishers because they operates very far away from each other. The EU vessels fish 15 nautical miles from the coast, and the locals at three nautical miles.

“We are also targeting different fish species,” he says.

Mariani says the EU is very sensitive about the tuna stocks in the Indian Ocean.

“Our fishing efforts are guided by scientific research. The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission Scientific Committee said in October 2011 that there is no overfishing in this region,” he says.

Von Mally adds: “We are not shooting at our own feet. We want fish to be always available in our seas for future generations.”

They both deny that the EU placed pressure on the Mauritian government to sign the agreement. “This is simply not true. Mauritius and the EU are partners and we always discuss things about the interest of both the EU and Mauritius,” says Mariani.

Malawi’s Lake Chilwa could dry up completely by next year if the low rainfall in the area continued. Credit: Claire Ngozo/IPS

By Claire Ngozo
LAKE CHILWA, Malawi, Aug 17 2012 (IPS)

Fisherfolk and farmers living near Malawi’s second-largest water body, Lake Chilwa, are relocating en masse and scrambling for space around its shores as the lake has dried to dangerously low levels.

Professor Sosten Chiotha, an expert with the Lake Chilwa Basin Climate Change Adaptation Programme (LCBCCAP), said that it could dry up completely by next year if the low rainfall in the area continued.

The lake dried up completely in 1995 following a drought, which saw a resultant rainfall of 775 mm and 748 mm over two consecutive years.

According to the Malawi Meteorological Services, for the past two years Lake Chilwa’s catchment area has recorded less than 1,000 millimetres of rain. In 2011 and 2012 the total annual rainfall was 1,048 mm and 655 mm respectively, said Chiotha.

And this is not sufficient to sustain the lake.

“In March it appeared as if the situation was not too bad, but gradually the water levels started falling rapidly, particularly by the Mposa and Namanja Beaches. In July, we were able to drive 10 kilometres into the lake from Namanja Beach to an area that had water in March, and we still did not reach open waters,” Chiotha told IPS.

People living on these main beaches have already started relocating to the Swangoma, Chisi and Kachulu beaches in search of new fishing grounds and good farmland, Chiotha told IPS. However, he was unable to estimate how many people have relocated to date.

Chiotha, who is also the regional director of the Leadership of Environment and Development in Southern and Eastern Africa, a global environmental and developmental think tank, cautioned that things could get worse if the lake continued to dry up.

“The movement is also causing congestion and potential conflict,” said Chiotha.

Up to 1.5 million inhabitants from southern Malawi’s Machinga, Phalombe and Zomba districts benefit directly from the 60 by 40 km lake through agriculture and natural resource goods and services, which generate an estimated 21 million dollars per year.

Of that, 18.7 million dollars is generated from fishing, with the remainder coming from farming, bird hunting, and the use of grasslands, vegetation and clay for producing building materials, stated a LCBCCAP brief released in August.

About 17,000 tonnes of fish, or 20 percent of all the fish caught in this southern African nation, comes from the lake.

Godwin Mussa, 41, who was born on Namanja Beach and lived there his entire life, was forced to move to Chisi Beach in July in search of fishing grounds.

“Fishing has been getting harder and harder as the water moved further away from my beach. I just had to move to Chisi so that I can take care of my wife and six children,” Mussa told IPS.

He said that his catch had dwindled to an average of 100 fish per week compared to 600 a week last year.

“Fishing is my only livelihood and that’s why I just had to relocate. I just hope we will get good rain this year so that I can go back home. The fishermen here are getting wary of those of us who are moving into their territory. We are scrambling for fishing grounds,” said Mussa.

Farmers around the lake are also struggling.

Debra Chalichi from Phalombe District has been practising irrigation farming within the lake basin since 2007. But this year she had to wait for the rains in order to irrigate her crop.

“Since last year, the lake has been moving away from where my garden is. I cannot direct the water channels for irrigating into my garden from the lake anymore because it keeps withdrawing,” Chalichi told IPS.

She said that she used to grow rice twice a year, but only managed to grow it once this year as she had to wait for the rainy season.

“Rice farming has been my livelihood and I am getting poorer now. I used to make up to 2,000 dollars in sales. But I have only been able to produce rice worth 800 dollars this year,” said Chalichi.

Rice is one of Malawi’s staple crops, and is second only to maize. Fifty percent of the estimated 100,000 tonnes of rice harvested in Malawi comes from the Lake Chilwa wetlands, according to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture. There are no estimates available on this year’s rice production.

Chiotha told IPS that the low rainfall was negatively affecting the livelihoods and nutrition of those living around the lake.

The situation could force some to leave the area.

John Kabango, 51, from Zomba District, has been fishing on Lake Chilwa since 1981.

He said that in 2005, the last time the water level in the lake started receding, he relocated to the country’s commercial capital, Blantyre. He worked there as a night guard at a factory until conditions around the lake improved and he returned home.

“I never liked the job in Blantyre. I grew up as a fisherman and that is the type of livelihood I am used to. I never managed to make as much money working as a guard anyway and I don’t want to go back to that life,” Kabango told IPS.

He said that he earned up to 800 dollars a week from fishing, but was only paid 100 dollars a week to work as a guard. “It was very difficult to take care of my family when I worked as a guard,” said Kabango, who has a wife and six children.

But his catch has been dwindling drastically since 2011 when the lake first began drying up.

“I used to catch up to 500 fish a night, but I am lucky if I catch 150 now. I am not making as much money and I don’t know if I will manage to take care of my family if the lake dries up,” Kabango told IPS.

So he is doing all he can to ensure that he does not have to leave the area. Kabango has joined a LCBCCAP community initiative that is implementing adaptation measures to help locals cope with the low rainfall and the drying lake.

“We are digging pools around the lake to allow fish to seek shelter and breed in there as the lake dries up,” said Kabango.

He said that farmers were adopting modern methods of irrigation and started using treadle pumps to source water from the lake. While it will not prevent the lake from drying up, it will conserve some of the much-needed water.

“My wife farms and she is now involved in a rainwater harvesting project so that the water collected is used for irrigation when it is the dry season and the lake has receded further,” said Kabango.