Freeing sea turtle nesting beaches from Casuarina plantations – A case study from Tamil Nadu

The campaign strategy

As the PCCF was not receptive to further dialogue on the subject, it was decided that Akila would meet the Chief Wildlife Warden and seek his intervention.

• The Chief Wildlife Warden (CWLW) cum PCCF – Wildlife, Dr. Sukhdev Thakur, agreed that Department officials had made a mistake in planting right up to the high tide line. He was in favour of mitigation measures such as removing some rows of casuarina.
• The CWLW immediately directed a Chief Conservator of Forests (CCF) to conduct an inspection and give a report.
• The inspection was carried out along with Akila on the 17th of December 2007.
• However, no action was taken subsequently, and phone calls to the officer and letters to the Chief Wildlife Warden went unheeded.

After waiting in vain for the government’s response for a month, we decided that since the shelterbelt project was undertaken with World Bank funding, we would lodge a written complaint with its President.

Drafting the complaint

When one gets into campaign mode, there is a tendency to rush around doing things.  Sometimes quick action is indeed warranted – especially to prevent some imminent destruction – and even a day’s delay could have serious consequences. Other circumstances call for a cooler response. We were very clear that since the damage had already been done, there was no point in needless haste.  We wanted to make sure that all our information was accurate, and took pains to verify each fact. We wanted to draft a letter that would allow no doubts or comebacks.  Checkmate on the first move was the goal, since our arguments were pretty watertight.

It took about 4 days to get the letter just right, down to the last detail.  When the stakes are high even small things could matter – such as the tone and tenor of the language, clarity of writing, perhaps even the font used!  The final letter included clear photographs with succinct captions and ended with a strong plea to undo the damage that had been caused (see attached document download for a PDF of the letter).

Copies were marked to a number of Indian NGOs and media organizations, with an electronic copy sent by email and a hard copy by courier. As a result of this effort, a couple of English newspapers, a few magazines and NDTV, an influential television news channel, covered the issue.  The latter’s television report came in particularly handy later.

Results

On February 7th 2008, three weeks after we sent the letter to the President of the World Bank, two senior officials from the Bank’s Delhi office, Mr. Christoph Pusch, Task Team Leader, ETRP and Ms. Ranu Sinha, came to Chennai to discuss our concerns.  The meeting, which lasted about an hour, was cordial and constructive.  The officials listened carefully, sought clarifications and were not in the least defensive or dismissive. It was clear that they were genuinely concerned about the issue and its resolution.  We explained the problem and the solution in detail, showed them photographs and played two video clips – a five-minute compilation of olive ridley footage, and the excellent NDTV news story done by the Channel’s Chennai Correspondent, Sam Daniel.  By the end of the meeting the World Bank officials were convinced that:

• The problem was real and had to be rectified.
• Olive ridleys needed open beaches for nesting and incubation of their eggs.
• Removing Casuarina for 50 m from the high tide line was an acceptable compromise.

They told us that they would discuss the matter with senior Forest Department officials the next day and revert, but we did not hear from them. A confidential source told us that the meeting had not been very cordial and that the World Bank team had encountered resistance and hostility to the idea of removing any Casuarina.  However it had been agreed – at the TNFD’s suggestion – that an NGO of the PCCF’s choice would carry out an independent assessment, and that if this NGO indicated that there was a problem, TNFD was willing to consider removing some of the Casuarina.

TREE Foundation’s report & TNFD’s about turn

In March 2007, the TREE Foundation, a conservation NGO based in Chennai was requested by the PCCF to carry out a study.  The Foundation’s Chairperson, Dr. Supraja Dharini, promptly conducted the field assessment and gave a detailed report with supporting photographs to the TNFD.  The concluding paragraph of the report clearly stated that the Casuarina plantations were a major impediment to sea turtle nesting and needed to be uprooted for at least about 45 m from the high tide line.  Those beyond 45-50 m could remain.

In April TREE Foundation received a rude shock in the form of a letter from the PCCF, which posed a long list of questions about the methodology of the survey, the sampling size etc.  The way the questions were worded made it clear that the TNFD was not pleased with the report’s conclusion and was trying to pick holes in the assessor’s credibility and capability.

In May, TREE Foundation sent detailed clarifications to these questions.

Notwithstanding this – and despite an assurance to the World Bank team that TNFD would heed the recommendations of the NGO nominated by them – nothing was done. In fact, TNFD did not even forward the TREE Foundation report to the World Bank!

Opening a new front

With matters having reached an impasse with the TNFD, we decided to try a different tactic.  The shelterbelt plantation scheme was part of a larger tsunami relief effort headed by the Tamil Nadu Tsunami Relief Commissioner, Mr. C.V. Shankar, a senior IAS officer who was holding additional charge of this portfolio.  So we decided to put the problem in his hands.  Apart from the usual photographic evidence, video clips and copies of letters to the World Bank and Forest Department, we had something else to show him – a published paper presented by the PCCF at a post tsunami conference.  On the last page of this paper were four clear reasons the PCCF had given for why Casuarina should not be planted right up to the high tide line:

• Because beaches are used by sea turtles for nesting.
• Because beaches are habitats for several species of crabs
• Because beaches supply sand to the littoral current that runs along the shore, and stabilizing the sand in one place through planting trees would lead to the current taking sand from elsewhere, causing erosion.
• Because beaches are natural landscapes of great aesthetic value, and planting trees right up to the high tide line destroys their natural beauty.

On the strength of all the evidence presented, Mr. Shankar promised to do everything in his power to ensure that the Casuarina plantations were removed for 50 m from the high tide line.  In fact he confessed that, not being aware of the negative impact of this type of plantation, he had, until then, been proud to see the profuse growth of Casuarina during aerial surveys with World Bank officials.

To cut a long story short, thanks to our persistent follow up, the sincere efforts of the Tsunami Relief Commissioner, and constant pressure from the World Bank’s Disaster Management Team, there was finally light at the end of the tunnel.  On 5.9.2008 a Government Order was passed directing the TNFD to uproot Casuarina from the turtle-nesting zone.  The government also sanctioned the necessary funds for this work.  It was an unprecedented victory, but there was much work to do before the next nesting season started in December.

We were insistent that the trees be removed along with the rootstock so that they would not regenerate again.  This was no small feat, as the Casuarina had grown taller and stronger by this time.   However, it was carried out in letter and spirit, thanks to a large extent to the exemplary cooperation of the Kancheepuram DFO, Mr. Sugirtharaj Koil Pillai.  Akila and I did random spot checks along the coast and found the work to be satisfactory.

Today, olive ridleys continue to nest on these beaches – as they have been doing for tens of thousands of years – thanks to everyone’s efforts. It took about 20 months of patient campaigning on our part, with many visits to government offices, field surveys and letter writing, but the results were worth it.  Had we not bothered, not only would sea turtles have permanently lost their age-old nesting grounds, the plantations would have also caused irreparable erosion to parts of the Tamil Nadu coast.