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

Field visit

Akila’s next step was to visit the closest plantation, which was about 45 km south of Chennai in Kancheepuram District. There she saw how the plantation had been established right up to the high tide line, leaving absolutely no space for turtles to even come ashore. She alerted a couple of her colleagues at WWF and also spoke to a few other people, but all of them felt that the World Bank and the Tamil Nadu Forest Department were powerful entities and that taking them on after the deed was done was fruitless.

Finding allies

Undettered, Akila met the Kancheepuram DFO, Mr. B.Sugirtharaj Koil Pillai, an IFS (Indian Forest Service) officer, explained the problem and requested him to remove Casuarina saplings for about 50 m from the high tide line to allow turtles enough space to nest.  She found the officer sympathetic and willing to help. At the time of planting he hadn’t realized the danger posed by the plantations to olive ridleys. Unfortunately, he was powerless to act without an order from the PCCF.

Not willing to give up, Akila contacted Shekar Dattatri, a wildlife filmmaker and conservationist in Chennai. Shekar believed that the problem could be solved and offered to help in dealing with it.  Arun, a teacher at the Krishnamurthi Foundation School in Chennai and the other coordinator of the SSTCN also felt strongly about the plantations and pledged his assistance to the effort.

The dilemma – to go to court, or not?

Given the general apathy and unresponsiveness of the bureaucracy in India, one is tempted to rush to court when confronted with an environmental problem.  However that may not always be the best thing to do.  In this instance, we even had offers from top lawyers to take up the case pro bono (free of cost). However, upon careful reflection, we held back for the following reasons:

Today courts are increasingly of the view that – except in an emergency – administrative remedies available to a citizen, such as approaching officials for action, must be comprehensively explored before preferring any Public Interest Litigation (PIL). In this case, the plantations had already been in existence for over a year. It is likely that the court would have asked us what we were doing when the trees were being planted and why we were approaching it after all the work was completed.

We also felt that asking a judge to order the uprooting of thousands of trees was fraught with the risk of rejection as it flew in the face of conventional wisdom, which holds that planting trees is a good thing. Given that these plantations were also supposedly going to protect human life and property, the chances that the judge would appreciate the fact that in this particular case uprooting trees was a good thing, was not guaranteed.

For all we knew, the case could well be thrown out under the simplistic logic that human lives were more important than those of turtles. An unfavorable court ruling would seal the fate of the turtles once and for all and was therefore a risk we could not take.  So we decided to pursue all the available bureaucratic avenues first, keeping the option of going to court as a last resort.

This sort of strategic thinking is absolutely essential when planning a conservation campaign.  As the saying goes, only fools rush in where angels fear to tread!

Understanding the issue and collecting evidence

In January 2007, we (Akila Balu, Shekar Dattatri and Arun) conducted a beach survey in Kancheepuram District.  We found dense one and half year old plantations right up to the high tide line and documented these with photographs and video. Our most interesting finding was that there was no Casuarina to protect fisher villages, beach resorts and beach residences; but empty beaches with nothing behind to protect had been planted. This completely contradicted the PCCF’s contention that the Casuarina had been planted to protect coastal communities from future tsunamis and cyclones.

When we asked the fishing communities why their sea front was totally exposed to the elements they told us that they preferred it that way and were opposed to Casuarina plantations coming between them and the sea.  They said they needed to be able to see the sea from their huts and also required easy access to their boats and fishing gear.  As for the beach resorts and residences, they did not want Casuarina to mar their view of the sea! None of these stakeholders had been consulted prior to the planting.