seaturtle.org : MTN : ARCHIVES : Sign In
Marine Turtle Newsletter 63:S2-3, © 2001
N. Nmosovsky
Founding Editor of the MTN, Department of Zoology Ramsay Wright Zoological Laboratories 25 Harbord Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1 Canada
Readers of this Newsletter receive it free. Nothing is required except an interest in sea turtles. Here we ask you not for money but simply to write a letter to the authorities in India, expressing your views on plans to build a large jetty and port near the olive ridley arribada site at Gahirmatha, Orissa, India. The situation was described by Harry Andrews earlier this year (MTN 61:5-6).
At Gahirmatha the arribadas of ridleys are huge. In 1991, 610,000 turtles nested in a single week! There are now plans to build, a mere 10 km away from this rookery, a jetty large enough to accommodate 500 mechanized fishing boats and shrimping trawlers. Already increasing numbers of adult turtles are being caught in fishing gear off Gahirmatha. Often they are killed as that is the quickest way to release them from the nets.
From your own experience or what you have read, is it likely that shrimping and turtles will mix well? Is it likely that a major port for fishing will have benign effects on turtles nesting a mere 10 km away? Will enforcement of regulations really be possible? What would be the tourist potential for a sight of this magnitude? If tourism were developed, would it be likely to help the general economy of the region? If the authorities wish to increase protein available for people, is it wise to destroy a resource that produces vast numbers of excess turtle eggs each year (e.g., those dug up by turtles nesting later)?
Is it easy to restore populations of sea turtles once they have been decimated? What has happened to the arribadas of olive ridleys on the Pacific coast of Mexico? With so much at stake, why has no environmental impact statement been written and widely distributed? What attention has been given to the possibility of increasing the capacity of the present harbours at Paradeep and/or Dhamara which are already accessible by road? If construction were to be stopped pending more extensive assessments, should the government in India promote some wide-ranging review of their policy on sea turtles in general, perhaps at an equivalent level to the 1990 U. S. National Academy of Sciences' report "Decline of the Sea Turtles"? That report documents the devastating mortality of turtles from incidental catch by shrimpers.
Many MTN readers have views and experience bearing on some of these questions. Please make this experience available to the authorities in India (addresses below). In the April issue of the MTN, Harry Andrews published a plea to you for letters, but few responded. Now Romulus Whitaker writes to us from Madras with an urgent appeal for letters. There is little time left. The letters can be quite short but should be respectful.
The MTN readership (English and Spanish editions) includes more than 1700 concerned and informed people in more than 100 nations and territories around the globe. Collectively. we can have an effect, as we did before (e.g., MTN 25:1). Please let the authorities in India have your views. Please do it now, while there is still a chance. If you have found the MTN of value in any way, please say Thank You by writing to India. Please send a copy of your letter to the MTN Editors or to Romulus Whitaker (Madras Crocodile Bank, Post Bag No. 4, Mamallapuram 603 104, T.N., S. India). Letters should be sent to the following:
Chief Minister of Orissa
Government of Orissa
Bhubaneshwar, Orissa INDIA
Shri. P. V. Narasimha Rao
Honourable Prime Minister of India
Rashtrapati Bhavan
New Dehli 110011 INDIA
Shri. Kamal Nath
Minister of the Environment and Forests
Paryavaran Bhavan, C.G.O. Complex
Lodi Road, New Delhi 110003 INDIA
So often in conservation we are forced into dealing with crises, into protecting remnants and hints of former splendor. Here is an opportunity to speak for one of the world's greatest natural spectacles before it is destroyed.