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By Devinder Sharma Mangrove swamps are nature's way of protecting coastal areas from large waves and cyclones. But intensive shrimp farming and unbridled tourism have destroyed mangroves and coral reefs and caused the dilution of coastal regulations. The tsunami must therefore be seen as not just the wrath of nature, but the result of faulty economic practices and the destruction of ecosystems
 As first reports of the devastation caused by the tsunami began to come in, a newsreader on Aaj Tak’s Headline Today television channel asked his correspondent reporting from the scene of destruction in Tamil Nadu: “Any idea how much the loss to business is? Can you find that out because that would be more important for our business leaders?”
What the newscaster didn’t realise perhaps was that the disaster was more or less brought on by faulty business and economic practices, its magnitude exacerbated by neo-liberal economic policies that have pushed economic growth at the expense of human life. The outcome of an economic system -- promoted by the World Bank and the IMF -- that believes in usurping the environment, nature and the lives of many for the sake of unsustainable economic growth for a few. Since the 1980s, the Asian seacoast has been plundered by large industrialised shrimp firms bringing environmentally unfriendly aquaculture to its seashores. Shrimp cultivation, which grew to over 8 billion tonnes a year in 2000, had already played havoc with our fragile ecosystems. The ‘rape-and-run’ industry, as the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) once termed it, has largely been funded by the World Bank. Nearly 72% of shrimp farming is confined to Asia . The expansion of shrimp farming has been at the expense of tropical mangroves -- one of the world’s most important ecosystems. Each acre of mangrove forest destroyed results in an estimated 676-pound loss in marine harvest. Mangrove swamps are nature’s protection in coastal regions against large waves and cyclones. They serve as a nursery to three-fourths of the commercial fish species that spend part of their lifecycle in mangrove swamps. Mangroves constitute one of the world’s most threatened habitats, and faulty economic policies have hastened their disappearance. The World Bank has turned a deaf ear to repeated warnings by ecologists and environmentalists about the fragile nature of this ecosystem. Meanwhile, shrimp farming continues its destructive spree, eating away more than half the world’s mangroves. Since the 1960s, for instance, aquaculture and other industrial activities in Thailand resulted in a loss of over 65,000 hectares of mangroves. In Indonesia , Java lost 70% of its mangroves, Sulawesi 49% and Sumatra 36%. Even as the tsunami struck in all its fury on December 26, logging companies were busy axing mangroves in Indonesia ’s Aceh province for export to Malaysia and Singapore . Over the last three decades, India ’s mangrove cover has been reduced to less than a third of what it once was. Between 1963 and 1977, we destroyed nearly 50% of our mangroves. Local communities were forcibly evicted to make way for shrimp farms. In Andhra Pradesh, almost 50,000 people were forcibly removed and millions displaced all along the coastal belt to make room for aquaculture farms. Whatever was left of the mangroves was cut down by the building and hotel industries, as five-star hotels, golf courses, industries and mansions sprung up all along the coastline oblivious to the concerns being expressed by environmentalists. Both the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Ministry of Industries worked overtime to dilute Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms, allowing hotels to take over the 500-metre buffer to be maintained along beaches. In a prevailing market economy, reflected in the misplaced ‘Shining India’ slogan, bureaucrats are in league with industrialists and big business interests. Much of the responsibility for the huge death toll in the tsunami disaster, therefore, rests with the government and free market apologists. The tourist boom in the Asia-Pacific region coincided with the destructive fallout of the unprecedented growth in shrimp cultivation. In the past decade, tourist arrivals increased faster in this region than any other in the world -- almost twice that in industrialised countries. Projections for the year 2010 indicate that the region will surpass the Americas to become the world’s number two tourism spot, with 229 million arrivals. In the past two decades, the entire coastline along the Bay of Bengal , Arabian Sea and Straits of Malacca in the Indian Ocean , and all along the South Pacific Ocean , has witnessed massive investment in tourism. What’s being projected as an indicator of spectacular economic growth hides the enormous environmental costs that these countries have suffered and will continue to suffer in future. Myanmar and the Maldives suffered less from the effects of the tsunami, as the tourism industry has not yet spread its tentacles to the virgin mangroves and coral reefs along these coastlines. The large coral reef around the Maldives absorbed much of the impact of the giant waves, restricting human casualties to a little over 100 dead. Likewise, the island chain of Surin, off the west coast of Thailand , escaped heavy destruction. Although the ring of coral reef surrounding the islands received a battering from the powerful waves, they held firm. Coral reefs absorb the sea’s fury by helping break the waves; the tragedy is that over 70% of the world’s coral reefs have already been destroyed. Mangroves help protect offshore coral reefs by filtering out silt flowing seawards from the land. The spurt in tourism, whether eco-tourism or leisure tourism, has decimated the mangroves and destroyed coral reefs. Ecologists tell us that mangroves provide double protection against tidal waves. The first layer of red mangroves, with their flexible branches and tangled roots hanging down into the water, absorbs the first shock waves. The second layer of tall black mangroves operates like a wall, withstanding much of the sea’s fury. Mangroves also absorb more carbon dioxide per unit area than ocean phytoplankton -- a critical factor in global warming. When a tsunami struck the Bangladesh coast in 1960, not a single life was reported lost. The coastline then was lined with mangroves, which were subsequently cut down and replaced with shrimp farms. In 1991, thousands of people were killed when a tsunami of the same magnitude swept the region. Pichavaram and Muthupet in Tamil Nadu, with their dense mangroves, suffered low human casualties and less economic damage in the December 26 tsunami. Earlier, the famed mangroves of Bhiterkanika in Orissa (which also serve as the breeding grounds of the Olive Ridley turtle) had reduced the impact of the supercyclone that hit the region in October 1999, killing over 10,000 people and rendering millions homeless. The epicentre of the December 26 earthquake that triggered the killer tsunami was close to Simeuleu island in Indonesia . The death toll on this particular island was significantly low, as the inhabitants knew about underwater quakes triggering off tsunamis. In Nias island, which is close to Simeuleu island, the mangroves acted as a wall sheltering countless people against the destructive power of the waves. The challenge for developing countries is to learn from time-tested technologies that have been perfected by local communities. Let us now look at the comparative advantage of protecting the environment and limiting the effects of a growth-oriented market economy. Having grown tenfold in the last 15 years, shrimp farming is now a $9 billion industry. It is estimated that shrimp consumption in North America , Japan and Western Europe has increased 300% within the last 10 years. The massive wave of destruction caused by the December 26 tsunami in 11 Asian countries alone has surpassed, several times over, the economic gain that the shrimp industry claims to have harvested over the years. With over 150,000 people dead, the staggering social and economic losses will take some time to assess. World governments have so far pledged US$ 4 billion in aid to countries affected by the tsunami, apart from the billions being spent by relief agencies. The World Bank is considering boosting its aid packet to US$ 1.5 billion. It has already given (as of January 10, 2005 ) $175 million and its president James Wolfensohn has been quoted as saying: “We can go up to even $1 billion to $1.5 billion depending on the needs…” In addition, the World Food Programme (WFP) plans to feed some 2 million survivors for the next six months. The feeding operation is likely to cost US$ 180 million. If only successive presidents of the World Bank had refrained from aggressively promoting ecologically unsound but market-friendly economic policies, thousands of lives and billions of dollars would have been saved. What did the world gain from pushing market reforms at the expense of both the environment and human lives? Can Wolfensohn justify the financial backing given to the aquaculture and tourism sectors by drawing up a balance sheet of the costs and benefits? Take the shrimp farms, for instance. The lifecycle of a shrimp farm is, at most, two to five years. The ponds are then abandoned, leaving behind toxic waste, destroyed ecosystems and displaced communities. The farms come up at the cost of natural ecosystems, including mangroves. The whole cycle is later repeated in another pristine coastal area. It has been estimated that the economic losses from shrimp farms are approximately five times their potential earnings. Tourism fares no better. Kerala in south India , marketed as ‘God’s own country’, destroyed much of its mangroves in a desperate bid to lure tourists. After the tsunami, the state government was quick to announce a Rs 340 million project aimed at insulating the Kerala coastline against tidal surges. Other tourist destinations in Asia will also probably be forced to do a rethink. Does there have to be a heavy human toll before we realise the follies of blindly following the market economy mantra? How many more people have to die, and how many millions have to be rendered homeless before we realise the futility of pushing the market economy? InfoChange News & Features, January 2005
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