Narcondam - “Pit of Hell”

The full version

Published in July 2010, Outlook Traveller

At daybreak, the ‘Pit of Hell’ emerged hazily from the horizon like a mirage. We had spent almost 24 hours fighting the wind across the Andaman Sea and for much of that time, totally out of sight of land. Four hours later, we reached the end of our almost 260 km voyage from Port Blair. We anchored off the north-eastern shore at Police Post Bay so-called for one of the remotest camps of any police force in the world. Inexplicably the ancient Portuguese called it “Barata (Cockroach) Bay”! It is also probably one of the few outposts that has no civilians in its precincts and consequently, an enviable nil crime rate. A group of paramilitary police of the Indian Reserve Battalion safeguard India’s claim to the most isolated island of the entire Andaman group. It seemed like a paid, policeman’s holiday but as we found out later, these brave-hearts marooned in the “pit of hell” were homesick and afraid of the wild jungle.

Police Post Bay

There was no idyllic sandy beach but the island had all the other hallmarks of an earthly paradise: a picturesque, densely forested hill looming 710 m out of the deep blue sea. So why the contrarian name: Narak-kund (Sanskrit for ‘pit of hell’)? Popular theory says that perhaps ancient Indian cartographers christened India’s only volcano (now drily and unimaginatively called Barren Island) as an infernal sink. But over time (as early as the year 1701), the larger, extinct volcano lying 150 km northeast of the rightful-owner of the name became known as Narcondam. It’s worth remarking that none of the other islands in the Andaman group were named by Indians. If a foolhardy crow was to fly from Port Blair to Rangoon (Burma), he’d spy verdant Narcondam along the way, about 114 km east of North Andaman.

A male Narcondam hornbill

About six months after the tsunami of 2004, Narcondam reportedly lived up to its name by spewing mud and smoke. This sudden activity in a volcano that last erupted more than 12,000 years ago ought to have made front page news (but didn’t). However, the news sang through the internet frequencies exciting volcano spotters around the world. Some speculated that the massive earthquake may have set off some magma movement under the tectonic plates. Eventually geologists at the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, reported that it was a damp squib: clouds of dust caused by a landslide had given the impression of an eruption. This did little to convince the police personnel who were evacuated and the outpost abandoned for eighteen months. Nonetheless, there was still a shred of doubt: we wanted to be certain that India had only one active volcano.

For the following three days, we were to live aboard the 48 foot yacht, the Emerald Blue, and commute to shore in an inflatable dinghy. April, with its calm waves before the monsoonal currents set in, was one of the best months to land. Narcondam is a 1700 metre high, solitary oceanic mountain, of which more than 1000 metres lies below the surface of the sea. There were hardly any shallows and landing was tricky; the dinghy would have to surf onto a small ledge on the slope. Amongst the smooth round andesite boulders (of volcanic origin) bordering the shoreline, was a tiny little sandy beach with conveniently just enough space for all of us to make a quick jump into knee deep water before the next wave came crashing in.

Eight of us, with an interest in wildlife and wild places, were crammed on board the Emerald Blue for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. While an extensive list of birds seen on Narcondam had been compiled by previous teams of birders, little was known about the rest of the animal and plant kingdom. Members of the team now hoped to add to that sparse information.

A recent birdwatchers’ newsletter had raised concerns about goats over-running the island. Since the 1500s it was a common mariners’ practice to drop off livestock such as goats, pigs, chickens and even giant tortoises on islands as nourishment for shipwrecked mariners. Indeed Alexander Selkirk, the prototype Robinson Crusoe, survived four years as a castaway on one of the Juan Fernández islands, off Chile on such feral goats. Narcondam was no exception: in 1899 A.O. Hume quoted Robert Tytler saying that “pigs, goats and fowls” had been released there. We don’t know if these were eaten up by unfortunate sailors or whether they eventually died out, but in 1976, the Indian Police brought two pairs of goats to keep their personnel stationed on the island well-stocked with animal protein. Perhaps the men got sick of eating mutton every day, because, by 1998, there were 400 of the voracious caprines rapidly eating their way through the native island vegetation.

Ornithologists lobbied for the removal of these animals, going so far as to argue that the island was being held together by tree roots and implying that should forest regeneration be adversely affected then not only the hornbill population but the whole island could collapse. Their worries were not misplaced, as one other iconic island bird, the dodo, was driven to extinction by introduced pigs, monkeys and carnivorous men a couple of centuries earlier on Mauritius. Although the Narcondam hornbill isn’t nearly as harried, the tiny size of its island home (7 sq.km.) severely handicaps its ability to survive any threat. So checking on the goats was high on our agenda.

A giant fig tree

Around the police camp were extensive coconut, banana and areca plantations (in 1916, this area was recognized by its groves of Burmese fishtail palms) and the place reeked of human feces. A yearling water monitor lizard and a gorgeous brilliant green Andaman day-gecko watched us from the safety of trees. Koel calls rang through the forest. In the absence of crows, whose nests would they parasitize? Pigeons, replied Divya Mudappa.

The force of the monsoonal stream had sliced through the embankments of a dry streambed as neatly as a knife through butter-fruit. The vertical walls of boulders were held in place by roots of trees. Still, a pipeline carrying water from a tiny perennial waterfall further upstream to the police camp had to be protected from rolling rocks dislodged by heavy rains and frequent earthquakes. Indeed in several locations, mangled lengths of pipes lay twisted and trapped under piles of debris.

The air was still and very humid; a hill myna high up in the canopy prattled away until silenced by the wild shrieking of a juvenile white-bellied sea eagle being mobbed by two pairs of squawking Narcondam hornbills. It was their nesting season, and predatory raptors were not welcome in the immediate air space. Further up the wash, the boulders below a huge tree were splattered with little brown scat-spots, telltale evidence of a nest directly above our heads. Soon the parents returned after seeing off the eagle, victoriously chuckling to one another. This was our first good look at this charismatic species: the father was a handsome honey-brown fellow while the female was an ordinary black. Since their enormous yellowish-red beaks were in the way, they had to tilt their heads comically sideways in order to see us. By counting the rings on the casque above the beak, we could tell the male was six years old. Disgusted by our presence, they took off screaming invectives.

Kalyan Varma urgently beckoned us over and pointed to a rusty brown bird lurking in the undergrowth. It was a slaty-legged crake, a species not recorded in the Andaman Islands before. Kalyan had been washing his face by the pool when he felt something pecking the Velcro on his footwear. It’s hard to tell whether the crake was mystified by the man or his Tevas. In an ironic situation for a photographer, the bird was much too close to his long lens for a picture!

The hornbills would have been similarly trusting of the first humans they had ever met. Indeed in 1898, the commanding officer of the ‘Elphinstone’, Lt. J.H. St. John, had observed that the birds were tame. But in the intervening century, they had been shot for museum specimens by visiting ornithologists as well as for the pot by the police force, so sadly the hornbills have become fearful of humans, just like any mainland animal. Not only the birds, St. John says even water monitors were as “tame as pet mice and one climbed into the lap of the Chief Commissioner’s niece and seemed to be quite at home.” Needless to say, these lizards were now scarce (apparently hunted by the resident humans) and the few big ones that we encountered went crashing into the undergrowth. The only trusting animals were the numerous skinks who investigated the falling crumbs from our mid-day snacks.

A young water monitor lizard

The forest undergrowth wilted in the heat, reflecting our state of being too. The resin (dhup) of the huge Canarium trees remained uncollected, unlike other islands where it is intensively harvested. At a tiny little beach, we spotted a hornbill chick in a nest hole high up on a tall, straight-boled Tetrameles tree. While the rest decided to get pictures of the parents feeding the little one, a couple of us set out for the lighthouse on the northwest tip of the island. It was a steep climb. The reward for climbing to the top was a spectacular view of Pigeon Island surrounded by an indigo blue sea.

Pigeon Island

Back at the boat, all of us jumped in the water to cool off after the long sweaty day. In the distance we could hear the hornbills squawking, there was a freshly caught snapper frying in the galley and we had the rare privilege of being in one of the most spectacular and isolated spots in the world. Narcondam, the hell-hole? No way! More appropriate would be Swargam, the heavenly abode! The only fine print is that the sun rises at an ungodly 5 am in this paradise (you can blame the westerly Indian Standard Time line).

Very early one morning, we set sail for the west coast. My main goal was to climb the summit, and we hoped to follow the detailed route mentioned in the latest edition (2009/2010) of the Southeast Asia Pilot (the Andaman section appears to have been written by two British nationals and it would be interesting to know how they got permission to go ashore). The estimated duration of ascent was three hours for the “reasonably fit and agile,” and descent was likely to take another two hours. It sounded like it could be done all in a day’s walk but much depended on our ability to land. That morning, the currents were strong and the waves crashed roughly over the rocky beach which was the designated starting point. Nick Band, the captain, made a quick reconnaissance and the prognosis was grim: landing there was a definite recipe for broken legs. Plan B was to attempt an ascent from the hornbill-nest beach on the north coast of Narcondam.

We managed to land but not without getting soaked by the turbulent waves. Within a few paces of starting up the hill slope, we were startled to see a trail. Goats? Rom Whitaker however, noticed the path leading into the roots of a tree. Any goat would have to be a midget to crawl into that tiny space; it could only have been a rat trail. The climb became steadily steeper and more difficult to negotiate with fallen rotting logs blocking the path. Marveling at the massive dhup trees that rose high and lofty as rockets and their fin-like buttresses provided a welcome break from the arduous climb. It was tempting to think that no human had climbed this ridge but in this increasingly explored world, one cannot say that with any certainty.

A giant dhup tree

Half way up a steep climb, an exhausted Rom copped out. He promised to wait but knowing him too well, he’d be off either looking for lizards in the luxuriant valley below or heading back to the beach. There was precious little by way of birds or animals on this climb to keep a bored human entertained. Neither were any hornbills visible nor the fig trees that sustained them. It became steeper and more slippery; dislodged rocks rolled perilously downhill barely missing people behind, and like gibbons we used our arms to take our weight as footholds couldn’t be trusted.

A cool breeze blowing gently off the sea invigorated our catch-our-breath stops. Four hours from the starting point, we reached the top of a 430 m hill, but the summit of Narcondam still towered over us. Several humans had left evidence of their presence here by gouging their names on trees; the culprits must have come from the police camp which was at the foot of the hill on the eastern side. To reach the tallest peak we would have to descend at least 100 m to a valley and then climb another 400 m. Shankar Raman declared, “It would just take 2000 paces to climb that hill”. It seemed so simple, but there wasn’t enough time to do it and camping up there was out of the question. The vegetation at the higher elevations looked denser than the deciduous forest we had just climbed and therefore the going would be slower. (The thickly forested summit also bore testament to the fact that Narcondam hadn’t recently aspired for active volcano-hood.) We could descend to the police camp directly, but we were committed to returning the way we came as we had left Rom behind.

After a half hour rest, our clothes were still wet with sweat, but we decided to make a move. I was also beginning to worry about Rom; I saw visions of him lying unconscious or in pain with a broken leg. The descent was even more slippery than the ascent. We tried to climb down gingerly without dislodging any rocks but a few did escape. Like lumberjacks, we hollered down to the people ahead, “Rock!” but with the slope being so steep there was little they could do to get out of the way in time. Fortunately the rocks missed them; but once, Naveen actually jumped up in the air acrobatically to avoid being hit by a tumbling boulder. Quickly we learnt to wait till the others were behind a tree before sliding down a tricky incline. I imagined that Rom was probably asleep under a tree way down below, unaware of the rocks we were dislodging and perhaps one would hit his head. My disquiet grew worse; I refused to let anyone take any breaks, and I set a punishing rhythm.

A couple of hours later, we arrived exhausted at the beach to find Rom fully stretched out having a snooze to the soothing rhythm of the crashing waves. Apparently he had tacked a note for us on the tree where we had parted, but since we couldn’t remember the spot and being in a hurry, we never saw it. (If any of you find it, please mail it to me.)

Back at the police camp, we chatted about life on the island. They complained about hordes of rats that destroyed everything. We had caught glimpses of the rodents scurrying around in the trees near the plantations. Could they have jumped ship and colonized the island? In 1893, Major David Prain noted that “a rat swarms everywhere” and was the commonest mammal on the island. A decade ago we had experienced a similar situation on South Sentinel Island, another remote island almost 400 km in a straight line to the southwest, so perhaps it was normal for such a high density of rats to live on these isolated islands. Or maybe some early ship seeded these islands with rats as a surer food source than goats and pigs! Of goats, we had seen nary a sign; no pellets or tracks. Thankfully, besides a pair seen by a few police personnel just the previous week, an almost thorough removal had been executed.

On our last night we feasted on king mackerel seviche. Rom bemoaned that he hadn’t been able to see Narcondam’s only recorded snake, the paradise flying snake, a species found in Southeast Asia, but only on this island in Indian Territory.

Next stop was Manta Bay (nicknamed ‘Silly Manta’ after the description of the place read “silly numbers of mantas” in the Southeast Asia Pilot). As we pulled in, a medium-sized black manta swam below the surface. Excited, all of us jumped into the water, a couple with scuba and other with snorkels. Disappointingly, no other mantas were seen.

The Emerald Blue

Just past noon, with three sails hoisted and a strong wind behind us, we set course for Port Blair. Nick cut the engine, unfurled the two additional sails and silently, except for the sound of the yacht knifing through the waves, we sailed the old fashioned way. On a couple of occasions, we had to change direction to avoid colliding with oil tankers and cargo ships. From the early days of shipping, the distinctive profile of Narcondam has been a navigation aid, and even today this area appears to be a busy shipping corridor. As the island disappeared over the horizon, the nagging thought of not having reached the summit had me making plans for a return. That would entail the gauntlet of getting permits again. The devil in my head suggested: to hell with them, go on a fishing/diving trip and then find an excuse to climb the hill. Apparently by their very nature, the Gardens of Eden lead humans astray!

Desperate Neighbours

Published in The Hindu 14 March 2010

 “When there are elephants around, it does something to me” the man said quietly as he rubbed his belly in a universal gesture of nausea. We were visiting his hamlet in a tea garden near Siliguri, north Bengal, to investigate a recent incident of ‘shop lifting’ and destruction by a tusker locally known as Belcha (so named for his spade shaped tusks.). The villagers said that he had destroyed three shops and a granary that year. The ramshackle board and tin sheet shop was so flimsy that the elephant must have found it as easy as filliping a dolls’ house. Cookie jars, ubiquitous accessories in any village shop, still lay broken where they had fallen amongst the debris. Any treats lying exposed had long since been foraged. “What did he want from the shop?” I wondered out loud. “Salt and biscuits,” was the erstwhile shopkeeper’s tired answer. Enquiries about other elephant events pointed us to a neighbouring hamlet, and like vultures we followed in the wake of death and destruction.

The widow at Basti No. 5

At this hamlet, simply known as Basti No. 5, an elephant had killed a man ten days ago. Elephants had raided the family’s kitchen garden on two consecutive nights, and completely destroyed the crop of lenthil and tapioca. On the third night, when the family heard the unmistakable sounds of an elephant in their backyard, they fled their rickety shack. Unfortunately, the lone elephant was not in the backyard as they had thought but stood on the path blocking their exit. The terrorized family fled stumbling and whimpering into the night away from the gigantic dark hulk. While the mother and three children escaped, the elephant grabbed the father and hurled him into a hedge. They could not approach to see if he needed medical help for fear of their own lives as the elephant didn’t budge from the spot until dawn. By then it was too late. As the widow stood mute through our conversation with her neighbours, the awareness of her predicament hit me squarely in the solar plexus. A panchayat elder said that she would get Rs. 50,000 ex-gratia payment from the Forest Department whereas the official notification declares that she should be given Rs. 100,000. With three children to support, her insurance against starvation in shambles and her job at the tea garden insecure, the burden of providing for her family rested solely on her fragile malnourished shoulders.


Why do elephants leave their forest refuge and trouble their human neighbours? Are poor villagers the only affected party in this battle of wits and might? With support from United States Fish and Wildlife Services’ Asian Elephant Fund and Asian Nature Conservation Foundation, I sought the answers to these questions on the front lines of human-elephant conflict and among 130 scientific publications, articles, books and reports from Africa and Asia. As in any story there are two sides. While the human victims are the vocal, dramatic face of this conflict, the toll on elephants is invisible but just as catastrophic.


According to Project Elephant, the Ministry of Environment and Forests’ elephant-affairs body, only 22% of elephant territory in India is given the highest degree of protection as a National Park or Wildlife Sanctuary; the rest falls under an assortment of lax regimes such as reserve, revenue and private forests. In other words, the bulk of elephant territory lies in areas that are exploited and degraded by humans. Imagine that you have only the bedroom to yourself and the rest of your house is open to anyone to come and take what they like or even demolish with no thought of your well-being. That is precisely what is happening wherever there is high conflict in elephant country.


The few isolated studies that quantify the loss of elephant-used forests indicate that they are being destroyed literally right beneath the pachyderms’ feet. In one extreme case, Assam lost 65% of choice elephant habitat since 1972, with Sonitpur District alone losing about 30% of its lowland forests in 10 recent years. Elephant forests are also sliced and severed by highways, dam projects and railroads. Elephants live to be 50 years old so what do they do when they lose their homes? They do not just go away to other forested areas, instead they stick it out and try to adjust. What to eat in which area at what time of the year is learnt by rote from the time an elephant is a mere calf following in its mother’s and aunts’ footsteps. Their destiny is intrinsically coupled to their habitat. That is why despite the risk to their lives, they insist on crossing highways and railway tracks and even swim across reservoirs to use their home range. Degraded forests do not move us emotionally nor do they tell the story of this tragedy in the making.

A recent encroachment at Nameri, Assam

In the tea gardens of Sonitpur, a herd of six elephants has virtually no forests within what it calls home. This herd is not a typical family group that retires shyly by day, for there is nowhere to hide, to get away from the constant heckling and harassment. They are now fighting for their very survival with their backs pressed together and are as aggressive as bulls. It is said that other herds, that used to migrate north to Arunachal Pradesh’s Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary for the summer only, are now spending autumn and sometimes even winter as high as 3300 metres. There is nothing in the foothills of Assam to come back for. In a bid to gain political mileage, Bodo tribals were encouraged to fell and settle in the reserve forests of Sonai-Rupai, Charduar, Balipara, Nowduar, Biswanath and Behali and now both the elephants and people of the area are paying the price.


In other states such as Jharkhand and Orissa, mining and forest fires leave behind a scorched earth incapable of supporting elephants. In the northeast, the pressure of an increasing human population has shortened the jhum cycle to such a degree that there is not enough fallow time for secondary browse to grow. This was the mainstay of the elephant populations of these states in decades past. Across elephant habitats, widespread grazing by domestic cattle encourages inedible weeds to proliferate, suppresses the growth of grass and fodder plants, and exposes the soil. Firewood and bamboo collection puts humans in direct competition with elephants. These are not dramatic events but collectively it is nothing short of plundering the elephants’ food supply. When the inflation rate spiked recently and the cost of food escalated to unheard of heights, sociologists predicted food riots. If that is expected behaviour of civilized humans, is it any wonder that elephants are turning to crops and raiding food stores to survive?

The Rengali canal cutting across elephant habitat, Orissa

Elephants spend summer in one part of the forest and go to another for the winter. They are faithful to their home range whose extent is determined by the quality of the forest and where forage and water are located. A herd’s home range may be a tiny 100 km2 in Sri Lanka, 650 km2 in Mudumalai in Tamil Nadu or 3700 km2 in north Bengal. Whatever the extent of the range, elephants need access to all of it to survive. If parts of their home are blocked by human settlements, they will use the cover of darkness to walk through crops, and villages. Forsaking that inaccessible part of their home is usually not an option and conflict becomes routine along these passageways.

Despite adjusting, when making a living in their home range is no longer possible, elephants expand their range by seeking new pastures. For example, some elephants from Dandeli Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka have been visiting the neighbouring states of Maharashtra and Goa since 2002, reportedly because of the Kali hydroelectric project. Humans are no different; when we can’t eke out a living in villages, we migrate to the cities or even other countries in search of work. Such disturbances in elephant habitat disperse the resident herds, creating conflict in their wake. Wherever there is high intensity conflict with elephants, habitat loss is the central theme. Much like Alauddin’s genie, once the elephants are out of the forests, it is almost impossible to put them back inside. That is why we would do well to remember that it is easier to protect their habitat than to create it.

However, habitat loss is not the only reason for conflict. All along the human-elephant interface conflict inevitably rumbles at low intensity. An average adult elephant spends about 18 hours a day in the forest finding about 250 kg of food, a combination of grasses, bulbs, aquatic plants, leaves, bamboo, roots, bark, dry twigs, and fruits. Just beyond the periphery of the forests, humans grow crops that have been selectively bred for greater nutrition, and lesser toxins. Besides where there is no surface water, we plumb the depths with bore wells to cultivate sweet juicy sugarcane and bananas even when all else is dry in the forest. It would take an extraordinarily self-disciplined elephant to turn its trunk up at these treats growing right on the doorstep. Instead of wandering all day long searching for fodder in a forest, here is an opportunity to spend just a few hours a night gorging on so much food concentrated in one place. Is it any wonder that some elephants venture into crops and leave behind fibrous steamy dung balls? Yet research shows that amazingly there are indeed some elephants with ample opportunity to raid crops, which do not give in to temptation and strictly maintain their diet of wild forage. We do not yet know why this is so and studying such elephants may help us understand conflict better.

As if ransacking the elephants’ home isn’t enough, humans kill bull elephants for their tusks. Herds don’t escape the wrath of farmers either. Each region has its preferred choice arsenal to kill and maim elephants – electrocution and mouth bombs in the south, poisoning with pesticides, homemade napalm, poison arrows and gunshots in the north. Stressed elephants may avoid those areas of their home range where they perceive danger and may congregate to find safety in numbers. The habitat that could sustain a smaller herd of elephants may take a beating from such large herds. Eventually the forest becomes so degraded that it cannot sustain the same animals any longer. This drives these elephants to the closest available food: crops. And the vicious cycle of violence continues.

The remains of an elephant visit

Calves learn from their mothers and aunts what to eat, where to find water, which route to take. If crops are on the menu those calves will grow up to consider that as their birthright, a cultural trait. We share the same predilection for “home food”, variously called “comfort food”; there is no other explanation for the Tamilian esteem for curd rice! Young dispersing bulls, whose family has not had a history of raiding crops, may learn the behaviour from other bulls. This may explain why some elephants eat crops while others in the same area don’t.


It is essential to understand that elephants are social animals, intelligent, self-aware and capable of emotions just like humans. Their reactions to various pressures and stresses may vary according to their temperament, experience and learning. In other words, all elephants do not react alike to the same demands, though the general pattern of adjustment and reaction to human behaviour described here holds true.


It is commonly suggested that conflict is a result of growing elephant numbers. But in Assam, although the elephant population is decreasing, the conflict graph doesn’t show a corresponding downward trend. The Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve has one of the largest elephant populations and yet conflict is generally considered to be low. There is no evidence to tie elephant numbers to conflict but there is plenty to show that high and growing human numbers have an impact on conflict intensity. And this is the bottom line: in the overwhelming majority of cases the cause of conflict is human-driven and it is critical for us to recognize and acknowledge this if we are to find equilibrium in our relationship with elephants.

The Mega-Mahseer of the Cauvery

Published in Outlook Traveller Feb 2010 

Joe Assassa was the odds on favourite to win the contest; after all he had 16 years to get to know the river well. He appeared to be on a personal quest - Operation Big - and had already caught some massive mahseer in the preceding weeks. Bruce Schwack, the self-titled ‘Viagraja’, was another contender in more ways than one, for he and Joe shared a common vocation. What were the odds of two Viagra dealers competing in an angling competition in South India? (Actually pretty darn good, read on!) Conversation around the evening bonfire swirled predictably around pharmaceuticals while one of them liberally dispensed little blue pills which disappeared quickly and surreptitiously into pockets.

The “Masheer Classic 2009” was the first competition conducted by the Anglers’ Club. There were twelve contestants gathered on the banks of the Cauvery at the Bheemeshwari Fishing Camp in Karnataka on a Friday afternoon in December. Besides the two merchants of sex-stimulants, others had less-risqué professions such as a telecom executive, a magnesia company magnate, a landscape architect, a businessman, a writer for a British angling magazine, a freelance photographer.

Each angler, accompanied by a gillie (an old Scottish word for ‘fishing guide’), set out in a coracle (no longer lined with buffalo hide but with plastic tarp). The gillie chose the spot - mid-river rocks, reeds or the opposite bank - and indicated in which direction and how far to cast the tangerine-sized ragi dough wrapped around a hook. Although some used extra weights, the ball of local millet was heavy enough to sink to the bottom of the river where the large mammas hung out. Then one settled down comfortably watching the tip of the rod hour after hour. When little fish fed on the bait, the rod tip bobbed. When there was that slow, steady, strong pull that bent the rod down, the angler, suddenly adrenalized, yanked and hopefully hooked the fish, maybe a mahseer, but possibly an ordinary carp or cat fish. That was the general principle of ‘ragi-balling’, which most anglers agree is very sedentary.

As the largest and most challenging freshwater game fish in the world, the mahseer lives up to every interpretation of its name: ‘big tiger’, ‘big head’, ‘big scaled’, and ‘big front-end’. Such royalty does not take kindly to being caught and the spirited fight of even a little chap weighing about 5 lbs. can lead you to overestimate his size. This combative tendency makes mahseer the sport fish of every angler’s dreams. It grows to a monstrous size in the Cauvery, this is where the record 120 pounder (54.4 kg) was caught in March 1946 by J. de Wet van Ingen (of the famous family of taxidermists from Mysore). Obviously, the 1.69 metre (5.54 feet) long fish was mounted as a trophy and is now lodged at the Regional Museum of Natural History, Mysore. The second and third biggest mahseer were also caught in this river. In 1993, Mark Thompson set the record for Bheemeshwari with a 106 lb. mahseer.

Despite the popular myth that the monsters can only be taken on ragi, purists consider spooning the rapids to be the real challenge. Since the coracle was too unstable a craft to maneuver, the algae-covered rocks too infernally slippery, and the river currents too strong, the gillies generally discouraged the idea. Although ragi-balling has been used for a long time, van Ingen caught the record breaker on a spoon. So there is no need to sacrifice sport for size – one could do both, but it is just much harder reeling in a fighter when you are stumbling, falling on your back, bruising your shins and punishing your knees while fighting the current and the fish.

When you use plugs, flies and metallic spoons, the action is fast and furious; the angler needs some skill to fool the fish into believing that the lure is the real thing. There is no time to sit comfortably in a coracle and fall asleep gently rocked by the river currents. Despite the liberal sprinkling of asafoetida, cardamom and fennel, a ball of ragi didn’t masquerade as anything else; none of the fish were fooled and if you caught a mahseer, it was because it was really hungry. While spooning, anglers take care not to spook the fish; they wear dull colours, hardly ever speak and sneak around behind boulders and reeds, almost on all-fours. On the contrary, ragi-fed mahseer didn’t care if the gillies yelled to each other across the breadth of the Cauvery, or if the anglers didn’t stick to the dress code. Apparently there was no need to outwit such a dull (but hungry) monster; after all, they must know that when food balls start plopping down that humans are about and some may even remember that these treats to be thorny and dangerous.

After expectantly observing several casts and seeing few signs of action, I watched Basavanbhetta, the tallest hill overlooking the river, change colour and mood as the sun set. An eagle owl soared silently across the river, elephants on the opposite bank trumpeted and flocks of cormorants flew westwards into the redness. The wheeling Brahminy kites swooped low every now and then with no better luck than the anglers.

Rom Whitaker imagined what was happening at the bottom of the river around the bait. Hundreds of little ones were driving the interest in the ragi, he said. They dash to the bait as soon as it hits the water. There were some medium sized ones attracted by the swarming little fish and one or two large ones in the area warily wondering if the food ball was dangerous. Even though his rod was still with little sign of action, he said hopefully that it could still be good; a large one may be circling the bait keeping the others away. It started to look to me as if angling was just an excuse to feed the fish with every coracle feeding about five kilos of ragi dough per session.

As I spent time with each angler in turn, I began to quantify the factors that increase the chances of hooking a mahseer. On a sunny day, one said, “Cloudy weather makes them hungry”. On a cloudy day when the fishing was unproductive, another said, “Rain oxygenates the surface, changes temperature and flushes shore creatures into the water and triggers feeding”. Another added that the ideal condition was when the sun followed the rain. But luck appeared to negate all this knowledge. A novice angler, Pritam Kukillaya, beat the competition on the second day (in full sunshine) by hooking a 36 lb. mahseer. Experiences such as these make anglers equally eloquent about the effects of falling barometric pressure while nervously fingering their lucky beads.

So how much skill and knowledge did ragi-balling require? From observing the contestants, not a great deal it appeared. One retorted, “There is skill involved. You have to know when to yank the line so you hook the fish.” A day later, while an angler was reaching for a bottle of water, I watched the reel suddenly sing its high pitched, excited whine while the line stripped away: a fish had hooked itself. All the angler had to do was be at the right place at the right time. Skill, come again? Another suggested that expertise was needed to choose the fishing sites, but the gillies decided the best spot and anglers’ suggestions, with the exception of Joe perhaps, were usually over-ruled. However, there is no doubt that once a mega-mahseer is hooked, playing it does demand every ounce of energy and expertise.

Most anglers for mahseer use large reels, be it a spinner or a caster, because when a monster bites, it tends to run far and fast. “Your arms are nearly torn out from their sockets”, is Macdonald’s vivid description of the first rush in the 1948 classic, ‘Circumventing the Mahseer’. Can you imagine what Sanderson’s hands were like when his 110 lb. mahseer ran on that day in 1871 when all he had was a 400 yard hand line? (In 1897, H.S. Thomas, the author of ‘The Rod in India’ quotes G.P. Sanderson as estimating that fish to weigh 150 lbs. But in his own 1912 work ‘Thirteen years among the wild beasts of India’, Sanderson says he had no means of weighing the fish and modestly suggested the fish was “not less than 100 lbs”. The figure leapt upwards in 1928 when the curator of the Mysore Museum reported that it weighed 130 lbs. So how did the Sanderson fish get its 110 lb. tag? In 1943, Col. R.W. Burton pointed out that the dimensions of Sanderson’s fish were the same as another fish which weighed at 110 lbs.) Whatever the actual weight, there is little doubt that Sanderson was the first on record to break the 100 lb. barrier in the history of mahseer angling!

Reeling in a monster mahseer is a contest of will, strength and wits. The angler should know where to let the fish run to avoid breaking the line and gauge when his adversary is exhausted enough to be reeled in. Fights have lasted hours, and as the angler uses his back as a fulcrum to reel the fish in, back-aches are an inevitable price to pay. In one case, not even an hour into the fight, the angler’s arms began trembling with the tension (he eventually lost the fish). You can lose a large fish by misjudging the topography and the creature’s feistiness. The story of a loss may be entertaining around a camp-fire and to regale family back home, but earns no bragging points. The more emphatically your arms stretch wide, the more everyone thinks “Yeah right”. It is just one more in the anthology of The-One-That-Got-Away stories.

As if the constant posturing and undercurrent of competitiveness weren’t enough, businessman Dhananjai Golla (popularly called ‘Jai’) of the Anglers’ Club felt the hobby needed to be formalized as a sport. While angling is a multi-billion dollar industry in the West, in India, it slipped into oblivion with the end of the Raj and today remains a marginal sport. A handbook of the 19th century avows that there are only four “gentlemanly” sports: “hunting, hawking, fowling and angling.” The last is perhaps the only one that can be legally practiced by gentlemen of today. Among the older generation, it was usually the former hunters who turned to fishing as an alternative means of keeping their senses alive and honed. I was curious about what attracts younger people to the sport. One said angling was his way of relaxing, another said it gave him an excuse to spend some time alone in a reasonably remote and beautiful spot. Another derived pleasure from buying fancy fishing gear and testing it out in different locales. Yet another said that as a child he fared poorly in sports of any kind and when he stumbled on angling as an adult, he felt “this was it”. But the common refrain of every angler’s dream is to fight a fish, a rite of passage that makes men out of mere lads. There is no escaping the fact that this is a male dominated sport.

On the river the anglers were fairly spread out and often out of sight of each other, so the only witness to a mega catch was the gillie. Once caught, the mahseer was weighed, photographed and returned to the river. This “catch and release” concept provides sport without loss of life and is therefore sustainable. Since the fish cannot be brought to camp, the angler’s word supported by his gillie is accepted at face value. The contest was played by gentleman’s rules. A couple of anglers sprayed their ragi balls with fish pheromones to induce a feeding frenzy and increase the chances of catching a fish. When the competition catches on, the organizers will have to decide if such additives can be allowed while keeping in mind the difficulty of enforcing these rules.

At the end of the second day, Jai grumbled about losing a “monster”; the numerous rocks in the river truly tested the nylon monofilament. One advised that he only used a 50 lb. test line. Even though a 20 lb. line may be sufficient to catch a large fish, if it went under a rock, the line needs to withstand the pressure and abrasion. So why not over-compensate and use an 80 lb. line? To give the fish a fighting chance, replied Jai. Later I discovered that the true art of angling lies in catching monster fish with as light a tackle as possible. For instance, an angler who catches a 40 lb. fish on a 20 lb. line scores more than one who catches the same sized fish on a 50 lb. line. Besides a light line enables the casts go further out.

On the third morning, I figured that I might hear a lot more interesting stories and theories by watching Joe fish. Flightily, he said he had to run the idea by his gillie who in turn said that the boat was too small. “Tomorrow”, he promised. We were all heading our different ways homewards “tomorrow” so it was a non-happener. As I got ready to accompany someone else, another gillie who clearly hadn’t been let in on the story hurriedly beckoned me to join Joe. I brought him up to speed but he retorted, “No, no. Joe has big boat”. That’s why he wasn’t Joe’s gillie. During that session, Joe caught a beautiful 40 lb. mahseer (cloudy day) and beat the competition to the top spot.

What sex were the humongous fish and how does one tell them apart? One fisherman said that a cock-fish above 10 lbs. has a ‘beard’, a flap of skin under the chin that ends in a point. Another muttered the equivalent of “bovine droppings” under his breath. It is suspected that large mahseer are hens (Col. Burton caught a 41 lbs. cock fish from the Bhavani and mentioned that all mahseer above 50 lbs. were females) and there may be no way of telling the sex of the fish from just looking at them. So every mahseer angler’s dream fish was a hen, a girl! And the bigger she was, the more ecstatic the fisherman. This was deliciously Freudian! Now it was easier to fathom why there were two Viagra dealers at the event!

The dining room, the Gholghar, was adorned with pictures of anglers with their massive catch. The fish appeared to be over-weight; they were wider for their length than the pictures of the long, sleek fish from the Himalayas in Macdonald’s book. The reason seemed obvious enough. Joe said that fishing was good after weekends when scores of picnicking people dump leftovers into the river. In fact, he said, he caught his three largest ones (the pictures on display at the Gholghar) around Muthathi, the morning after thousands of people had celebrated the dawning of the New Year.

Further, Sunder Raj, the manager of the camp, said that every season they feed five thousand kilos of ragi to the mahseer to keep them within the protected 30 km stretch of river. If they weren’t fed, the fish were likely to migrate up and downriver where destructive dynamiting, netting and poisoning were rampant. Could this be why these mahseer appeared fat?  Maybe not; the hump-backed mahseer of the Cauvery is known to have a greater girth to length ratio.

Once found in rivers and large streams all over the country, sadly, mahseer are today restricted to a few stretches of protected rivers. They are being exterminated by the dynamiters and poisoners even in fairly remote areas (see ‘Wild Water’, Outlook Traveller June 2009). Angling offers an opportunity for people to become knowledgeable about fish diets, hooks, lines, tides, currents, weather patterns amongst other variables. Such people with a stake in the health of the rivers may be the ones to campaign for river and mahseer conservation while paying for enforcement. Besides, their very presence on the river deters fish poachers. If it were not for the records of fish caught and released by anglers, it would be difficult to monitor the health of the mahseer population.

None beat Joe’s catch during the afternoon session although it fell short of his own personal best by several pounds. Pritam’s 36 lb. mahseer came second and Jehangir Vakil’s came third at 35 lb. The fish who refused to take the ragi balls were obviously the wily old crones. Angus Hutton, a former tea planter, recalled a story that hints at the existence of real monsters.

During the terrible drought of 1950/51, Angus visited the Krishnarajasagar reservoir on the outskirts of Mysore with the van Ingen brothers, Botha and de Wet. The water level was way down to the scum and all the junk people had thrown in over the years lay exposed. Some labourers were digging channels to divert the last remaining water to the Brindavan Gardens located below the dam. A muddy puddle caught the intrepid fishermen’s attention and they decided to investigate.

Botha drove the jeep as far down into the reservoir as he safely could. Normally this area would have been under a hundred feet of water. They pushed and shoved their coracle through the clinging mud with great difficulty for about 50 metres to the fetid green pool. De Wet gaffed around the bottom and soon snagged what he thought were the remains of a crocodile. It was a struggle to hoist the heavy carcass up and when the effort became even more vigorous, Angus feared the coracle would capsize and they would all drown in the muddy, sticky soup. Eventually when the stinky remains broke surface, they realized it was a part of a mahseer. The whole rotten piece fell back before de Wet could bring it onboard and he was left holding a single huge scale skewered by the gaff. The scale was roughly three times the size of the largest scale of the 120 lb. mounted trophy which led de Wet to estimate the mahseer to have been 300 lbs., or even 400! The episode was captured on 8mm film by Angus and is currently in the possession of Botha’s grandson. Ragi-balling for a 100 pounder seems modest when anglers could be kitting out with a 100 lb. line and enticing a 300+ lb. monster. So get on down to the river and let a truly feisty giant hen make you a man!

Getting there: Bheemeshwari is just 100 km away from Bangalore, off the Mysore highway. The turn off at Channapatna is currently a smoother road than the pothole-ridden one off Kanakapura.
Accommodation: The Fishing Camp has eight log cabins (Rs. 3250 per night), eight tents (Rs. 2750 per night) and two cottages (Rs. 3500 per night) overlooking the river. All are air-conditioned with hot and cold running water. Those anglers who have bust their backs can rejuvenate at the Ayurvedic massage centre on campus. The provided rates include all three meals, coracle ride, joy fishing, trekking, camera fees, forest entry fees and tax.  For more details: http://www.junglelodges.com/V2/Bheemeshwari.htm
Angling Information: Angling season lasts mid-November to March. Coracles, gillies and ragi bait are provided by the Camp. The Camp also sells the necessary fishing license (Rs. 1250). Bring your own tackle (see http://www.junglelodges.com/V2/bheemeshwari_activities.htm for a recommended list). The gillies have recently been trained in fish handling, importance of mahseer conservation, and ecotourism and have also been equipped with a weighing scale, and miscellaneous other tools.

The Masheer Classic is expected to be held at the same time next year (www.anglersclub.in)
Things to bring: Hat, sunscreen, water bottle, shorts, warm clothing for the evenings, dark glasses, camera, shoes.

PS: Our friend, fish expert, Rohan Pethiyagoda, says "I have heard [the relationship between drop in barometric pressure to fishing success] from anglers many times, but it does not appear to make sense in the context of the depth of water in which mahseer operate. Even a massive barometric fall of 10% would represent only the equivalent of 1 m of water depth, which is well within the range of depths a large fish would routinely swim around in..."

THE IUCN’S NEW CLOTHES: AN UPDATE ON THE DHAMRA – TURTLE SAGA

Published in Marine Turtle Newsletter 126

By Janaki Lenin (1,6), Ashish Fernandes (2),  Aarthi Sridhar (3), B.C. Choudhury (4), Jack Frazier (5,6), Sanjiv Gopal (2), Areeba Hamid (2), Sandra Kloff (6), Biswajit Mohanty (6,7), Bivash Pandav (8), Sudarshan Rodriguez (3), Basudev Tripathy (4), Romulus Whitaker (9), Sejal Worah (10), Belinda Wright (11) and Kartik Shanker (3,12)

1 – IUCN/SSC/Crocodile Specialist Group, South Asia and Iran.
2 – Greenpeace, Bangalore India.
3 – Dakshin Foundation, Bangalore, India.
4 – Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, India.
5 –  Smithsonian Institution, USA.
6 – Member, IUCN/CEESP/Social and Environmental Accountability of the Private Sector
7 –  Wildlife Society of Orissa, Cuttack, India.
8 – Worldwide Fund for Nature-Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal.
9 – Madras Crocodile Bank, Chengalpattu, India.
10 –  Worldwide Fund for Nature-India, New Delhi, India.
11 –  Wildlife Protection Society of India, New Delhi, India.
12 – Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.


Local communities – in every part of the world - define “conservation” within their environmental, social, historical, cultural, economic, and political milieu. In developing countries, where demand for natural resources (sought by communities and corporations alike) is not only high, but directly linked to life styles, effecting positive conservation action becomes a bedeviling proposition. It has been widely recognized that it is not enough to just create laws and enforcement mechanisms; for species to survive in the long-term, local communities must become partners in the conservation enterprise. A case in point is the conservation of olive ridley turtles in Orissa, India, where the conflicting demands of traditional fishermen/small scale fishing communities, mechanized fishers (including trawlers), international conservation organizations, local conservationists, enforcement authorities, the state government and corporate interests have created a monumental imbroglio (Shanker and Kutty 2005; Mathew 2004; Sridhar 2005; Shanker and Choudhury 2006; Wright and Mohanty 2006; Shanker et al. 2009).

Over the past 3 years, the waters have been further muddied by the direct involvement of IUCN/MTSG in advising a major corporation that is developing the largest port facility in South Asia, not surprisingly an environmentally and socially sensitive issue. The special issues of Marine Turtle Newsletter No. 121 and Indian Ocean Turtle Newsletter No. 8 carried eight articles with different perspectives on the IUCN’s and MTSG’s engagement with the ongoing port construction at Dhamra, Orissa, on the east coast of India. The port, being built by Dhamra Port Company Limited (DPCL), is located some 4 km from Bhitarkanika National Park, with one of the highest mangrove diversities in the world and less than 15 km from Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary, one of the most famous turtle mass nesting beaches in the world. Shanker et al. (2009) provided a brief history of conservation and a summary of the current social and political context. Here, a section of the community, including academics, biologists, conservationists and other practitioners from a variety of institutions and backgrounds express their concerns for the biodiversity of the region, interactions with local communities, the conservation of olive ridleys, and most particularly, the interaction between IUCN and DPCL (the port promoters) and its implications on a broad range of issues fundamental to effective conservation (see for example Frazier 2008).

In numerous collective and individual letters (and other communications) to the IUCN and MTSG over the last three years, many of us have raised several concerns regarding the lack of consultation by IUCN and the MTSG with local conservationists (see MTN 121/ IOTN 8). Besides providing an update on our negotiations with TATA Steel and DPCL as well as the perception of IUCN’s impact in this region, we will focus on two concerns: firstly, the inadequacy of consultation, or even basic information-sharing, by IUCN/MTSG with national members, local fisherfolk organizations and civil society groups and NGOs, many of whom have long years of experience in this geographical area (for a full account, see MTN 121/IOTN 8); and secondly, the lack of clarity, transparency and the limited scope of IUCN’s agenda in the Dhamra case.

Negotiations with the DPCL and TATA – Weaving sweet nothings

Given the lack of meaningful dialogue with IUCN and MTSG, other attempts were made to develop dialogue and explore realistic measures for preventing environmental and social problems resulting from the development of Dhamra Port – consequences that are to be expected from such a massive development project. A coalition of local conservation groups approached the port promoters – TATA Steel and Larsen & Toubro (L&T), as well as the implementing company, DPCL. The following individuals and organisations took part in the dialogue process: Ashish Fernandes (Greenpeace India), Debi Goenka (Conservation Action Trust), Mitali Kakkar and Prahlad Kakkar (Reefwatch Marine Conservation), ND Koli (National Fishworkers’ Forum), Janaki Lenin (as Regional Chair of the IUCN’s Crocodile Specialist Group), Biswajit Mohanty (Wildlife Society of Orissa),  Divya Raghunandan (Greenpeace India), Bittu Sahgal (Sanctuary Asia), Ravi Singh (WWF India), and  Belinda Wright (Wildlife Protection Society of India). Throughout the dialogue, this collective of groups consulted others, including B.C. Choudhury, Jack Frazier, Sudarshan Rodriguez, Kartik Shanker, Aarthi Sridhar and Romulus Whitaker. Between October 2008 and February 2009, four meetings were held (the last of which was at the construction site at Dhamra).

At these meetings, the obvious gaps in the sole Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) conducted in 1997 (for a totally different development site and a much smaller development project) were pointed out and the need to conduct a comprehensive, credible and independent impact assessment was stressed by the conservation alliance, some of whom are authors of this piece. It was also emphasized that a credible assessment should have been done prior to the commencement of construction work for the project. From the very first meeting on October 23, 2008, the Precautionary Principle was cited repeatedly to urge the port promoters to suspend construction until the completion of the new assessment (i.e., for a period of one year), which TATA Steel, L&T and DPCL refused to do. At the third meeting on February 10, 2009, at Dhamra, Mr. Sengupta, Vice President, TATA Steel, offered to consider deferring elements of construction by a few days to avoid interference with any fresh impact assessment but totally ruled out suspending construction or dredging. On February 20, 2009, the conservation alliance proposed a compromise and requested the company to suspend dredging during the turtle season, but this was rejected on the grounds that the latter had been advised that suspension of work was unnecessary. Requests that the port promoters share the expert advice (studies, evidence, recommendations, etc.) that recommended that suspension of work was not required, were rejected by the port developers at this meeting and subsequently (a letter from Greenpeace requesting this information was addressed to Mr. Muthuraman, Managing Director, TATA Steel dated February 27, 2009 has elicited no response) (http://greenpeace.in/turtle/category/docs Additional correspondence available on request). Not surprisingly, the conservationists present at this meeting considered this a poor demonstration of good intention/will and/or application of the precautionary approach by the company and its advisors.

TATA Steel has publicly pledged to withdraw from the project should it cause unacceptable negative impact on the turtles and their nesting habitat. However, they had rejected a Greenpeace commissioned study nor have they cooperated in implementing an independent assessment. This situation left the conservation alliance with no option but to disengage from the dialogue process until such time that the port promoters were willing to reconsider their stance.  From information made available on the IUCN website, the only source of information that has been made available by IUCN, the participating organizations and individuals can only presume that the company’s reluctance to conduct such a basic, universally required exercise for any development project, particularly in an environmentally sensitive area, was instigated by their IUCN advisors. Subsequently, an arribada took place in Gahirmatha in March 2009 and this was used as evidence to show that dredging did not negatively impact turtles and their habitats, while ignoring any mention of the long-term impacts on the coastline.

Continuing impasse with IUCN and MTSG – Invisible revelations

In November, 2008, several months after their interaction with the Dhamra project began, the IUCN planned a one day technical workshop at Bhubaneswar, Orissa. Presentations by the IUCN consultants on their activities at Dhamra dominated the agenda, while the meeting organizers ignored the fundamental concerns repeatedly expressed by local membership over the preceding months. Besides, some MTSG and IUCN members and several organizations with a long history of involvement in the Dhamra port issue were not even invited to participate. These objections were raised before the workshop, but no attempt was made to resolve them, despite repeated requests by several members to the MTSG and the IUCN.

In the end the workshop was postponed and finally convened again in February 2009, with exactly the same agenda. While a few select institutions received invitations seven weeks earlier, most received their invitations just three weeks prior to the workshop. Contrary to the statements issued by MTSG and IUCN, numerous key individuals and institutions (many of the same ones who had been eliminated from the earlier invitation list) were simply not invited. The lack of participation in drafting the agenda, the short notice and selective invitations did not inspire confidence, and many IUCN members (WWF, WPSI) and MTSG members (B. Pandav, K. Shanker, W. Sunderraj, B. Tripathy, R. Whitaker) declined to attend. Besides the staff of DPCL and IUCN, representatives from eight out of approximately 24 IUCN member organizations in India, four NGOs and two universities participated. Hence, less than a third of the key actors participated in the workshop. Nonetheless, the press release (http://www.uicn.org/about/union/secretariat/offices/asia/?2759/Vulnerable-Olive-Ridley-turtles-find-diverse-support-in-Orissa-India) issued after the February 24-25, 2009 ‘workshop’ in Bhubaneswar gives the impression that there was widespread agreement and support of the IUCN-DPCL partnership.

On 24 April 2009, some of us requested the IUCN to provide details of their agreement with the port developers, financial and technical reports and recommendations given to the company. Specifically, we requested copies of:
1. The Terms of Reference/Scope of Engagement of the IUCN with the Dhamra Port Project.
2. The final agreement between the IUCN and DPCL/TATA Steel.
3. Financial details pertaining to the IUCN’s involvement with DPCL: particularly, how much are IUCN representatives being paid to advise DPCL?
4. Reports and recommendations submitted so far by IUCN/MTSG to DPCL.
5. Periodic assessments and compliance reports from the commencement of IUCN’s work till the present.

On 29 April 2009, Michael Dougherty, Regional Communications Coordinator, Asia Regional Office, IUCN, responded saying that these documents were circulated during the February 2009 workshop. However, colleagues who attended the workshop (among the authors of this piece) refute this claim; these documents were not made available during the workshop or at any other time. On 18 May 2009, we made the same request again. Moreover, an earlier letter was sent to the MTSG chairs (8 May 2009) requesting this information and further details on dredging and other port activities, but this also elicited no response. Hence, it has been difficult – if not impossible - to get basic information from the IUCN, and requests for specific information are not adequately answered.

While some field trip reports and recommendations are now available on the IUCN website (http://www.iucn.org/about/union/secretariat/offices/asia/asia_where_work/india_programme_office/dhamra_port/), most documents including the agreement between IUCN and DPCL and its financial details have been declared confidential. In short, the relationship between IUCN /MTSG and local organizations and conservationists contradicts the lofty rhetoric on the IUCN website, reminiscent of “self-laudatory monologue” typical of large international NGOs (Igoe & Sullivan 2009). We do not agree with IUCN’s claim that there is open discussion, sharing of information and positive conservation outcome.

IUCN’s impact – Naked but not transparent

Any recommendations and mitigation advice to port developers is handicapped by the lack of a scientific assessment of the environmental impacts of the project on the coastline and the ecosystems in close proximity, not to mention social and economic impacts on marginalized inhabitants of coastal communities. In general, such attempts to bridge the gap between industry and conservation have raised concerns for both ecological health and justice (Frazier 2005; Igoe & Sullivan 2009).

There is simply no reliable environmental impact assessment, nor – it would appear – any interest in producing one. It is widely believed that the IUCN capitulated to industry’s demands instead of insisting on a meaningful EIA, despite the fact that this is a basic pre-development requirement that is virtually a world-wide standard. The impacts of dredging of sand and other bottom sediments near the nesting beaches of Gahirmatha Wildlife Sanctuary (C.S. Kar pers. comm.) is apparently not being addressed by IUCN/MTSG as evidenced by the lack of reference to this in any report. The impact of annual dredging to maintain a 19 km shipping channel, and subsequent impacts on coastal currents and food webs are unknown. This is especially worrisome given the dramatic changes to the geomorphology of the Gahirmatha beaches during the last two decades (Shanker et al., 2004; Prusty and Dash, 2006). Little is known of the recommendations being made by the IUCN/MTSG to DPCL to mitigate coastal erosion, invasive species or the other concomitant negative impacts of ports, if indeed any such recommendations are being made.

MTSG’s advice to the company seems to have focused on two actions: to use deflectors on the dredger’s drag-head to shield turtles and to use light shades to reduce the disorientation of turtles and hatchlings during nighttime operations. These are likely to reduce some short-term negative impacts of the port development activities on turtles. Remarkably, the latest communiqué posted by the IUCN on its website (http://www.iucn.org/about/union/secretariat/offices/asia/asia_where_work/india_programme_office/dhamra_port/) indicates that the IUCN-DPCL agreement is primarily to draft an Environmental Management Plan (EMP), and that this will be drafted in the second phase of the project. However, now more than two years after the agreement was developed, the only advice that seems to have been provided are a few isolated sea turtle mitigation measures. Hence, conservationists in India are mystified and deeply disappointed by the obsessive focus on sea turtles to the exclusion of other life forms and ecological interactions, particularly since the port site lies just 4 km away from Bhitarkanika National Park (a regionally important RAMSAR site and proposed UNESCO World Heritage site).

IUCN’s engagement with the private sector is said to be governed by the private sector guidelines (http://liveassets.iucn.getunik.net/downloads/ps_20guidelines.pdf), which include the preparation of a due diligence report, yet this essential document is not available on its websites. There is no information available to suggest that this was ever done. The lack of environmental precaution by the corporation and regulatory failure of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (see epilogue) has resulted in the flouting of environment laws and regulations (see MTN 121/ IOTN 8). Local conservationists view IUCN’s willingness to over-ride its own private sector guidelines in order to partner with a powerful corporation (and thereby attain significant corporate funding), as aiding and abetting an ecologically and socially devastating project, while undermining their own efforts to make the state and corporations play by environmental rules. It is particularly worrisome when IUCN has refused to collaborate with, or even recognize, local conservation NGOs or community groups.

Local individuals and groups have demonstrated their willingness to enter into meaningful discussion and constructively engage with both the company or IUCN (as summarised above), but they have been repeatedly spurned by these large, powerful organizations. Both the National Fishworkers’ Forum and the Orissa Traditional Fish Workers’ Union have opposed the project (See IOTN 8 and 9). Yet, without their crucial support, the sustainability of project recommendations is in jeopardy. Within the conservation community, IUCN has demonstrated that it is acting in isolation (if not in opposition) by refusing to seriously consider the opinions of local groups. International staff and contractors with their tenuous and ephemeral connections and superficial knowledge of the highly complex issues involved are hardly the way to effect change in the current context.

Partnerships with industry: A global strategy to curb biodiversity loss or new suit?

The collaboration with DPCL is part of IUCN’s global strategy to curb biodiversity loss. High-level dialogues and partnerships with extractive industries have been set up, e.g., the IUCN-ICMM (International Council on Mining and Metals)
(http://www.iucn.org/about/work/programmes/business/bbp_our_work/bbp_mining/), the EBI (Energy and Biodiversity Initiative) (http://www.theebi.org/) and the controversial partnership with Shell. These interactions generally aim to develop voluntary codes of good environmental and social conduct and to integrate considerations of biodiversity protection in the development of extractive industry projects.

Although there is value in interacting directly with the private sector to address environmental issues, and not withstanding IUCN’s good intentions, many IUCN members worldwide, affected people, indigenous groups and advocacy organizations are deeply concerned about the way IUCN is handling these partnerships, and this concern has been elaborated in the specific case of the Dhamra Port development (Frazier 2008). At the last World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, no less than 60% of the NGO members supported a resolution to end IUCN’s partnership with Shell (Igoe & Sullivan 2009). IUCN’s partnership with DPCL is another example that justifies concern for all the reasons stated above (as well as others).

It is critical that the IUCN and MTSG develop partnerships with local groups and address the range of conservation concerns engendered by the Dhamra project. Anything short of that runs contrary to the Precautionary Principle and the IUCN/MTSG’s own conservation mandate, but instead fits the general behaviour of large international NGOs that are notorious for undermining local groups to achieve their own agenda (Frazier 2005, Igoe & Sullivan 2009). When local environmental organisations and affected peoples lose confidence, then IUCN should reevaluate its partnership with the private sector and efforts should be made to bring these communities into the process.

While we believe that it is necessary and possible to engage constructively with the DPCL and TATA Steel, this has to be done in a manner that truly considers local stakeholders and gives credence to local opinions and concerns. If these basic principles are not observed, any potential value of the IUCN- private sector partnership will be reduced to cheap greenwashing.

Epilogue

Recently obtained documents from the offices of the Forest Department of Orissa show that the land on which the Dhamra port project is being built is a Protected Forest. The project does not have the mandatory clearance from the Government of India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests for usage of such land and has therefore violated the Indian Forest Conservation Act, 1980. An application has been filed in the Supreme Court by conservationists Bittu Sahgal, Romulus Whitaker and Shekar Dattatri seeking punitive action, and on October 9, 2009, the court issued notices to the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the state government of Orissa.

Literature cited

FRAZIER, J.G. 2005. Biosphere reserves and the Yucatan Syndrome: Another look at the role of NGOs. In: R. Smardon and B. Faust (eds.) Biosphere Reserve Management in the Yucatan Peninsula - Special Edition. Landscape and Urban Planning 74: 313-333.

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Peeling the onion: the politics of conservation and corporations at a sea turtle rookery

By Kartik Shanker, Janaki Lenin and Ashish Fernandes

The Hindu Survey of The Environment 2009

There is a large body of work on the impact of development on the environment, including rigorous historical accounts, and careful studies on governance, institutions and political ecology and economy. More visible however is the widespread, somewhat histrionic rhetoric, from pro-development capitalists and environmental activists. A common thread between those in favour of development and those advocating environmental sustainability appears to lie in the realm of social and environmental justice and equity. One can therefore ask if those who claim to subscribe to this common goal – ie. “self-proclaimed” socially responsible corporations and environmental conservation organisations –  actually do justice to it in their actions.

Typically, this battle between environment and development has been cast as a fight between “good versus evil” (or at best, “good versus misguided”) by both sides. However, the role of big international NGOs (or BINGOs) in conservation has been questioned in recent years. In his seminal article, “A challenge to conservationists: can we protect natural habitats without abusing the people who live in them?” in World Watch in 2004, Mac Chapin questioned the corporate funding of large international conservation NGOs working in developing countries, such as Worldwide Fund for Nature, The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International, and their drive to establish protected areas from which indigenous people are excluded. While displacement of people to enable infrastructure development such as dams is well-known, people are also evicted in the name of conservation, dubbed ‘conservation refugees’ by Mark Dowie.

Currently, many of these large conservation organisations work with or receive significant funds from large corporations. For example, Conservation International’s website states “We partner with businesses such as Wal-Mart, Starbucks, and McDonald’s to help them establish “green” benchmarks and embrace environmentally sound practices.” IUCN has major partnerships with Royal Dutch Shell, Total (French Oil Giant) and other agreements are in the pipeline. Recently, the partnership between Shell and IUCN came under considerable criticism at the World Conservation Congress held at Barcelona in October 2008. According to the agreement, the partnership aims “to enhance the biodiversity conservation performance by Shell” and “to strengthen IUCN’s capacity for leadership in business and biodiversity”. Though more than 60% of the IUCN membership voted for a motion to end the agreement, it was rejected on a technicality.

In India too, there is substantial controversy over the conflicting demands of environmental conservation and development, and the role of policy in facilitating change. For example, the recent suggested replacement of the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, 1991, with a Coastal Management Zone Notification, is believed to be driven by business interests that would result in the development of the coast, at the cost of local inhabitants and habitats. The politics of conservation and development, involves a variety of players, and is not simple. We illustrate this here through the battle over a port and a sea turtle nesting rookery involving many actors, including large corporations, international conservation organisations, local conservationists, and many others.

A brief history of sea turtle conservation in Orissa

Olive ridley turtles nest en masse at several beaches in Orissa, mainly Gahirmatha, Rushikulya and Devi River Mouth. Sea turtle conservation started in Orissa in the mid 1970s, when Robert Bustard, a FAO consultant, visited Bhitarkanika on a crocodile survey, and discovered the mass nesting beach at Gahirmatha. Over the next two decades, various organisations including the Forest Department, Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), and Utkal University were involved in sea turtle research and conservation. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, following the introduction of mechanized boats, there was large scale exploitation of adult turtles in Orissa (>50,000 turtles per season) for sale as meat in West Bengal. Due to the implementation of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 by the Forest Department in the early 1980s, and conservation efforts by many individuals and organisations, this was eventually stopped. Notably, late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi expressed her support for sea turtle conservation in Orissa and facilitated the involvement of the Coast Guard, which helped in enforcing regulations.

Despite an alert issued by the CMFRI, the mortality as incidental catch in trawl nets continued to increase dramatically through the 1990s, and in recent years, more than 10,000 dead turtles wash up on the Orissa coast annually.  The unpredictability in the extent and timing of arribadas, declining size of nesting turtles, aggravated by the huge mortality of adult turtles, is believed to be indicative of an impending decline in olive ridley populations in Orissa. It has also become clear that changes in the geomorphology may be leading to the decline in nesting at Gahirmatha, while nesting in Rushikulya appears to be increasing, and mass-nesting in the Devi region has not occurred for more than a decade.

Through the 1990s, many conservation organisations and programmes such as Operation Kachhapa focused on mitigating trawler related mortality through enforcement and media campaigns. Around the same time, the USA extended its domestic law to all its trading partner countries, requiring shrimp trawlers to use Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs). Following extensive protest and deliberation at the WTO (in which India was one of the complainants), the US position was upheld. Though mandated through law in Orissa, few trawler owners are inclined to use TEDs for a variety of reasons. As elsewhere, such as the USA, trawler owners protested that only one of the causes of turtle mortality was being targeted.

The focus on trawlers created a vitiated atmosphere, in which most fishermen perceived conservation as anti-people. In 2004, recognising the impasse between fishing communities and turtle conservation, local and national conservation organizations and individuals, community organisations, and fishworker support organisations came together under the umbrella of the Orissa Marine Resources Conservation Consortium (www.omrcc.org). This group has been attempting to promote the conservation of marine biodiversity, including turtles, along with the livelihoods of the poor artisanal fishermen. The laws are conducive to this goal as they mainly seek to prohibit mechanised fishing in near-shore waters, which is beneficial to turtles and traditional fishermen. Today, a large number of international, national, local and community-based organisations are involved in various aspects of sea turtle conservation in Orissa (see india.seaturtle.org).

History of the port at Dhamra

The Dhamra Port has been in the pipeline for over a decade now. Clearance to build a port was granted in 1997 taking advantage of an amendment to the Coastal Zone Regulation (CRZ) Notification that allowed the expansion of minor ports (Dhamra is a notified minor port) with clearance issued by the Ministry of Surface Transport rather than the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). The power to clear such projects has since returned to the MoEF. The port was to be built by International Seaports (India) Private Limited under an agreement with the Government of Orissa. In 2004, Tata steel and L&T agreed to develop the port as a 50:50 joint venture through the Dhamra Port Company Limited (DPCL) which was awarded a concession by the Orissa Government to build the port. According to the website, it will be the deepest port in India and strategically close to the mineral belts in nearby states (http://www.dhamraport.com/). Although the characteristics of the current port proposal vary from that of International Seaports Limited, the environmental clearance granted to the latter was used. It is widely considered that the scientific and legal validity of the EIA and environment clearance for Dhamra port are questionable, given the change in scale and location of the project.

The opposition to this port citing negative impacts on sea turtles picked up again about 3 years ago, with Greenpeace being the most outspoken critic. Citing concern for sea turtle conservation, representatives of Tata & DPCL then contacted several biologists around the country and requested that they conduct studies (offshore distribution studies of olive ridley turtles with satellite telemetry) to see if sea turtles would indeed be adversely affected by the port. Biologists and subsequently NGOs such as Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and WWF declined to engage with DPCL unless the company agreed to a fresh EIA and to stop construction while studies were ongoing.

In 2006, DPCL contracted the IUCN, to draft an environmental management plan. The IUCN, working through its voluntary body, the Marine Turtle Specialist Group, undertook the project, over-ruling the opposition expressed by almost all its local members. Members of the MTSG in India believe the agreement was  effected without due process, a lack of transparency, in contravention of the precautionary principle, and therefore likely to undermine local efforts towards sea turtle conservation in Orissa. To illustrate the extent of protest, IUCN’s involvement in the project is opposed by WWF, Greenpeace, OMRCC, Wildlife Protection Society of India, Wildlife Society of Orissa, biologists working at the Wildlife Institute of India, Indian Institute of Science, WWF, Gujarat Institute of Desert Ecology, and several local conservation organisations.  Despite protests and numerous letters, the IUCN and MTSG continue to engage with the company.

While IUCN’s advice to use deflectors on dredgers and light reduction may reduce negative impacts on turtles, the need is for an environmental management plan, based on a comprehensive impact analysis. Inexplicably, the IUCN advisors who stressed the need for a fresh EIA in their scoping mission, today conclude that it is unnecessary. The focus on sea turtles to the exclusion of other biodiversity, particularly in Bhitarkanika National Park which is closest to the port site, and ignoring the consequences of coastal erosion/accretion, invasive species brought by visiting ships and the other concomitant negative impacts of ports, is likely to have long term fallout. So too is the IUCN’s refusal to work with local conservation organisations, while partnering with a major international corporation.

Over the last 6 months, the port promoters (Tata Steel and L&T, as well as DPCL) have held meetings with a coalition of local conservation groups. The conservationists continued to stress the need for a comprehensive, credible and independent impact assessment given the very obvious gaps in the 1997 EIA. Again, due to the refusal to pause construction (or even dredging during the nesting season) while studies were ongoing, the dialogue did not lead to a resolution.

Corporate conservation: a tangled web

Clearly, all parties have taken some actions ostensibly to effect positive impacts on the environment. IUCN, through the MTSG, has stuck to the argument that its engagement with the project will be beneficial for sea turtles. Local conservation groups have argued for a broader conservation outlook which addresses a wider set of concerns including habitat conservation and local livelihoods. Tata Steel/DPCL’s willingness to accept some environmental safeguards may have been (and still be) an opportunity to mainstream some of these as regulations in port and coastal development.

However, both conservationists and corporations have also been remarkably similar in their singular approach to meet their mandates. The corporation has been clearly unwilling to negotiate on the critical issue of a faulty EIA or to consider halting construction. As noted sea turtle conservationist Jack Frazier has repeatedly stressed, big conservation NGOs, especially IUCN, have largely ignored a range of other issues such as the impact on social development, environmental consequences of social change, impacts on fisheries, introduction of invasives through bilge water disposal, and most importantly impacts on the coastal ecosystems. Conservationist organisations have a lot more in common with corporations than they would like to believe, particularly in the way that they use information selectively. And large international conservation organisations appear to have much in common with their benefactors,  especially in the way they function and make decisions.

In conclusion, it is not clear that such conservation – corporation partnerships are beneficial for long-term conservation of species and habitats, especially when done in contravention of the precautionary principle, in opposition to local conservation groups, and with little transparency. By focusing exclusively on sea turtles to the neglect of coastal ecosystems and people, it appears as if this BINGO has either abdicated its role as a leader in the field or has set its bar so low that it does no more than provide a green chit to the company. In developing nations such as India where resources are scarce, the long term viability of conservation depends substantially on local support. Lack of attention to social issues can alienate local communities from conservation, ultimately jeopardizing the survival of species and habitats.

Acknowledgements: This article has benefited from comments and discussions with Jack Frazier, Sudarshan Rodriguez and Aarthi Sridhar. For more articles on this issue, see the Marine Turtle Newsletter (www.seaturtle.org/mtn) and the Indian Ocean Turtle Newsletter (www.iotn.org).
Authors

Kartik Shanker is with the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore & Dakshin Foundation, Bangalore.
Janaki Lenin is the IUCN/SSC/Crocodile Specialist Group’s Regional Chair for South Asia and Iran.
Ashish Fernandes is an Oceans Campaigner for Greenpeace, Bangalore.