The Indian government is proposing to use satellite imagery to monitor environmental violations along its coast. This is the first time such a proposal has been considered at a national level.
The move follows the recommendations of an expert committee commissioned to review the management of India's coastline. The committee delivered its report, Final Frontier: Agenda to protect the ecosystem and habitate of India's coast for conservation and livelihood security, on 17 July.
The Ministry will also follow the committee's recommendations to overturn a 2008 draft proposal for a new coastal management regime.
Since 1991, development in India's coastal areas has been regulated by the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification. However, it has become ‘increasingly evident that its implementation is not as successful as anticipated', says the report.
In 2004, the Ministry initiated a review of the notification; the review committee delivered its report in February 2005. In May 2008, the Ministry issued a draft Coast Management Zone Notification for public comment.
One of the key differences between the two notifications lies in the area subject to regulatory control. The 1991 notification regulates activities 500 metres from the high tide line. The 2008 draft proposes to delimit the regulated area based on an assessment of vulnerability. This area of regulatory control would be based on a setback line that would map the specific vulnerability of the local coast based on elevation, geomorphology, sea level trends and horizontal shoreline displacement.
According to the report's authors, the 2008 draft notification met with widespread opposition from the nation's fishing organisations, environmental NGOs and all eight state governments. In particular, the report noted widespread uncertainty about the demarcation of the setback line, saying: ‘There is near unanimity in all groups that the demarcation of the setback line is fraught with scientific and data problems.'
The report also noted ‘overwhelming concern' that the change in regimes may lead to ‘widespread commercial activities and urbanisation on the coast'. State governments also feared the new regime would not only open up the coast to commercial development, but also legalise violations to the CRZ made since 1991. The authors also noted a ‘general feeling' that the 2008 draft notification served the interests of corporate and large investors at the expense of the livelihood rights of fisherfolk.
The report urges the Ministry to abandon the 2008 draft notification and instead, amend the existing 1991 notification for better coastal management. It also recommends that enhanced protection be given to fishing communities and families.
Among the report's key recommendations is the use of space technology to track violations to the 1991 regime. It advises the Ministry to ‘use satellite and information technology to map the coast and monitor real-time violations that are taking place.' The state of Goa is already monitoring its coastline in this way. According to local media reports, the Goa government was able to use satellite imagery to identify more than 6500 post-1991 structures that violated the CRZ.
‘Following the Goa example, we want to track the coastline, especially vulnerable areas, through satellite imagery. Under the same systems, violations should be immediately made public,' the minister of environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh, told local reporters.
The report also recommends the government address the ‘serious lack of scientific institutional capacity' at both state and central government levels. It advises the government to build this capacity and enable better decision making by gathering urgently required scientific data. It further recommends the use of web-enabled systems to publish all CRZ-related data in the public domain. While the Ministry currently publishes this data on its webite, state authorities do not.
According to Indian media reports, the Ministry has agreed to overturn the 2008 draft notification and improve monitoring of coastal zone violations. It now plans to work from the 1991 notification and will set up a National Coastal Management Zone, which will be co-chaired by the minister for environment and the minister for earth sciences, and a National Institute for Sustainable Coastal Zone Management.
The Ministry also acknowledged that the threat of climate change needed to be factored into coastal development projects. ‘We need to safeguard our coasts from climate change. We have to safeguard against tsunami-type disasters,' said Ramesh.
Around 25 per cent of the Indian population lives within 50 kilometres of the shoreline, and around 10 million Indians are involved in the country's fishing industry.
