The Olive Ridley Riddle

For some strange reason i have lost all that i wrote on this a while back . i had thought i'd come back and finish it off and it's sadly not been saved. But that's a different riddle. I don't think i'll be able to do justice to this post by rewriting but i do have to write about it as it's been haunting me for sometime.

The riddle is about the olive ridleys? Who are they and why conserve them? Why not any other animal?Specially when you've seen pictures of the thousands of baby turtles swarming the beaches of the Odisha Coast. They can't be in that grave a danger. At least not like the tigers. Right? 

Wrong. Let's look at this small statistic. 

According to Carr (1972), more than 1 million olive ridleys were commercially harvested off the coasts of Mexico in 1968 alone. Cliffton et al. (1982) had estimated the population of Pacific Mexico to be at least 10 million prior to the era of mass exploitation . More recently, Spotilia (2004) estimated that the global population of annual nesting females has been reduced to approximately 2 million, and Abreu-Gabrois and Plotkin (2008) estimated that number to have been further reduced to 852 550. This indicated a dramatic decrease of 28-32% in the global population within only one generation (i.e. 20 years) .(http://www.environment.gov.au/sprat)

And another one:

Olive ridleys traditionally have specific nesting grounds. Pacific olive ridley’s nest around Costa Rica, Mexico, Nicaragua, and the Northern Indian Ocean; the breeding colony in Mexico was listed as endangered in the U.S. on July 28, 1978. Though not a rule but the turtles have normally refrained from nesting in new grounds and travel thousands of kilometers in their lifetime to the specific grounds to breed.

The missing piece: In India, they nest in Gahiramatha, near Paradeep coast is Odisha. It's been a very widely filmed and media covered phenomena. Every year, you'd not  likely have missed a few conservationists  and environmentalists talking about them. And you would have always thought, at least some one's doing something. Well, not quite. 

The Odisha Government has sanctioned a port every 32 kilometers in its 480 km coastline. Added to Paradeep port, which remains largely underutilised and two more ports almost  ready to start at Dhamra and Gopalpur, the Government has sanctioned 12 more. This not only has an adverse effect on the local ecology but you firstly start questioning the reason for this. This defies all logic . What does a state do with 15 mini and mega ports?Why do we need to open up our ports and our already fragile coastal ecosystems to private companies? Who will it profit? Not the nation surely? For the record, Coastal ports are exempted from  a lot of clearances that would've been otherwise required under SEZ/ CRZ  and its later amendments in the name of "national interest". I'm sure we all know who the "interest" lies with.

Why in our country we have lost the value of our ecosystems and are hell bent on destroying the equilibrium. It's also not about the Olive Ridleys. Yes, you may not see them anymore after 40 more years except in your books and discovery channel in extinct species. The graver question is that of the policies and what dictates them. Today, the opposition in odisha is screaming on why so many companies are being given permission. But their questions are specifically related to the rampant corruption and not getting their share of meat. Or so it seems.

The Olive Ridleys were already in grave danger and ecologists were having a hard time fighting the fishing nets, the trawlers  and illegal poachers which were causing mass destruction of the turtles and their nesting sites. , they now have to fight with hundreds of big ships that will operate from those ports, not to count the massive construction that would be carried out on the coasts and many other ancillary businesses that are bound to mushroom in and around the coastline. If millions of the ridleys can dwindle down to thousands in just one life cycle, imagine what grave danger we are putting them in. It is also about understanding that we are encroaching dangerous waters literally. Japan earthquake, The Tsunamis and the Katrinas, The devastationg storms and fires, the submerging coastlines all over the world are saying something to all of us. 

How prepared are we to handle the coastal livelihoods, the marine and aquatic life forms, the endangered species and more importantly the shaking equilibrium? The Olive Ridleys are giving us the warning bell. They have rung long enough. Time we paid heed.

One really had hopes from Mr Jayaram Ramesh but seeing the course Vedanta Mining Leases and their entire operation is taking putting an entire habitat of Dongriya Kondhs and the beautiful biodiversity of  the Niyamgiri hills in jeopardy, you can't help but be afraid. So many pages written , so much of coverage on why they cannot start operations in the Niyamgiri hills, but when government plays the advocate of the mining giants, there isn't much hope left.

Life today hold no value, especially if it's a tribal life who had lived his life as a owner of lands but is now living on the margins. Let alone the Olive Ridleys and the snakes and ants, the lives of people have become pawns to be sold off for money and power. You wonder at the functionality of those laws and rules that protect the environment, the Primitive Tribes and the so called revolutionary Act such as the Forest Right Act. .

You wonder at the direction we are going, because you never know, tomorrow, it might be your life at stake for some power hungry corporate,  just on a different pretext.

(Photo-Ashok Panda: Mass hatching of Olive Ridley turtle eggs at Rushikulya River a major nesting site in Orissa. : Coutesy: www.orissadiary.com) 

(Found an interesting read:  http://infochangeindia.org/201104158758/Environment/Features/Vedanta-and-Posco-A-tale-of-two-projects.html)