| |
ENVIRONMENT: WHALE SHARKS
Hope For The Gentle Giant
Banning slaughter and trade of this mammoth fish
is only a first step. Education and eco-tourism must follow if it is to
be saved.
By Anna M.M. Vetticad
It's called the
gentle giant of the sea. Yet the mammoth whale shark, a docile warm-water
creature, has received anything but gentle treatment along India's picturesque
western coastline. The mindless slaughter on the shores of Gujarat in
recent years in particular has gradually diminished its numbers. Rhincodon
typus, the world's largest fish, has obviously been in need of help. And
it came last week, in the form of a notification issued by the Union Ministry
of Environment and Forests. The whale shark has now been added to Schedule
1 of the Wildlife Protection Act, making it the first fish on the list.
So starting May 28, 2001, hunting whale sharks is an offence that could
invite imprisonment.
 Not
that whale shark fishing has stopped yet. When contacted two days after
the latest move, former fisherman Bachchubhai Kasta, now secretary of
the Machhimaas Association of Veraval, Gujarat, was unaware of the ban:
"We have not been informed about this new rule by any government
department," he said. Evidently, there's plenty more to be done.
The Centre is advising state governments to educate-not intimidate-local
fishermen. Unofficially, states are also being asked to go slow on arrests
for a start. "We want governments to make people realise that it
would be better for them if they were to stop fishing and protect the
whale shark instead," says S.C. Sharma, additional director general
(wildlife) in the ministry. He points to an alternative source of income
for the fisherfolk: eco-tourism wherever the whale shark is sighted in
Indian seas, making it a marine tourist attraction just like the elephants
in Thekkady and the lions of Gir.
The past year has brought unprecedented attention
to this endangered fish. In October 2000, filmmaker Mike H. Pandey won
the Green Oscar for his documentary, Shores of Silence-Whale Sharks in
India, the result of three years spent tracking the creature off the Gujarat
sands. This January saw the publication of Fahmeeda Hanfee's study of
the whale shark for traffic (Trade Records Analysis of Flora and Fauna
in Commerce), India, a joint programme of the World Wide Fund for Nature
and The World Conservation Union. But despite the ban, the film and the
study, the whale shark is still an enigma in India.
|
|
|
|
|
MURKY
WATERS: Still from Pandey's film (top); another shows the fish being
cut up |
This gigantic migratory fish has been sought
out in Gujarat since ancient times for its liver oil which is used to
waterproof boats. It is also eaten in parts of south India. In the 1990s
came a demand from Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other countries for
its meat, fins (for soup), cartilage (for medicinal purposes) and skin.
The result: a dramatic rise in whale shark captures. At a conservative
estimate, some experts believe that about 1,200 whale sharks have been
killed annually in recent times in Gujarat alone. The traffic study recorded
600 catches or landings from March 1999-May 2000. Aniruddha Mookerjee
of the Wildlife Trust of India, a Delhi green group, believes that seven
whale sharks or more are caught in a single day in Gujarat; the figure
would be higher if the rest of the coastline is taken into account, but
the study of the fish has been mostly confined to Gujarat and "estimates
of their population are guesswork based on the numbers killed".
A lot of the whale shark trade in India seems
to be concentrated in Veraval and Okha in Gujarat. There are reportedly
40-50 shark processing factories around Veraval alone. Anil Nair, owner
of NRH Exports in Veraval, says whale sharks account for 2-3 per cent
of total fish exports from Gujarat. The now-banned fish made up 20 per
cent of his nearly Rs 5 crore turnover last year. He admits unabashedly:
"Like other exporters, I too was aware that whale shark fishing could
lead to the extinction of the species. But fishermen were catching it
for its liver oil anyway, then leaving the carcasses lying around. We
couldn't stop them from catching the fish, so we made use of the carcasses
to earn foreign exchange for the country."
It's been profitable patriotism so far. While
whale shark meat fetches local fisherfolk an average of Rs 10-12 a kg,
exporters sell the meat for $1 (Rs 46) a kg, the skin for $2-3 a kg and
the fins for $4-5 a kg. If you consider that the largest whale shark in
the traffic study was a 14.5 m, 12 tonne monster, and that the fish is
usually sold as a single unit by the fisherfolk, the total money made
on the 12 tonne fish could have been Rs 1.5 lakh. The figure is multiplied
several times for the exporter. But here's the catch. Since the fish is
large but boats used by small fishermen are not, it requires 8-10 struggling
men risking their lives in a little vessel to catch a single whale shark.
So the Rs 1.5 lakh fish might actually mean an earning of only Rs 15,000
for each man on the boat. Activists and the ministry believe that turning
the whale shark into a tourist magnet would be much more profitable for
the local population. Not unexpectedly, Veraval hotelier A.W. Banatwala
came up against resistance when he tried to organise a tourism festival
this January. "The Government was supportive but I couldn't get sponsorship
and the exporters tried to incite local fishermen," he laments. "Industry
was afraid that if fishermen saw how much more money they could make through
tourism they would stop fishing."
India is not the first country to clamp down
on the whale shark trade. There's a blanket ban in the Philippines. Whale
sharks are also protected in Western Australia, parts of the US, Maldives
and Honduras. In fact, this marine species is a prime international tourist
draw. Says Pandey: "In Australia, a whale-shark-spotting boat trip
costs $350 (Rs 16,100) a day. The same trip with the chance to dive into
the sea alongside the fish costs as much as $2,800 (Rs 1.28 lakh). Why
can't we do the same in our country?" Delhi-based tour operator Rajesh
Duggal is one of many who would like to. Duggal wants to rope in local
communities to bring in the curious traveller-at a much lower price: $150
(Rs 6,900) a day for just the boat ride (not counting the diving) would
be reasonable, he figures. If that's not incentive enough for Veraval
to protect its whale sharks, nothing will be.
|
|
METRO TODAY
Web
Exclusives