Robbed of the sea

Marine protected areas have put thousands of fishers out of business. It doesn't have to be so

Gaurang Saha was a prosperous fisher in Kharnasi, a seaside village on the eastern coast of India. He owned four boats, which he would rent out for fishing. In return he would get a share of the catch. The sea was full of fish, and the business good. Everyone in the village who could afford it was buying boats.

Saha is no more; he killed himself. The coast close to Kharnasi in Kendrapara district of Orissa is where endangered Olive Ridley turtles mate and nest. In 1997, the Orissa government notified 1,435 sq km of sea and coast in Kendrapara a marine sanctuary, Gahirmatha. They banned fishing there and the catch began to fall. Forest officials seized Saha's two boats when he was out in the sea. Then one day in 2004, unable to repay Rs 4.50 lakh he had borrowed from fish merchants to buy the boats, the 55-year-old consumed poison.

Today, Saha's two teenaged daughters roll bidis to keep the family going. "My daughters had to drop out of school because I could not even buy books for them," said Saha's widow Arati, sitting in her concrete but run-down house.

A few houses away a bust of Bikas Biswas sits inside a pavilion in the compound of a house. He did not kill himself; he fell to a forest guard's bullet near the sanctuary in 2006. The government gave his wife Manmohini a compensation of Rs 1 lakh. "How can I take care of four children with this?" she asked.

Lean, middle-aged Sheetal Das of Kharnasi has stopped going to the sea. He received the first blow when he lost his boat in the super cyclone of 1999. He began fishing in a hired boat, but the returns were meagre. The loss of business so affected him that he has lost his mental balance.