A court order staying the culturing of exotic predatoryfish in the Andaman 6 Nicobar waters sets a unique precedent
SANE counsel seems to have finally prevailed upon the judiciary arbitrating on
culturing exotic fish in the Andaman &
Nicobar (A&N) islands, It all began
when the island administration granted
a licence nearly one and half years ago,
to an entrepreneur organisation called
Lakshadweep Shilpi Aquaculture Ltd to
introduce two exotic fish species - the
European Sea Bass and the Guilt-head
Sea Brearn - to be cultured in huge
cages placed in the sea. However, the
licence was granted without conducting
any environmental impact assessment
and also without obtaining prior clearance from the Union ministry of environment and forests.
Arguing that the move could spell
disaster for the islands' indigenous fish
stock - as the exotics were predatory in
nature - the NGO, Society for Andaman
and Nicobar Ecology (SANE) alongwith
other environmental groups, mounted a
campaign against the administration's
decision. But as there, was no un mediate
action by the island administration,
SANE took the matter to the Port Blair
High Court and filed a public interest
litigation.
Following this, the Court ordered
the A&N administration to file an affidavit on the issue, which the latter did
not obey. Next, the Court ordered an
expert committee to be constituted to
probe the matter. Says Pratibba Panday,
a New Delhi-based environmentalist,
"The Sea Bass is the most successful
species of its family because of its
aggressive nature. Bringing in such a
species to the Andamans would mean
endangering the existence of the local
fish and other marine species, some of
which are endemic to the island waters."
However, the expert committee
failed to take off because the Andaman
administration seemed to have other
fish to fry. On the other hand, for exotic
fish breeding, construction work and
laying of pipelines started in full swing,
and that too, barely within 200 in of the
high tide line along the A&N coast,
which is against the Coastal Regulation
Zone Rules framed tinder the
Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
Nearly Rs six crore has already been
spent on the project. Sensing danger,
SANE then sounded its warcry, this time
to be heard by the Government of India.
V Krishnamoorthy, director of fish-cries, A&N, filed an affidavit on behalf of
the Centre on December 15, 1995, stating that the A&N administration had not
acceded to its order which stated that
the exotic fish culture project must be
stalled considering the deleterious
impact it would have on the marine life
of the istands' waters.
Justice A K Chakraborty of the
Calcutta High Court Circuit Bench at
Port Blair, in a landmark judgement,
stayed the implementation of the project on December 22, 1995, on these
very grounds. This is the first instance
where the Indian government carne forward to support an NCO against one of
its own agencies. And it is expected that
the case, the first of its kind, will set a
precedent to arbitrations on other cases
of a similar nature.
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