Letters

Scientist's plight

Survival is a major problem facing us in Sri Lanka. I served my country as an agricultural scientist for almost three decades and I know I made a good contribution to research. My last full month's salary was Rs 4,000, plus allowances of Rs 504. Fortunately, I got the benefit of a "salary revision" in the calculation of my pension!

Scientists in this country are paupers because they stayed on at their post in the motherland rather than migrate to the affluent world. Much as I would like to subscribe to your journal, I just don't have the means to do so. But, I hasten to add I frequent a library that gets your journal.

I wish you success - and hope that you will be able to survive.

NISSANKA SENEVIRATNE , Peradeniya, Sri Lanka ...

Pressure on Thar

Desert Under Siege (Down To Earth, December 31, 1992) by Arif Assan brings out some excellent and useful points regarding sustainable resource management. I would like to add the following:

Every desert region has its own human-carrying capacity and so it is with the Thar. This carrying capacity is directly proportional to the overall economic development of the region. The carrying capacity of the barrage area in the Indus plains is far greater than that of desert areas like the Thar and C.4olistan. The wide difference is due solely to the development of irrigation systems in the early part of this century, which has enabled the cultivation of high-yielding food crop varieties in the barrage areas, but has left the desert areas still relying entirely on traditional agricultural methods.

The Thar's economy will have to respond to market opportunities in barrage area townships as well as the cities of Karachi and Hyderabad. However, the response to these market forces must be compatible with sustainable development and m.ust keep in mind the needs of future generations.

Hassan refers to natural vegetation and desert vegetation and says the former has been preserved, but the latter has decreased. I consider all desert vegetation to be natural and such interventions as rangeland development and minor adjustments on private, rainfed farms, have not changed the landscape radically, as both only lead to better moisture utilisation. There is a pressing need to investigate the adverse impact on vegetation in the Thar due to higher human and livestock populations.

Hassan also refers to the replacement of wheat by sugar cane in the barrage area and its effect on Thad haris (sharecroppers). This has occurred mainly in the Lower Sindh districts of Mirpurkhas and Badin, on the edge of the Thar, due to economic and edaphic reasons. Sugar cane harvesting extends from October to March and not necessarily from October to December.

AIJAZ A NIZAMANI, Oxfam, Sindh Sub-Office, Hyderabad, Pakistan ...

Destructive aid

Is it not ironic that when we are supposedly following up the decisions taken at the Rio summit to ensure the rights of poor nations to a clean environment, 90,000 villagers in Banaskantha, Gujarat, are supplied fluoridated water under a regional water supply,scheme funded and designed by international experts?

The Banaskantha. project was formulated after a number of international development consultants visited the site. Post-project evaluation is far from being taken up but the same international. experts and their Indian collaborators will give the project flying colours.

The ill-effects of high fluoride levels in piped water, particularly its harmful impact on farmlands, have been known since the mid-1980s, but there has been no planning of preventive measures. This makes Banaskantha an informative example that can be studied to know about how development aid can become big business. Migration is one of the options available to the Banaskantha population, but even though thousands have moved to Surat and other diamond-cutting centres- in search of work, they are hampered by the fluoride that continues to harm their bodies, especially the joints, and make them weak. At 20, they stagger; at 30 they are bent and need help to stand erect.

The poisonous effect of fluoride is not limited to humans. The whole environment is contaminated and this affects both cattle and farmland. Fluoride affects the teeth of animals and they fall out soon, making it difficult for them to graze. Without adequate grazing, there is no milk for the calf or the owner. And, when the animal succumbs to starvation, its owner is deprived of a source of income.

How energetically we discuss and make a convincing case for the complex causal relationship between drought, famine, desertification and deforestation with the greenhouse effect and the disappearing ozone layer. But do we ever connect international aid with ruthless business practices and environmental destruction?

K D BHANSALI, Palanpur, Banaskantha (Gujarat) ...

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