Will Greenpeace be banned in Orissa?

will Greenpeace be banned in Orissa over its report on the 'controversial' Dhamra port project? Likely, if the state government has the final say. The issue was discussed in the state assembly on July 14, with the state commerce and transport minister Jainarayan Misra stressing the ban.

The project is a joint venture of the Orissa government and the Dhamra Port Company Ltd, a 50-50 joint venture of tata Steel and l&t. Greenpeace had commissioned a study of the port area to North Orissa University, which was released on June 8. In its report, Greenpeace, "citing the study," said that the port would be an "ecological blunder causing irreversible destruction".

But the researchers who carried out the study say their findings have been "abused" to suit "its (Greenpeace's) vested interests".Not just that, there were also "alarmist changes and addition of chapters that did not exist in the original report, besides changing the title of the report". This was disclosed on July 1, by Ashok Kumar, prinicipal secretary of the Higher Education department and Priyabrata Patnaik, principal secretary in the Orissa commerce and transport department, along with Sudarshan Nanda, vice chancellor of the university and S K Dutta, the investigator of the study.
Sensitive wildlife Greenpeace, however, is on the defensive. It has accused the tata group of not accepting the fact that the port will put "sensitive wildlife" at risk. "Dutta was aware of the changes to the report," said Ashish Fernandes, oceans campaigner of Greenpeace.

"Greenpeace has also made public the emails that it exchanged with Dutta. The bigger issue is that there is evidence that the site has endangered species. The group had promised to consider alternatives, they should act now," said Fernandes. Greenpeace also said that the government had jumped to the defence of tata Steel."tata Steel officials refused to meet our campaigners when they went to their office," Fernandes added.

Meanwhile, Dhamra Port Company Ltd officials insist that the port had obtained environmental clearances, which was also upheld by the National Environment Appellate Authority.

The turtle carcasses that have been reported by Greenpeace may have come from anywhere beyond the site too, they say. Amlan Dutta, junior manager, environment, of the Dhamra Port Company Ltd, questions the relevance of the study because it was not conducted at the peak season of turtle activity and says that the time period over which fieldwork was done was too short.

S K Dutta, who has since remained unavailable for comment, stood by his findings at the press conference held on July 1. He is reported to have said "I have not made any inference or suggestions in my report. I have only made an inventory study of the bio-diversity of the Dhamra estuary."

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