As New Zealand makes Taranaki a legal person, Odisha should do the same with Olive Ridleys, Chilika

“Parties like ships or corporations, which are inanimate, are considered capable of launching litigation and so it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland or even air that feels the destructive pressure of modern technology and modern life.”

— Justice William O. Douglas in the US Supreme Court case of Sierra Club v. Morton (1972)

Recognition of ecosystems and species as separate legal entities has been attempted in India when the Ganga and Yamuna were declared as legal persons by the Uttarakhand Court in the case of Mohammed Salim v. State of Uttarakhand, (an order which was later stayed by the Supreme Court of India).

An eco-centric stewardship will make it possible to carve out a “safe and just space” that would enable everyone to thrive. Frustration is snowballing over humanity’s ultra-exploitative relationship with other species and growing concern about the apparent subterfuge of the technology-and-markets approach to the climate crisis. A new wave of nature and animal rights movements need to be shifted from the margin (read fad) to the mainstream (nee action). Society can’t be alien to the biosphere, which is its very origin.

For the planet’s indigenous peoples, the source of life involves being in an inseparable relationship with non-human entities as ‘persons’ with whom they are supposed to interact with, conserve and protect like their own kin. Examples include Ecuador’s Pachamama which refers to Mother Earth and New Zealand’s Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui river) as well as the Taranaki Maunga peak.

Your writers, in this piece, are concerned about the ecological treasures of India and are cognisant about the challenges needed to be overcome to confer legal personhood on them.

Protecting an ‘Avatar’

The eastern coast, specifically Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, is the habitat of Olive Ridley turtles. The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List classifies the Olive Ridley as one of seven living marine turtle species.

They are vulnerable today. Ridleys are an integral part of the planet’s food chain and play a vital role in maintaining the world’s ocean health. They regulate a host of other organisms.

The Odisha River mouths (muhana) host over 500,000 of Olive Ridleys every year but more than 2,000 carcasses were found this time last year, only in about a 30-kilometre stretch of beach from the Jatadhari river mouth in Jagatsinghpur district to the Devi River mouth in Puri district. Illegal, rapacious trawling is a major reason for this massacre. The Orissa High Court on February 23, 2021, took suo motu cognisance of Down to Earth’s February 2021 report on the death of Ridleys due to negligence by Odisha’s Forest and Fisheries departments. The High Court directed the state government on March 16, 2021, to install transponders in all mechanised fishing vessels to track their movements and save the turtles from fishing nets. But Ridley murders continue unabated.

Mechanised fishing is destroying the species, which is protected under Schedule 1 of India’s Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, akin to the tiger. The Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary in Odisha is the world’s largest nesting site for the species. The stretch is also a death trap. TEDs (Turtle excluder devices) can support sea turtle conservation but fishing industries resistance for their use is contumacious.

It is time we establish the rights of Olive Ridley to live.

The pretence is worth noting – Kurma Avatar, meaning “turtle incarnation”, the second incarnation of Lord Vishnu in Hindu mythology — has to plead for life and identity now. The Olive Ridley turtle has been a mascot for the state of Odisha. Named ‘Olly’, it was first introduced in 2017 at the Asian Athletics Championships and then has been flaunted the world over as the mascot of FIH Men’s Hockey World Cup in Odisha. A number of non-profits have raised funds and enriched themselves on account of Ridley. The same Ridley is riddled with criminal neglect. When humans can’t protect, the Avatar has to protect itself.

Chilika Lake

Any discussion about Odisha would have “Chilika” mentioned, unfailingly. Chilika has been over exploited, and its glory kept ruthlessly confined to only romance, fine arts, tourism and shrimp commerce. This brackish lagoon, the world’s second largest, was chosen on October 1, 1981, as India’s first Ramsar wetland. This is a globally ratified commitment to protect the wetland.

Chilika is the source of livelihood for over 150,000 fishers and allied communities. It is home to threatened species and to the endangered Irrawady dolphins. There is a proposed project of about 7.8 kilometres of connectivity which includes two bridges of 1.7 km and 1.9 km length, which will interfere with its sedimentation, breeding, migration and salinity.

This largest of Asia’s lagoons is recognised as one of India’s most productive ecosystems. It is naturally shallow, connected to the sea (Bay of Bengal) and gets freshwater inflow from various catchment areas through numerous rivers (rivulets) and brooks. Its high productivity and saline gradient regime support the colossal biodiversity. Which is turn facilitates a conducive environment for the nursery, breeding and feeding grounds of birds, fish and shellfish. The lagoon possesses a considerable density of aquatic vegetation, including macrophytes and seagrass. Being on the Central Asian Flyway used by several migratory waterbirds, more than a million travel to Chilika every year from the harsh Eurasian winters. Climate change has been affecting and gnawing at Nature’s gift, Chilika.

Chilika Lake yearns for respect as a living, breathing entity.

New Zealand set this precedence with the Whanganui river, which now has legal rights like a person. If India amends the Environment Protection Act (1986) to declare Chilika a “living entity,” it’s not just symbolic. It means the Chilika could take destroyers, violators to court, hold them accountable, penalise them, and if need be, come down heavily on avarice shrimp farming that chokes the lake’s ecosystem. The lure of big money has muted the cries of Chilika, desperately seeking its individuality.

Since 2019, the National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) order to demolish the illegal shrimp farms is waiting for action. The convenient inaction and conducive silence is killing Chilika. That’s where Chilika’s rights can provide a standing, an independent entity to fight its own case, and try for the implementation of NGT’s decisions. The local fishing communities will get a place and say at the regulatory table, when shrimp farms dump chemicals or block waterways, fish stocks crash, and families lose their livelihoods.

A court in Ecuador has ruled that pollution has violated the rights of Machángara River, which flows through Quito, its capital.

“The river carries away tons of garbage that comes down from gullies and hillsides,” according to the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature.

Chilika has the same rights as people, but this needs to be rendered. Let Odisha weave the vision, gather gumption and be one of the first few states to recognise the rights of natural features not to be degraded or polluted. Viksit Bharat 2047 will rely heavily on LiFE, the connectedness between lifestyle and environment.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s G20 declaration is what Odisha should own, internalise and practice.

Because it is essential for Odisha to protect, preserve natural features much more than many other states as it is on the cusp of mega incursions into biospheres (call it responsible mining, if you may). Natural features only if empowered, can deal with natural disasters.

Satvik Panigrahi is a promising public interest lawyer and Charudutta Panigrahi is an author, thinker

Views expressed are the authors’ own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth