Andhra Pradesh: Defenders of the creek

Perupalem village in the West Godavari district is located between the sea and a creek — a unique position that the government sees as suitable for tourism development. But hundreds of fisherfolk disagree as they lose their livelihoods and feel they will be reduced guards and cleaners,

Fifty-year-old Tirumani Srinivasa Rao, a fisherman who passed Class VII and the only man who can read and write in his village, is now the lone soldier who stands between the government’s might and 10,000 trees.

The blue tattered blue shirt and the faded white dhoti he wears might give the impression that the weatherworn fisher who understands the sea and its many moods is tired from the legal battle with much powerful forces going on for more than seven years.

But the high-octane fighter looks triumphantly at the sea, taking a moment to cherish the small victory in a long war he got in the form of a High Court order to halt the construction of a resort, saving hundreds of trees from felling.

Mr. Rao hails from Perupalem, a village located between the sea and a creek in West Godavari Mogalthuru mandal. He and the community of about 2,000 fisherfolk families living in the panchayat had been cultivating coconut trees and casuarina plantations on government land for more than 100 years until State-approved tourism projects cropped up.

As part of its plans, the government leased out land to private players for the construction of resorts, restaurants, and bars and laid a road for easy access to the beach, beginning in 2016. These have violated not only the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) rules but also land allocation rules. Since then, 1,500 coconut trees and acres of casuarina plantations have been destroyed to make way for a road, resorts, a marine police station and the beach festival.

Mr. Rao, along with others from his village, filed multiple cases in the High Court against the builders for both cutting down the trees and flouting Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms. Many, due to loss of livelihood after the felling of trees, have migrated to cities in search of greener pastures, says Mr. Rao 

Despite the recent order to stop a resort, the fisherfolk are worried that their voices might be overpowered. This fear seems valid as a resort, Hamsa Beach Resort,has been completed and is functioning despite a stay order in the year it was constructed (2017).