The year 2022 ended several months ago, without settling anything or solving anything on the havoc likely to be wrought by global climate change, though we heard eloquent rhetoric in international forums. Mother Earth, the only human habitat so far known, has been anxiously waiting to witness positive, visible action to prevent the dreaded catastrophe of climate change, already hissing before biting.

Climate, our long-time nourisher, cannot be provoked to ruin our civilisation. The less developed and poor countries will suffer from the disastrous effects of climate change much more, while rich countries with their unrestrained pursuit of higher consumption will continue to add to the calamity.

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The gap of inequality and undeserved suffering between the rich and the poor countries will widen. When the sea level will start rising menacingly, the estuarine areas and the coastline of West Bengal, as the experts fear, will be the first to submerge in sea-water. Agriculturists and fisherfolk of our Sundarban areas, already in penury and badly mauled by their inhospitable surroundings will find their cultivable pieces of land more salty.

Their ponds and wetlands will be plagued with salty water, incapacitating healthy fish culture. Their hopelessness will deepen when their wobbly huts will crumble with the lashing, cruel blasts of predicted cyclonic storms. If a cyclone, with capricious mercy, spares the illprotected island hamlets, and they take the risk, to stave off impending starvation, of venturing out on their boats fish in the canals and streams dangerously close to the Sundarban forests, they face the risk of the truculently prowling tiger, a hungry carnivore, chasing their movements with deadly stealth.

Tiger conservation is imperative to prevent extinction of this endangered species but lives of poor fishermen also matter. The crisis demands much-needed cooperation and coordination between the Forest and Fisheries departments, and from panchayat bodies. It must be backed by the people’s responsible response and active participation for reducing this man-animal conflict. While the Royal Bengal tigers May live majestically in the forest, the fisherfolk also cannot be robbed of their right to live on fishing and allied avocations. They can surely sustain themselves with supplementary and allied activities like horticulture, animal husbandry, bee-keeping, duckery, piggery, goats-rearing etc., besides safe fishing.

Success depends on diligent entrepreneurship, with aid and advice from government functionaries and panchayats. They should free themselves from the dishonour of begging and struggle, and help themselves go up the socio-economic ladder. Then, the buffets of nature or man-made calamity will fail to defeat them. The challenge of the hungry tides will then bring an opportunity to rise. But all stake-holders must work with transparency, above narrow political partisanship. It is nobody’s business to discourage tourism which ushers in economic growth.

But tourism and development cannot mean thoughtless or reckless profit-seeking that result in denudation of the estuarine mangrove forest, which is a protective wall against tides and cyclones. Unplanned and perilous conversion of wetlands and tide-fed canals into shrimp-culture sites, to feed our lust for export earnings may quicken the harmful effects of man-made climatechange. Mere electoral victory, which in reality means enthronement for domination, is powerless before the swallowing tides and too weak to stop the lashing hail of cyclonic storms. If political victory can usher in all-inclusive socio-economic, morale-boosting well-being for all, especially the indigent, ceaselessly struggling fishermen, it will be a triumph of the people.

For this, divisive and constant bickering and narrow political feuds must yield space to well-thought-out, corruption-free implementation of eco-friendly, employment-generating projects. A large portion of the wetlands of our country lie in West Bengal. Preservation of our wetlands, without any concession or compromise will prevent further fall of our underground water levels. Strict protection of our wetlands, ponds and tanks, whether privately or public owned, is an effective step towards a secure tomorrow for our children. Fisheries, hygienically practised, in all our water bodies will bring income for the right entrepreneurs. Wetlands cannot be wastelands.

Pisciculture requires disciplined, trained and duly authorised groups, not muscle-flexing gangs of encroachers. Such well-maintained and productively cultivated wetlands, in both rural and urban areas will be a check on unscrupulous builders who are looking to fill up, especially in urban areas, any wetland for building sky-scrappers. We must not be blind to the significant numbers of large or mediumsized water bodies in many government-owned or managed premises. No such water body should remain fallow if found useful from the fisheries point of view. Our environment will thrive in health and not fall sick with conservation of water and productive fisheries.

Special schemes for women’s participation in fish culture and fish seed, fish-feed production, with necessary government and panchayat support and proper training, will be a silent but sure step to income generation in the rural areas, besides preventing the upcoming water crisis. The learned research scholars and fisheries scientists should leave their ivory tower of scholarship and come down to learn lessons from ground-level partnerships.

Modern information technology may be fruitfully used to make this project a success for all. Cutting down forests, ecologically disastrous mining and hasty and unplanned construction of dams/barrages, throwing environmental and geological concerns to the winds in mountainous regions invokes Nature’s furious wrath in the form of snap and destructive floods in the nearby residential plains. It also results in silting of rivers and streams. Innumerable fishermen who have lived near rivers for centuries are getting less and less catch as silted up riverbeds are detrimental to fish habitats.

Rivers and streams with adequate fish as before may reduce degradation of our rivers, even after providing livelihood to our fishermen. The fishermen, too, must play a responsible role. Sewage treatment plants, economically managed, for cleaning up municipal sewage or factory waste, are useful for stopping untreated sewage from falling into our rivers. Sewage-fed fisheries, around the eastern fringe of Kolkata, are the natural cleaners of the tanks. The marine fisheries sector also needs proper regulation.

Mindless and merciless mechanical sweeping of the sea-floors with trawlers, mostly foreign, are sure to decimate the flora and fauna of the seas and ocean. Besides, over-fishing round the year leaves little time for breeding and sustainable growth of marine fish. If the Marine Fisheries Regulation Act and Rules continue to be ignored, this will endanger the ecology of our seas and oceans.

(The writer, a former IAS officer, served as Director of Fisheries, West Bengal.)