Around India, the world’s third largest Indian Ocean laps its shores. India is also having the seventh largest coastline in the globe and one-fifth of the population of the country live in the coastal areas.
Our coasts have created and shaped history. We observe June 8 as the World Ocean Day, which means we should preserve and maintain the health of the ocean. Our future depends on the ocean.
Not only the Indian Ocean, but also other four oceans such as the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Arctic and the Antarctic are highly polluted for the reasons of commerce and seafaring. The oceans are generally polluted through seas and bays.
There are 13 seas. For every practical reason, there is only one ocean in the globe which covers two third of the global areas and the balance one third is the landmass. We have converted the ocean to our garbage dump yard. So, human activities threaten the very ecology of the oceans.
Some of the activities take place at particular spots and sites of the coasts, and others take place all along the entire sea-coasts of the world. Except the northern parts of the India, three other boundaries like South, East and West have sea coasts. Due to industrial activities and commerce, ocean is polluted beyond repairs.
The ship breaking workshops and activities are now carried out along the entire sea-coasts of Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, which yield iron particles, paint containing leads and other garbage products, which straight go to the oceanic body of the Indian Ocean and harm the biological activities of the ocean.
Now the whole Indian Ocean is subjected to exploration of crude oil and mining of the same, which pollute the whole oceanic body through the particles of crude oil and other things and cause harm to the biological function of the oceanic ecosystems.
The domestic sewage of millions of litres and tons of from coastal towns and cities reach every day into the oceanic body, which is mostly untreated. There must be treatment plants in the coast boundaries to save direct pollution of ocean through such activities.
There must be research programmes for such practices of human activities.
Over exploration of fish and other marine resources every day through mechanized boats, huge plastic and nylon nets and devices also hamper the normal biological order of marine ecology. Now, the Odisha Government plans to manufacture and export sea foods to the tune of Rs 20,000 crore annually to other States and countries which definitely would harm the ecological process of not only of the Indian Ocean or the Bay of Bengal, but would spoil the whole oceanic environment.
Every day the tons of plastic products like glasses and other home uses and metals are discharged into the ocean, which definitely harm the bio-sphere of the Indian Ocean.
The use of different chemical fertilizers and insecticides to promote bumper agricultural products in the cultivable lands of India is widely going on, which ultimately mix with the sea as waste and spoil the planktonic base of marine chains.
The mining activities for exploitation of different rich minerals from the sea are now hairstreak in a commercial scale, which increases the turbidity of water of the ocean and become the cause of destruction of biological activities.
large numbers of industries are growing up along the sea-coasts, especially in various coastal towns and cities. They always discharge untreated effluents into the sea through various canals, drains, rivers rivulets, creek etc. which are the main sources of pollution of the ocean. Such industrial towns and cities include Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Visakhapatnam, Cochin, Surat and Gopalpur etc.
At present the aquaculture, especially the prawn-cultures and shrimp cultures are going on in large scale along the various sea-coasts of India like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bangle, and Odisha. These are the sources of pollution of sea through organic and in organic wastes. The aquaculture firms are growing up very fast in an unregulated manner, beyond the control of the administration of the States.
The major pollutions of ocean take place due to rising activities of ports. We have eleven major and several minor ports in India, which are sources of pollution of ocean. Such pollution leads to siltation of sea, erosion and turbidity affecting oceanic biological functions.
The port development activities like dredging and other constructional work causes frequent disturbances of biological functions.
Again the power stations, certain industrial release and hot water into sea for cooling down the same lead to pollution. Such activities cause thermal pollutions of the sea. Similarly the thermal fly ashes are also released either into sea or to the rivers. Which also cause the pollution of the sea. The fly ashes in liquid state generally are released into the sea, which cause more harms to the oceanic creatures.
Major oil spills caused in Indian Ocean and other oceans due wars, accidents of oil tankers, oil explorations with drilling operations also lead to massive pollution. The Gulf war between Iraq and America caused great harm to the oceanic biology of the Indian Ocean which took a long period to revive and come to normalcy. The madness of certain rulers and autocrats causes major destruction of the environment and biosphere. If the entire wetland oceanic body is polluted by man, how the creatures of the biosphere can survive and continue its race.
The disposal of waste does not confine within a particular site or spot, where the same is disposed of. The circulation of oceanic water takes the same to far-off places of sea and ocean and contaminates the waters of different regions, which affect the marine lives of different regions.
More grievous situations are noticed from ships faring within the oceans. A lot of garbage from human activities is from ships thrown into the sea and also from landmass; which spoil the habitats of the ocean creatures. Sea-birds and several mammals of ocean get entangled in the fishing nets that are thrown into the sea. Sometimes some creatures of the sea shallow these garbage and die. Similarly, the discarded plastic water bottles, pouches, metal can and particles of various forms create fatal results for sea-creatures. They face serious problems for misdeeds of man.
The sea yields enormous quantities of food resources like fish and other products at present, but due to over exploitations it goes beyond the recoveries. In traditional fishing, everything was going on manually and with se of traditional technologies and devices. The catches of fish were within permissible limits and within the range of recovery. But mechanized fishing has caused a cause of concern by over-exploitation of marine resources. In some parts of the country, fishing is stopped during breeding season as catching young fish means destruction of breeding populations and future catch. Given the enormity of the problem, the Government should include antipollution practices in the Swatchha Bharat Programme.
(The writer is a former senior forest officer and an environmentalist. Tel no 9937460649)