November 25, 2006

FRAGILE and bent double, fisherwoman Rehmat Bibi, 104, the oldest and most permanent resident of the Bhundaar, the island that has been making news for the past one month, loses no sleep over the news that the government has sold it to a foreign company of developers and builders and is busy giving final touches to the legalities of this allotment. “I was here long before Qasim port or even this country came into being,” she says sitting on a weather-beaten straw mat on the beach, watching the water loll onto the shore.

Over the next 15 years the builders will slice up Bhundaar (also known as Bundal which is the biggest along the coast) and Dingi (Buddo) islands, over 12,000 acres and located at the western end of the Sindh coast bordered by two creeks — Korangi and Phitti — into a rich man’s playground a la Dubai. Named the Diamond Bar City, it will whisk away the few unsightly fishing shanties to make room for posh commercial and residential complexes, hotels, parks and water features. The two islands will be connected to Karachi through a 1.5-km-long bridge.

Unfortunately, neither the government nor the developers have seen it fit to involve the indigenous community in decision-making processes that are accountable or participatory. Glaringly clear, like so many other such development projects, this one too, is a deadly combination of a rapacious private sector and government graft.

Purported to be built at a cost of $43.135 billion by Emaar Properties PJSC, this realty giant, based in Dubai, also carrying out the Canyon Views Project in Islamabad, will have 85 per cent equity in the project while the remaining 15 per cent will be held by the Port Qasim Authority (PQA) in return for their land.

As the name suggests, the Diamond Bar Island City, the project reeks of extravagance the country can ill-afford and has earned the ire of the local indigenous fishing community who fear their traditional livelihoods are at stake. Once the place is privatised, small-scale fishing operations by individual proprietors will become more difficult to sustain as they will have no access to the beach. The untrammelled exploitation of natural resources, say environmentalists, will have damning effects, not only on the climate but on the rich biodiversity that exists.

Whose land is it anyway?

Amid much bickering over the land ownership between the port authority and the Sindh government; with the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) claiming to have signed an agreement with a Thai Firm in 2002 to set up a technology city at the same site; and watching the drama from close quarters, the Pakistan Navy, who is reportedly, not too happy either, the real owners have been completely ignored — the fishermen who have historical rights over the place.

Taking a long puff from the hookah (the hubble bubble), Rehmat Bibi elaborates: “The government people will protect me and not let them take away my hut or even displace me. How can they? I’ve lived here all my life. This is my island,” she says with conviction.

Her confidence also stems from Hazrat Yusuf Shah, the patron saint of the fishermen, who lies buried on the same island and whose 552nd anniversary was celebrated earlier this month. “He will not let any trespassers come near our island,” she says.

In contrast, sixty-something Qasim Nathani, a fisherman who has fished around Bhundaar for over three decades, is quite wary of such developmental projects. “Since I heard about it last month, I’ve been very anxious. It will be the death of my occupation. My two sons and I know only this work. How will we survive?”

He says he has had enough of their tall promises and false assurances. “This time round I will not just let them take away my fishing spot. I’ll fight till the end.”

Fear of displacement

Displaced twice, once from Gizri creek — now a reclaimed land owned by the Armed Forces and turned into a posh residential locality, the Defence Housing Authority — and later from Korangi Creek where now stands the air force base, Nathani has no confidence in the government’s word. “How can I be sure that what I am promised will be given to me?”

Majid Bhotani, 78, who considers the surrounding waters and the islands as his ancestral right, has spent his entire life using the islands as fishing spot and has seen how fishermen have been displaced over the years. “It’s not the way the real world works. The rich and the poor cannot live side by side. The rich will per force nudge us out. See the Marina Club in Korangi Creek? I used to fish there as well. Now if we park our boats there, even for half a day, we’re told by the club security to scoot as we’re a security hazard for their guests. Even if we were not a security hazard, our boats are an eyesore in front of the neat row of brand new luxury vessels.”

A visit to the paradise islands

On a sunny November morning, heading for Bhundaar from Ebrahim Hyderi jetty, it is business as usual at this fishermen wharf. The undercurrents made by the island project seem to be lost somewhat in the hustle and bustle. The water is calm with just the flying fish popping in and out playfully vying for attention or the seagulls above screeching gleefully on their successful attempts. The thick mangrove forests form the perfect background. The quiet is broken now and then by the whirr of fisherman’s boat passing us by.

On our way, Mohammad Ali Shah, chairman of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, spearheading a campaign against the sale, explains how the project will affect the occupation of over 500,000 small fishermen who do subsistence fishing around the area and push them further towards poverty.

“The islands with their mangroves forests are a rich hatchery for the fish and the shrimps. For over 500 years, people from around the Indus Delta have been visiting these islands and fishing on these islands, which otherwise remain uninhabited,” says 80-year-old Mohammad Umar, a local fisherman.

Loss of livelihood

The project means the various channels will be closed like the one which widens to meet the sea and from where the mature fish come to lay their eggs in these mangroves. The mangroves will have to be destroyed, too, to make the clearing. While the rich will be able to zoom in and out of the islands, the locals will become less mobile as they will be shut out from entire stretches of coastal land. “It will also mean these fishermen will be unable to go into the deep sea,” explains Shah.

While the government insists it will create employment openings for them, Umar, and his son Abdullah, 60, from interior Sindh and who come and live on the island say for months on end, say they don’t want to turn into daily wage earners, as this is not just an occupation but a passion. “It is our tradition, we are fishermen and mighty proud too.”

In olden days the fisherfolk would come, make their one-room thatched homes and stay for three to four months at a stretch. While the men went out into the water, the women would prepare for their return. They would collect the wood from the forest (which also formed a rich grazing ground for their camels and goats), boil the water and when the men would come with their catch of shrimps, immediately put them in the boiling water as there was no other way of preserving with no ice factory back then. These boiled shrimps were then put out to dry. Once dried, they were shelled and packed in bags which the men took to the fish market in Karachi to sell.

The fishing still goes on but now the men just take it to Ebrahim Hyderi, from where it is transferred to Karachi and further inland or abroad. The scrub and the mangroves are still used as grazing grounds.

We need these ‘shock absorbers’

But says Shah, the issue is not just that of the fishermen alone but of the people of Karachi and all those who live along the coast. “We need to speak in unison. In their quest for development, the authorities fail to understand that once they remove the mangroves, the whole area will be vulnerable to tsunamis, cyclones and floods. Why don’t we learn from the mistakes of others?” asks a frustrated Shah giving various examples of how man-made disasters are toppling the natural balance of ecology and the climate change that follows will be a threat for the coastal areas. “The trade-off will be costly,” he warns.

The same was reiterated in a recent seminar by Najma Sadik of Shirkat Gah, the women’s resource centre. She termed the privatisation of the islands, the shamlaats (collective property of the people of Pakistan) undemocratic and, thus, unacceptable as it was not pro-people development. “Mangroves are shock absorbers and once removed to make way for the development, the consequences will be dire.” She too warned of cyclones and floods that would be catastrophic in the absence of these forests.

Taking us about 20 minutes to reach Bundal, one notices the island is not really inhabited. That is a relief as it is quite undisturbed by human activity, except for the litter on the beach brought by the surrounding beaches. “Can you imagine the magnitude of pollution that will be caused by construction debris and excavations? Then these rubber slippers, errant bottles, plastic bags and wrappers will seem nothing,” says Shah pointing to the litter strewn on the sandy bed.

“Once the construction starts there is good chance that these mangroves will be destroyed because the builders will start landscaping which will be more un-natural and this ecosystem will just be destroyed,” says Dr Ejaz Ahmed, deputy director general, Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) — Pakistan, seconding Shah.


 

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