Catholic priest, trade union leader, lawyer, environmentalist and battler against the WTO at Seattle… will the real Tom Kocherry please stand up?
He is sitting before you! I might be all these and more, but my concern is one… I want people who live close to the earth to be protected from those who have detached themselves from the earth.
Is this a new involvement? How come your life took so many twists and turns?
My life has actually taken me along the straight and narrow, towards the involvements that govern my existence today. It seems like yesterday, but I was ordained as a priest nearly 30 years ago and I still do God's work by defending his creations.
But what led you towards fishing communities in particular?
In 1971, soon after I became a priest, I worked with the refugees from Bangladesh in Raigunj. The stories of despair and destitution that I heard changed me forever. My decision to spend my life defending the oppressed was further consolidated when I began to work in a small fishing village called Poothura near Thiruvananthapuram. Middlemen led by one politically well-connected family were using muscle-power to keep fisherfolk permanently on the edge of starvation even though they worked harder than any community I knew. I decided to arm them with knowledge by teaching them to read and write.
That sounds like very positive work. Why then are you regarded as anti-development by 'the system'?
Which system? The one that exploits and privatises the natural capital that belongs to the public? I might ask those in charge of the 'system' what exactly they mean by development in the first place. Does it mean destroying nature's priceless assets to build temporary commercial ones? Fisherfolk may not be professional communicators, but those who destroy human hope cannot be allowed to paint people like us as anti-development any longer.
Such charges, of course, come from people in high places.
Yes, and they are precisely the ones I refer to. The corruption and autocracy in high places, which appears to go hand in hand with 'development', has become all too obvious. Millions of fisherfolk who live peacefully along the coast also want economic development. We also want security and health and nutrition. But these must come with peace, harmony and social justice. After divorcing themselves from nature, so-called developers are now looking to steal even this basic human right from fisherfolk and forest dwellers.
That could be Medha Patkar talking!
That's because the people of the Narmada Valley face aggression from the same forces that seek to profit from the degradation of the seas. Colossal mismanagement and injustice is being perpetrated in the name of development in the Narmada Valley, and along the entire coast of India. This is the very rationale for the launching of the National Alliance of Peoples' Movements (NAPM), which seeks to protect India's natural resources - water, land and forest - against global or national exploiters.
Is your battle a human rights or an environmental one?
What's the difference? Local fishing communities that depend on their daily catch from the oceans are not consulted when the fate of coastal areas is decided. The end result is starvation and social stress, caused by businessmen living far from the arena of distress. Should fisherfolk not own and manage the water bodies, fishing infrastructure and the sale and distribution of their catch? Should they not have the right to prevent the pollution of their waters by industry or the usurpation of their habitats by industrial-scale aquaculture? We want control of these factors. If you take away my ability to provide for my family - by destroying my environment - you abuse my human right to livelihood.
Give me an example of what you mean.
In 1991, in pursuit of globalisation the government introduced what they called the Joint Venture Policy. Foreign fishing fleets were being foolishly invited in to Indian waters to exhaust our dwindling fish stocks. As many as 25,000 vessels of the type that have already destroyed 75 per cent of the world's fishing grounds, with the exception of the Indian Ocean, would have entered India. We prevented this through united actions involving the entire fishing industry, which went on four nation-wide fisheries' strikes that also involved the blockade of harbours in the past few years. I was personally constrained to go on a hunger strike twice. As a result of such actions fisherfolk found representation in the Murari High Powered Committee that was instructed to look into and redraft the deep sea fishing policy. This led to a ban on new licenses and the cancellation of all foreign fishing. Though the 21 recommendations made by the Murari Committee were accepted in toto, we await their implementation by the government. The Joint Venture policy of 1991 was rescinded in 1998.
How successful are your other battles?
I don't know if you can call them successful because we are condemned to permanent vigilance against the destroyers. But we have managed to make our point against industrial prawn farms that destroy paddy fields supporting thousands of hardworking communities. The irony is that aquaculture has in-built self-destructive elements. When disease and pollution combine that will be the end of aquaculture, marine fishing and even the centuries old coastal agriculture. The NFF has no option but to work for a national and global ban on industrial aquaculture, which also depletes and pollutes coastal aquifers.
Take another case, that of Enron in Maharashtra. More than 30,000 fisherfolk and marginal farmers here now find themselves unable to provide for their families because this project usurped their habitat and eroded their ecological security. We fought against those who promoted Enron and won. But we were then let down by the very politicians who were elected on their promise of support to us. History will not remember such people well. They talk of 'benefits' but the benefits, if any, of such projects will flow directly to distant cities. Multiply the impact of Enron 200 times, which is an understatement of the potential impact of new and on-going destructive projects on the self-sufficiency of coastal communities, and India has a holocaust on its hands.
The World Bank would surely disagree with you. They suggest that larger trawlers, deep-water jetties, prawn farms, coastal highways and cold storages will help increase fish production.
They are a bank. They can suggest what they like. They do not want to increase fish production, but rather to mine the seas of fish instantly. But they cannot produce more fish than the seas wish to yield. Such policies have begun to impact even the big corporations that support them. Industrial prawn farms are being financially destroyed by disease and the catch from the oceans is falling. On one hand they talk about sustainable fishing and on the other they finance mega-trawlers that use wall-of-death methods to strip-mine the oceans. Such rape and run practices depleted the North Sea. We will not allow them to plunder our seas. This would endanger the food security of millions.
Are you in touch with the World Bank? How can you fight such policies?
We do not need to make contact directly. We are fighting their impact on policy makers around the world. In 1995, fisheries' representatives from four continents met in Quebec City, Canada and this resulted in the birth of the World Forum of Fish-harvesters and Fishworkers in 1997 with participation from 32 fishing nations. We seek a world-wide ban on destructive fishing gears, a ban on coastal industrial aquaculture and the end of coastal industrial pollution. We observe November 21 each year as World Fisheries Day. We are committed to fight World Bank-financed projects such as chemical complexes, thermal plants and coastal reclamations that destroy marine breeding grounds. In Seattle we recently won a signal battle when the combined might of the WTO, IMF and multinational corporations had to bow before the press of public opinion.
Is the law on your side, or do you intend to use sheer numbers in a show of strength as you did when our government was about to allow foreign trawlers to fish in our waters?
The law is on our side, and also the traditional wisdom of millions who have harvested the sea sustainably for centuries. Take the case of the Coastal Regulation Zone Rules, which prohibit the destruction of ecologically-fragile coastal habitats, mangroves, corals, estuaries and mudflats where marine creatures breed. We will also use our numbers to prevent business interests from building prawn farms, hotels, roads and industrial projects or influencing governments to dilute protective laws. Our rationale is simple: protect the coast and it will protect us.
Some suggest that the coast belongs to everyone, not only fisherfolk.
Everything belongs to everyone! But the coast is our space. We live and die here. We know that we must defend this space to protect our lives. Corals, mangroves and coastal vegetation reduce the impact of cyclones and tidal waves such as the ones that have struck Andhra Pradesh, Kutchh and Orissa recently. Developers believe they can destroy these natural defences and replace them with expensive sea walls. These are ineffective and a criminal waste of resources. Mangroves, corals, sandbars and dunes are the best sea walls and like other good things from nature… they cost nothing!
Which brings us to another issue, that of wildlife protection. Do you support this movement in India?
Naturally I do. But I am upset with those environmentalists who seek to protect turtles and dolphins, but collaborate with the very forces that think nothing of polluting our marine environment and destroy our seas by financing large factory ships and trawlers. I also differ slightly from those who propose wildlife protection strategies that involve total bans on harvesting marine catch. Take the case of the Sundarbans Tiger Reserve. We support the protection of the tiger and the entire ecosystem, but defend the right of traditional communities to fish in the surrounding swamps, like they have for centuries. The people of the Sundarbans see the tiger as a protective and supportive God. Those fighting for wildlife and those who depend on the health of the Sundarbans should work together to protect this Eden. Similarly, we support the protection of turtle breeding grounds on Orissa's Gahirmata coast and are opposed to World Bank proposals to build deep sea jetties there. We are also upset at the proliferation of oil facilities near the fish breeding grounds in and around the Marine National Park in the Gulf of Kutchh. Wildlife groups and earth-dependent communities have a common destiny to fulfill.
What is the bottom line? What is it that the fisherfolk of India want from their government?
The bottom line is that fishing grounds and coastal zones around the world are in crisis and fishing communities must unite to protect their natural capital and human rights. We want a government acknowledgment that the sea is the source of all life and a promise to protect coastal waters and coastal communities. We seek a ban on destructive fishing gears, particularly factory trawlers. And, of course, we want an end to industrial pollution. This should be a key element of India's national purpose. Like our forests, the seas too can repair themselves, provided we are keep profiteers and destroyers from violating them.
International Awards
In 1997 Thomas Kocherry was awarded the PEW Foundation Award of US $150,000 for marine conservation. He declined the Award because it is funded by the Sun Oil Company, itself responsible for marine pollution. In 1997, the FIAN International for Socio-economic Human Rights Protection, Germany, awarded Thomas Kocherry with a gold medal for his work on human rights issues. In March 1998, during the Earth Day celebrations at the United Nations, the Earth Society Foundation, New York awarded Thomas Kocherry with the Earth Trustee Award for his contribution in preserving and promoting marine ecology. In 1999 he was one of the winners of the US $100,000 Sophie Prize from Norway. The Sophie Prize recognises contributions in the field of alternative politics and development.
