The Hindu : Include eco-protection in manifestoes: Greenpeace

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 07, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Include eco-protection in manifestoes: Greenpeace

By K.P.M. Basheer

KOCHI, MARCH 6 . Greenpeace, an international NGO campaigning against environmental destruction, will soon ask Kerala's political parties to put protection of rivers on their election manifestoes.

Greenpeace will also run a campaign to encourage voters to ask parties and candidates to spell out their stance on specific environmental issues, Sanjiv Gopal, Toxics Campaigner of Greenpeace India, told The Hindu . He said Greenpeace functionaries would shortly meet leaders of all parties, particularly those of the LDF and UDF, to ask them to make environmental protection part of their manifestoes. They would be specifically asked to take a stand on protection of rivers.

This is in accordance with the organisation's strategy to push environmental issues during elections. To help the parties formulate their environmental campaign agendas, Greenpeace would present them with its own manifestoes. (Green NGOs worldwide are now increasingly realising the need to get political parties involved in environmental issues.)

Mr. Gopal said he had already met the Leader of the Opposition, V.S. Achuthanandan. "We asked Mr. Achuthanandan to take a stand on river protection, particularly on the Periyar," Mr. Gopal said. The organisation would send him all the studies it had carried out on the river as well as on the toxic hotspot of Eloor, Kochi.

The Periyar would be the focus of Greenpeace's attention in this election. "We will ask members of the public, college students and youth to raise the issue at campaign meetings," Mr. Gopal said. "Voters will be encouraged to ask the candidates to spell out their stand." Candidates in those constituencies that are in some way linked to the Periyar -- Ernakulam, Muvattupuzha, Mukundapuram and Idukki -- would have to make a clear commitment on protecting the river.

The organisation would also take up constituency-specific environment issues to engage the candidates on those issues— like the protection of other rivers, ship-breaking at Azheekal and manufacture and use of highly poisonous pesticides. Greenpeace has been involved with the Periyar for nearly five years. It has taken up the issue of dumping of industrial effluents on the river in the Eloor industrial belt in a big way. It carried out a series of studies on Eloor's air and water and found that the area was an environmental hotspot. The 137 industries in the area dumped toxic effluents onto the tributary of the Periyar killing a substantial number of the 500 fish species in it.

A health assessment study carried out by Greenpeace last year found that there was increased rate of cancer, bronchitis, asthma, congenital and chromosomal aberrations, stomach ulcers and poisoning among the Eloor Industrial Estate residents. This was caused allegedly by the relentless discharge of toxic effluents into the Periyar by the chemical industry. Last year, the organisation appointed a permanent `River Keeper' to patrol the river and monitor the pollution levels. This is said to be the second such initiative in the world, after the one on River Hudson in New York.

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