Business Times 7 Apr 08;
(NEW DELHI) The construction of a major port in eastern India threatens one of the world's largest mass nesting sites for endangered sea turtles, environmental activists said on Saturday as they called for the authorities to halt the project immediately. The massive port, which will be the deepest in India, is less than 15 km from Gahirmatha, a beach where hundreds of thousands of Olive ridley turtles come to make their nests in the sand.
Wildlife specialists say that there are only a few mass nesting beaches anywhere in the world, and losing the Gahirmatha beach would be catastrophic to the already fragile turtle population.
'This is India's most critical sea turtle habitat,' said Belinda Wright, director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India. The mass nesting 'is an extraordinary phenomenon that cannot be reproduced; if it's lost, it's gone forever'.
The Dhamra port site does not overlap directly with the nesting beach, but its construction, along with the dredging and increased traffic in the area, would dramatically affect the offshore waters where the turtles breed, activists said.
The Dhamra port is a joint venture of Tata Steel and construction firm Larsen & Toubro Ltd. Tata and the directors of the port say that the project would not affect the turtle population, pointing to environmental impact studies conducted before construction began that support their claim\. \-- AP
