Steel firm's plan for megaport 'threatens rare Indian turtles'

India's biggest corporation has been condemned by environmentalists for its plans to build a vast port close to the world's largest breeding grounds for an endangered species of turtle.

Environmentalists say Tata Steel's plan to build a "megaport" at Dhamra on the coast of Orissa threatens to jeopardise the habitat of the olive ridley turtles that breed on nearby beaches at the Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary. The sanctuary is one of just a handful of such sites in the world and every year more than 100,000 olive ridley turtles nest there.

"The port will be just seven miles from the beach... but Tata is very powerful. You can say they are in full control," said Biswajit Mohanty of the Wildlife Society of Orissa.

The proposed port is just one of several threats to the olive ridley turtle on the east coast of India. Earlier this year, it was revealed thousands of turtles were washing up on the beaches of Orissa after being caught up in the nets of illegal trawlers and drowned.

Greenpeace estimates about 120,000 turtles have been washed up in the past 12 years, though the possible number of those killed could be considerably higher. A total of 8,000 carcasses have come ashore since November.

Though the turtles technically have the same level of protection as tigers, environmentalists - as well as local fishermen - accuse the government of doing little to confrontillegal trawlermen.

The impact on the turtles has already been seen at the Gahirmatha sanctuary. Mr Mohanty said that 230,000 turtles nested there in 2006 but this year the total was 140,000. And things could yet get worse.

The turtles' new threat comes in the form of a port that will be one of the biggest in south Asia, covering a total of about 4,000 acres. Tata Steel said it intended to start construction soon. The port will handle an estimated 80 million tonnes of cargo a year. In addition to its proximity to the breeding grounds at Gahirmatha, the port site is barely three miles from Bhitarkanika Sanctuary, a World Heritage Site.

Campaigners say the land for the port site was originally due to be included within the Bhitarkanika sanctuary when plans were drawn up in 1988. Ten years later, the state government instructed that the area of land be removed from the proposed sanctuary area and, just five months after that, the state government asked federal authorities for approval for the port.

Sanjiv Gopal, oceans campaigner for Greenpeace, said: "From a purely ecological view this is one of Mother Nature's wonders. There is enough common sense and science to say that [the port] needs to be relocated."

Last night the joint company building the port claimed an environmental report commissioned by Greenpeace had been altered. A spokesman, Amlan Dutta, said the location of the port was one of the few places where turtles did not come ashore. "There has been a deliberate attempt to... mislead," he said. Greenpeace denied the allegation.

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