On January 31st, Dr. Aaron Lobo, a marine conservationist, and I published a co-authored article in the Guardian, entitled Bay of Bengal: depleted fish stocks and huge dead zone signal tipping point. The article has had many shares and comments as will be evident from the comments section at the end.
I also received an email from Dr. Naveen Namboothri, a marine biologist and founding trustee of Dakshin Foundation, an organisation that aims at informing and advocating equitable natural resource management
It is posted below with the writer’s permission.
Thanks for sharing. Amitav. It is quite scary indeed. And to imagine we managed most of this in the last 70-80 years! Anthropocene indeed!
Being a marine biologist, I have always believed (and still do albeit less convincingly than I did probably 3 years ago) that oceans are extremely resilient and can bounce back. But we are really running out of time and undermining the inherent reslience of our great oceans. To top it all, development policies are totally insensitive to such concerns and doing a great job of exacerbating such situations. There are only a handful of people who seem to know the issues, fewer who want to do something about it and even fewer who know what to do. While science can inform us of the challenges, it has little to offer in terms of solutions. Mainly because science has few answers.
I agree that this as a social, developmental, political and ecological problem which needs not just the will at national and international levels but also the participation of the local communities at a ground level. While the first two may materialise when the proverbial “shit hits the fan” happens, the third is a mammoth challenge that requires a massive movement at the grassroots with a very crucial role for civil societies. Given the current welcome the civil societies such as ours are receiving in India, I am not sure when and how that will happen.
Sorry for the rant, Amitav but once in a while, the frustration does get to me. 🙂
Best,
Naveen.
