Garbage dumping for land reclamation puts coastal communities’ livelihoods in jeopardy

Local people term the phenomenon new means for land grabbing; say influentials sell the reclaimed land to private firms

Tuesday, April 06, 2010
By Jan Khaskheli

Karachi

Reclamation of coastal land by dumping truckloads of garbage around villages in Bin Qasim Town on a daily basis has created uncertainty among the residents who fear that they might lose their lands, graveyards, beautiful beaches and traditional jetties if the practice continued unchecked. Tons of garbage are brought from different towns of the city and dumped in coastal villages of Ibrahim Hydri, Rehri, Chashma Goth, Jatt Goth, Akbar Shah and Kalmati.

Local activists told The News that relevant officials, despite their repeated complaints, did nothing in regard to stopping this practice. Some of the activists recently threatened the owners of those vehicles that were dumping garbage in the area. “We told the owners we would burn their vehicles if the vehicles kept dumping urban waste in our villages,” they said.

The activists said that dumping garbage at the beaches and grabbing of the reclaimed land had started many years ago. “Certain influential people sell the land to private firms for developing warehouses,” they added. Besides, they said, children of the area receive injuries while roaming on burning heaps of garbage to search for broken toys and valuable items.

The fisher folks living in the area consider the sea their mother. The beaches in the area, the activists said, were once famous for their scenic beauty but they now had been turned into garbage dumping sites. “We can’t let certain people to pollute our sea or use it for commercial purposes through practices such as reclamation of land,” they said, adding that they were already facing many problems, such as increasing marine pollution, depletion of mangroves forests and loss of fish stock in the sea near the coast. They also believed that if the sea was encroached from one side, it would start erosion from other sides. “Forget about launching a single project for our welfare, the waste of the entire city is being thrown at us,” they said.

Moreover, the sites where garbage trucks are being unloaded are the scenic points where the local people enjoy in evenings. The once-beautiful beaches have been covered by garbage and all one could see there is smoke. The activists linked the garbage dumping and land grabbing with the deprivation of the people of their amenity, saying that colonies would be established on the reclaimed land and people from outside would be settled there.

An activist, Karim Bux, said that trucks carried garbage and urban waste that were unloaded and then burnt them near their abodes. He said that they had sent applications to town and Union Council officials and the elected representatives in this regard but all in vain. “We can’t understand why they are reluctant to take any action” he said.

One fisherman, Allahdino, said that a mafia was involved in reclamation of land. He added that they now had to travel to Thatta and Balochistan waters in the search of fish as their beaches had become unproductive due to increasing marine pollution.

The coastal communities activists demanded the government to save their resources and mangroves forests and urged the concerned officials to take steps to stop seawater from being further polluted. Meanwhile, they warned the government and the elected representatives to stop reclamation of scenic beaches by dumping waste.