Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, 2018

What to know?

• In late December, the government approved the Draft Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, 2018, which had been earlier circulated by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC).
• The CRZ consists of designated areas along the coast that are regulated by the government.
• The government introduced the new CRZ 2018 notification as a promise of a ‘better life’ for coastal communities that would add value to the country’s economy.
• Various recommendations to the draft from researchs and coastal community groups during the year were largely ignored and consultation appears to have been limited to select government bodies and departments.

History and changes

• CRZ regulations were first introduced in 1991 and subsequently revised in 2011.
• A coastal hazard line was established taking into account natural disasters including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
• While the 2011 notification recognised that there were areas of high erosion and vulnerability along the coast, few attempts were made to develope this hazard line scientifically or transparently across the country to regulate developement.
• One amendment, in July 2018, removed the hazard line from the main regulation without consulting the public. In the new 2018 notification, as well, all reference to a hazard line has been removed and is replaced with a fixed setback line.
• Some areas along the coast, for example, experience very high storm surges, but will not get the protection they deserve.
• Formerly (in the 2011 version), the CRZ extended up to a minimum of 500 m and up to the area of the ‘hazard line’ if it was found to be beyond 500 m.
• By removing the hazard line altogether, the new notification maintains a uniform CRZ of 500 m from the high tide line. Except for the most ecologically sensitive areas (CRZ-I) and water areas (CRZ-IV), for which any developement clearance requires MoEFCC approval, State governments will be responsible for regulating urban and rural coastal areas (CRZ-II and III).
• The CRZ for land adjoining creeks and backwaters is reduced from 100 to 50 m. CRZ 2018 relaxes important restrictions and permits construction in urban CRZ zones and densely populated rural coastal areas.
• Rural areas have been bifurcated, with greater allowances for more populated areas. The greatest number of relaxations has been accorded to hotels, resorts and the tourism sector.
• Big hotels, restaurants, houses, coastal highways and small and large port facilities can now be built closer to the shoreline.
• Increased coastal tourism translates into further destruction of lagoons, marshland and other coastal ecosystems and their services.
• The cyclones Ockhi and Vardah are fresh in people’s memories and so is the experience of loss of life and property.
• These frequent weather-related coastal vulnerabilities are, however, omitted in the CRZ 2018, vaguely worded section on ‘disaster management’.
• Meanwhile, shorelines are already eroding due to sand mining controlled by mafias and building of seawalls along the coast.

At our peril

• At the recent international climate meeting at Katowice (COP24), when the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Russia refused to “accept” the special 1.5 degrees report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), India and other developing countries rightly protested that these countries were placing the world at risk.
• That report called for the world to prepare for severe impacts from climate change if average global temperature was to rise above 1.5º Celsius.
• The effects from rising seas are already visible and will worsen as temperature rises. Countries need to prepare for an increase in the frequency and intensity of very severe storms and accompanying effects on their coasts.
• An earlier 2018 study published in Nature Climate Change deduced that, among all countries of the world, India would experience the worst social and economic impacts from climate change.
• The legal mechanisms and innovations that entered the CRZ lexicon in the wake of the 2004 tsunami and coastal vulnerabilities to climate change have been deleted from the CRZ 2018. This will ignore lives and protection of people living near coasts.
• The combined effects of harmful coastal development and climate change are apparent in the form of mass migrations from coastal areas like Odisha and the Sundarbans in West Bengal.
• These lessons have already sparked decentralised action: mangroves are being planted, sand dunes and coastal wetlands are being protected, and coastal communities and local governments are collaborating on disaster preparedness. But the top-down policy of the Central government to encroach what’s left of the coasts and increase activities that involve dredging, sand removal, and large-scale constructions contradict grass-roots and scientific wisdom.

(Environment)(The Hindu)

Pic courtesy:Change.org