THE prime minister recently inaugurated a coal-based power project in the vicinity of Port Mohammad Bin Qasim — the city’s busiest seaport — located on the outskirts of Karachi. The ceremony was dubbed by the media as ‘groundbreaking’ and there was live coverage of the event. PM Sharif also spoke about the vision he had for a developed and prosperous Karachi. However, all this appears a tad utopian, when one investigates the ‘ground’ where this power project is being undertaken. In fact, there was no land until a few months ago on the site located close to the coastline. 

And what I found during a recent visit to the site was truly appalling. Trucks loaded with heavy rocks, sand and pebbles, collected from elsewhere, could be seen dumping the material on one side, while bulldozers were busy pushing the dumped material to ‘create’ land. At the same time, tankers sprayed water on the land to get it to settle further down. It is through this process, known as land reclamation, that the government is procuring land for the coal-based power project that it plans to build here. 

But in the process of ‘making’ land, the government is pushing the sea outward. And it has cut down thousands of mangroves in the area, as one labourer working there told me. “We cut down the jungle so that we could fill up this space and create land for the new power project — you know the one recently inaugurated by Nawaz Sharif,” he said as he took me to his supervisor, a Chinese national. 

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The foreigner, however, denied this. Although I could see some mangroves still intact just on the edge of the reclaimed land, the English-speaking Chinese manager refused to acknowledge that there were ever mangroves here. Or, for that matter, that the sea had been pushed out. “There was always land here,” he claimed.

Karachi’s coastline, which stretches to over 130 kilometres, is facing environmental degradation in the name of development, not only in this area but in other places too. For example, the Defence Housing Authority, managed by the Pakistan Army, has also created new land through this method and has sold it to local and international proprietors. 

The impact on the coast of pushing the sea outwards in some places and cutting down the mangroves are manifold — from destroying natural marine habitat to endangering coastal villages where fishermen have been living for centuries. One such area is Rehri Goth, where the sea has been pushed inwards, inundating multiple villages along the coast. 

“We have to move from here but we have no place to go,” says Usman Sheikh, a fisherman from Rehri Goth, as he stands knee-deep in water and shows his flooded house. 

Not only are these villages under threat, the residents’ livelihood is also at stake.  “I grew up here and never saw water levels rising so much that our homes were endangered. Also, finding fish and other seafood is becoming tough,” he adds. 

As we walk around the area, past home after home, destruction is visible everywhere, with abodes practically lost to the sea. “The government and the military are doing this in the name of development to earn profits in the short term, but what they don’t realise is that they are disturbing the ecological balance of this coast, which can create havoc in the long run not only for Karachi but for other coastal cities like Thatta and Badin as water levels continue to rise,” says Kamal Shah. Shah is a local of Rehri Goth and an activist of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF), an independent organisation fighting for the rights of fishermen. 

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In Rehri Goth alone, more than 100,000 inhabitants are on the verge of losing their land, PFF data shows. And despite repeated warnings from the PFF and even a law passed by the government a few years ago, to protect coastal life especially the mangroves, such detrimental developmental projects continue.

“Earlier it was the timber mafia that would cut down trees and sell wood, or the land mafia that would be involved in illegal land-filling. Now the government is doing the same. Even in the case of the coal project at Port Mohammad Bin Qasim, since the prime minister inaugurated the project, the Environmental Protection Agency did not dare raise any objections,” Shah adds.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2014