Just as a tiger is indicative of a good forest, river dolphins are an indicator of a healthy river. They, in fact, are an\u00a0umbrella species\u00a0of the river ecosystem. But as India\u2019s rivers become a dumping ground for sewage, chemical waste and garbage, the ecosystems are dying, and so are the dolphins.<\/p>\n
The Ganges river dolphin (Platanista gangetica gangetica) is currently listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Matthias Fiechter, IUCN\u2019s Media and Communications Officer, said, \u201cThe population data that was compiled for the IUCN Red List assessment of the Ganges dolphin included documentation of a total of about 5,000 individuals. However, as much of the dolphins\u2019 range in Bangladesh has not been surveyed, the actual abundance of the species may be higher,\u201d said Matthias Fiechter, IUCN\u2019s (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) Media and Communication Officer, when contacted by Mongabay-India. The endangered subspecies inhabits the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) river basin of India, Nepal and Bangladesh and the disjunct Karnaphuli-Sangu river basin of Bangladesh, with 80 percent of the dolphin\u2019s territory falling within India\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n
Pollution threaten rivers and the dolphins that live in it<\/strong><\/p>\n River pollution along with mining, agriculture, and industrial development have degraded the water quality of the Ganga river in particular and rivers around India in general. According to a report from the parliament of India, the number of polluted rivers in 2015 was 302 which, by 2018, had increased to 350.<\/p>\n Amy Fraenkel, executive secretary of the Bonn-based Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, emphasised that the\u00a0plastic pollution crisis in Asia is intensifying and has emerged as one of the major threats to rivers \u2013 and to dolphins. She said 36 percent of endangered aquatic species are at risk of ingesting or being trapped and entangled in plastic waste.<\/p>\n Agricultural runoff and industrial waste are a\u00a0major threat\u00a0to river dolphins in Asia. Activities like mining have their own impact. Ranjit Kumar Singh, assistant professor of geology at Sahibganj College, says that in the Sahibganj district of Jharkand, there is a large amount of stone quarrying on the banks of the Ganga, and the dust produced by this activity is dangerous for dolphins and their riverine habitat.<\/p>\n The wide use of pesticides in agriculture across the Gangetic delta is also a threat. For instance, a common practice among farmers is to use Furadan (banned in the US) on nearby brinjal fields to protect their vegetable against insects, but the pesticide also impacts the migratory birds who breed on the riverbanks, and flows into the river, harming both dolphins and fish, said Sunil Kumar Choudhary, Professor and Former Head, Department of Botany, TM Bhagalpur University, Bhagalpur and Member, Bihar State Ganga Rejuvenation, Protection & Management Committee.<\/p>\n Noise pollution\u00a0in the Ganga is increasingly a threat too. In Sultanganj, which falls within Bihar\u2019s dolphin sanctuary in the Bhagalpur district, a bridge is currently being built over the Ganga. Construction has driven away the dolphins, said Gopal Sharma, a scientist at the Zoological Survey of India in Patna.<\/p>\n Now, under the BJP government\u2019s ambitious Inland Waterways project, 1,620 km of National Waterways will be developed from Allahabad (now Prayagraj) in Uttar Pradesh to Haldia in West Bengal to enable the movement of commercial vessels of at least 1,500 tonnes capacity. Questioning the much-hyped project, Chowdhary said that the noise emanating from cargo vessels will harm aquatic life, especially dolphins. On the issue of environmental clearance of National Waterways-1, a petition was filed by Bharat Jhunjhunwala in the National Green Tribunal which was\u00a0cleared\u00a0by the NGT on May 4, 2022. NGT refused to pass any other order against the sanctioned decision of the\u00a0Allahabad High Court in this regard dated April 28, 2016.<\/p>\n Impact of dams and infrastructure projects<\/strong><\/p>\n Questioning the construction of big dams on the river Ganga, 65-year-old fisherman Dashrath Sahni asks, \u201cIf a man\u2019s hands and feet are tied, will he be able to run? Similarly, you have blocked the natural flow of Mother Ganga in Farakka and Tehri dams, then how will the current arise in the water.\u201d<\/p>\n At least 50 species of sea fish used to come here and would swim straight upstream to Allahabad (now Prayagraj) in Uttar Pradesh until 1971 when the Farakka dam was not yet operational, recalled the veteran fisher. The numbers of hilsa alone (tenualosailisha or Ilish) used to be enough to support families of the fishing community for months. Sonakshi, prawn and silan or India basa fish also used to swim through the Ganga. However, with the construction of the Farakka dam, the westward movement of these sought-after fishes has stopped. \u201cIf local fishes face extinction or their number declines, then what will the dolphins eat, and how will they be protected?\u201d he asked. Restore the free flow of the Ganga and it will clean itself, he advised.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, detangling his fishing net, somewhere near the Farakka Barrage in West Bengal, 70-year-old fisherman Susti Haldar rues, \u201cAs compared to the past, the catch has reduced to only twenty-five percent.\u201d He blames the construction of the barrage for this, saying, \u201cDue to the barrage, the depth and flow of Ganga have altered. This has adversely impacted the number of fish and dolphins.\u201d<\/p>\n Reiterating that the river is dying, Sahni\u2019s fellow fisherman Ashok Sahni lamented that Ganga cannot be saved if India continues to block the river\u2019s flow to produce hydropower and divert water to supply fields and cities. The concerns of fishermen are echoed by experts. According\u00a0to an INTACH report,\u00a0942 dams, barrages and weirs are operational on river Ganga and its tributaries. Out of these, 11 dams and barrages are built on mainstream Ganga. A report by the South Asia Network on Dams, River and People (SANDRP) reveals that these structures have\u00a0decreased the Ganga\u2019s flow\u00a0by 47 percent in 30 to 40 years.<\/p>\n Environmentalist Manoj Misra, who works on the preservation of rivers like Ganga and Yamuna, reiterated that with almost 1000 structures obstructing the natural flow of the river and preventing its natural flood cycle, riverine plants and animals are deprived of nutrients and food. Dams, reservoirs, barrages have also led to fragmentation of the dolphin population, added Choudhary.<\/p>\n According to the WWF, hydropower dams, irrigation barrages, and embankments have\u00a0reduced\u00a0river dolphin density by 50 to 70 percent in Asia.<\/p>\n Indiscriminate fishing practices<\/strong><\/p>\n Choudhary, the member of the Bihar State Ganga Rejuvenation, Protection & Management Committee, said that the use of synthetic nets leads to a sharp increase in plastic waste in the river, which is dangerous. Dolphins often get trapped in the synthetic fishing net as bycatch or eat it, he explained. In fact, accidental bycatch is the biggest cause of death for river dolphins in Asia. He said that increasingly, fishing is being done by a \u201cfishing mafia\u201d with \u201cmuscle power\u201d but a very narrow understanding of the river ecosystem, destroying riparian diversity. Traditional fishermen would use cotton nets, which were not as tightly woven or damaging to smaller fish and dolphins. \u201cFishers know when and how to fish and when not to, but they are being forced to work as river mafia employees due to a lack of livelihood,\u201d he explained. \u201cOur people even end up getting physically assaulted by them (river mafia),\u201d says 57-year-old Tapan Haldar. Many fishers, with a shrinking scope of earning, end up migrating to Delhi, Mumbai or Kolkata to make ends meet, he said.<\/p>\n These \u201cmosquito nets\u201d also harm dolphins by trapping very small fish in their fine mesh, depriving dolphins of their sources of food. It isn\u2019t just the nets that are dangerous. SANDRP has reported that\u00a0accidental deaths of dolphins from the propeller of boats and steamers are also a major concern.<\/p>\n The endangered animals are threatened by poaching too. There are several cases of hunting of dolphins each year despite the hunting of the species being prohibited in India under the Wildlife Act 1972.\u00a0Dolphin oil\u00a0is used by some fishing communities as bait to catch a particular species of catfish, and also as a local remedy for joint pain relief, explained Nachiket Kelkar, head of the Riverine Ecosystems And Livelihoods programme at Wildlife Conservation Trust, Mumbai.<\/p>\n Fishing communities hold the key to dolphin conservation, yet problems abound<\/strong><\/p>\n The fishing community could play an important role in conserving the dolphins in Ganga but there are several challenges that continue to lie ahead. Pointing to the dolphins in the middle of the river Ganga, 65-year-old fisherman Dashrath Sahni asserts that people of his community are the \u201cfarmers of the river\u201d. Just, as no one can understand the field better than the farmer, who else can understand the river better than us, he said. \u201cMother Ganga is our life, from this, we earn and feed our family. If we have to save dolphins, it will not happen without our community,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n In Bihar\u2019s dolphin sanctuary in Bhagalpur, an initiative called Dolphin Mitra (Friends of Dolphins) appoints fishers to help conserve dolphins and clean up the stretch of the Ganga river in the 60-km sanctuary. Dashrath Sahni, his son Chandan Sahni and another fisherman Ashok Sahni patrol the Ganga for eight to ten kilometers every day in their boat, keeping an eye out for suspicious activities, which they would either try to stop as a team or inform the forest department and police about. They are thus key to the government efforts to save Ganga dolphins. However, they have not received their wages for the last two years. Sahni and other members of the group claim that they were assured that Rs. 10,000 will be paid to them from 2019, but they have not got it till now. \u201cWe have not even been provided with an ID card, despite submitting the requisite documents for it last year. So, we are at risk during work,\u201d Balmiki Sahni, 32, who also works as a Dolphin Mitra, added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[178],"tags":[],"region":[],"source":[1080],"country":[1949],"state":[],"city":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/96677"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/newss"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/96677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96678,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/96677\/revisions\/96678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96677"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=96677"},{"taxonomy":"source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/source?post=96677"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=96677"},{"taxonomy":"state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/state?post=96677"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=96677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}