The Foundation for Environmental Education in Denmark began offering coastal properties around the world its ‘blue flag’ certification 1985, starting with France. The blue flag is recognised as one of the world’s more prestigious ecolabels for beaches, marinas and tourism operators. According to the official website, there are more than 45 countries on the blue-flag map covering over 4,000 beaches in Europe (Spain has the most blue-flag beaches, 570+).
The foundation evaluates beaches according to their water quality, environmental management, environmental education and safety.
The Society for Integrated Coastal Management (SICOM) – under the Integrated Coastal Area Management Programme – is responsible for getting Indian beaches the blue-flag accreditation. Pursuant to this, the Union environment ministry asked the states and union territories to identify at least 10 beaches each and submit the list by September 30, 2019.
Privatising blue flag sites
In 2002, Nandkumar Kamat presented a report to Manohar Parrikar, then the chief minister of Goa, in which Kamat advised against the privatisation of beaches. However, Panaji’s Miramar beach is due to be privatised as soon as it receives its blue-flag credentials.
The foundation accepts applications from “any authority charged with responsibility for the beach” as long as the beach has a “legal bathing area” and other attendant facilities. The manual also says “it is preferable that beach users be granted free access to a blue-flag beach” but also recognises that “at some beaches, e.g. private beaches, members of the public are charged a small, reasonable fee to access the beach”.
Herein lies the rub. The manual doesn’t say what a ‘reasonable fee’ could be, how it is to be determined and who should. In fact, the manual generally ignores the fact that beaches often don’t exist in a vacuum.
The Bharat Mukti Morcha’s Goa unit has appealed to the government to spare Miramar beach from the accreditation – and subsequent privatisation – because the livelihood of thousands of small-scale fishermen depend on the offshore waters. As with the pricing, the accreditation manual states that “the fishing in these areas will follow certain rules and regulations” but doesn’t explain what these rules are.
Such ambiguity effectively vests private companies and organisations with the power to decide what fees to charge and how much fishing to allow. When the manual does make a constructive suggestion, it is interpreted in a way that ignores the suggestion.
For example, the document states that stakeholders will have to decide how a beach is managed. But in the case of the Padubidri beach in Udupi, Karnataka, a blue-flag site, the government has transferred the contract to a private entity in Gurgaon. This entity has said the accreditation “will give international standards to the beach, and the communities near the beach will be given jobs, which will further enhance the economy”.
However, until the blue-flag question came along, most fishing communities in the area – which caught their fish from the Kamini river and the sea – didn’t have reason to consider changing jobs. But if the beach is privatised and they’re kept out they might be forced to take up small jobs on the jetty.
Aside from the foundation’s prescriptions, the environment ministry also hasn’t said anything about if and how fishing communities will be rehabilitated. Most of the sites for which the ministry is eyeing the accreditation are near fishing villages, so tourism won’t be possible unless these people are displaced.
Environmental education in practice
Moreover, the area including and around Padubidri beach is ecologically sensitive because this is where the Kamini flows into the Arabian sea. Admitting tourists into such a space will also require felling some trees, laying roads, making way for cars to pass through, setting up lodging facilities, etc. – all of which are in opposition to the ‘environmental education’ part of the blue-flag accreditation’s values.
Indeed, the ministry as well as private contractors also seem to be ignoring the requirement that “industrial, waste-water or sewage-related discharges must not affect the beach area”. Additionally, this also seems to suggest that the foundation is prepared to award the blue flag mark to a beach as long as the beach alone is left untouched.
Governments at the Centre as well as in some states have been rapidly weakening coastal zone regulations, and typify the country’s eagerness at the moment to unlock these areas for real estate and tourism. A notification issued in 2018 changed these rules to allow ecotourism activities in CRZ-I areas – i.e. the most ecologically sensitive areas, including mangroves, coral reefs, sand dunes and intertidal zones. The rush to have the country’s beaches given the blue-flag tag will only worsen this national crisis, unfolding as it is along with the international climate crisis.
Rituja Mitra is pursuing an MA in Development at the Azim Premji University, Bengaluru.