Thiruvananthapuram: There were more than 30 species of sea weeds off the coast of Vizhinjam before dredging began for Vizhinjam port project, according to ocean educator Robert Panipilla. All is lost now. But even as he said this during his presentation on ocean literacy, it took videos and photos, to understand how horrifying the loss is.
In one video, shot at Perumaakkal reef, which lay around 200 metres away from the coast between Chowara and Adimalathura, there were many little Damsel fish, a sprightly blue one with bright yellow tail, flitting about, under water. This happened to be a tube worm colony spread over 300 metres, making it a large colony. The reef stretched half a kilometre.
The cheerful video was followed by a video of the reef after the dredging. Covered with sand, it looked like a ghost town. Friends of Marine Life, an organisation Robert Panipilla founded, had documented 33 reef spots within a span of 6 kilometres. Of these, only 12 remain, after the dredging, according to Robert Panipilla. Fish would stop visiting as those have no sedentary organisms to feed on, all destroyed with the reef. "It must have taken years for the reef ecosystem to be formed. Each reef represents thousand lives. As they proceed with dredging and extending of coasts, more reefs could be destroyed," he said.
Of the 78 km coastline that Thiruvananthapuram has, most of the sea bed is sandy, and unsuitable for sea organisms, which need a hard surface to live. So, the 12 km of coast, which boasts of great biodiversity is special, he said.
He was speaking as part of a presentation organised by a collective of urban designers called Studio Commune. Responding to a question on whether the sea weeds were endemic to the coast, Aneesha Benedict, an FML member who majored in marine biology, said that even marine biologists did not have a complete idea of the species that existed off our coasts. It would be difficult to establish before IUCN, without a proper study. But even before the study, many sea weeds, sea sponges and other organisms off Vizhinjam coast are already lost.
