City by the Sea: The Future of Karachi’s Coastline
A few years ago I made a documentary for Shehri CBE about coastal development in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city. Yello magazine interviewed me about my experience filming the coast. Here’s what I had to say.
The current development projects along Karachi’s coast are having an adverse effect on its residents and the environment. Mangroves that are a barrier against storms and cyclones, and nurseries for migratory birds, fish and crustaceans are being cut down by the timber mafia with abandon. Industrial and domestic sewage by the city’s 20 million plus inhabitants is released untreated into the sea, causing great harm to fishing communities and coastal wetlands. And yet, grand mega projects like “Diamond Bar Island City” and “Sugar Land City” are being planned on more than 68,000 acres along the coast, while the needs of the city’s original inhabitants are being neglected.
How did this project begin?
In 2006, I made a documentary about sea turtle conservation in Karachi for Geo TV. Since then, after seeing all the development along the coastline with no regard for the ecosystem and the local communities, I had wanted to do a documentary that would explore alternatives to haphazard development along Karachi’s coastline in light of the basic principles of urban planning.
Shehri-CBE is a Karachi based organisation that has been working on coastal issues for a number of years. “Helping the Turtles Survive” is one of their projects with a focus on land use management. I had interviewed them for my sea turtles documentary, so when they approached me to do one about coastal development, and with Getz Pharma funding the project, it was an ideal opportunity to tell the story.
What was your experience like, shooting in all of these areas of Karachi? Which one of these places was the most exciting or memorable?
Ibrahim Hyderi, Rehri Goth, Baba Island, Bundal Island, Eastern and Western mangrove backwaters, Clifton Beach, Seaview, Hawkesbay, Sandspit, Kakapir Village, Mubarak Village, Manora and Mai Kolachi were some of the areas that we filmed for the documentary. Some I had never been to before, and wondered why I hadn’t, considering I have lived here my whole life.
The views from the lighthouse at Manora are absolutely gorgeous despite the smog that so clearly blankets the city in the distance. The beach there was picture perfect. You could see your own reflection in the pristine wet sand.
We went to the roof of one of the huts at Sandspit. On one side is the wide blue sea and on the other is the green mangrove forest. The contrast is breathtaking.
And if you take a boat from Keamari and head towards these backwaters and enter the narrow channels, you might think you’re in some other country. You don’t have to go all the way to Malaysia to see a forest by boat. You’ve got one right here in Karachi!
But the most disturbing was seeing the condition of the local fishing communities dotted along the coast. They are the original inhabitants of the city, yet successive governments have marginalized them.
Their struggle for access to clean drinking water, education, health services and other civic amenities continues to this day.
What are some of the difficulties while shooting a film about water bodies?
You have to be very careful about the tide in the mangrove backwaters as you can get very stuck if you’re not careful. And our Lyari and Malir river and creek waters are so polluted with domestic and toxic industrial sewage that you really don’t want any of that water splashing on yourself.
Kemari is one of the major tourist destinations of Karachi but filming or photographing there is banned unless you take permission, which is difficult to get.
Who were some of the interesting characters you met along the way?
One day, while at the beach, we ran into a talented young man who turned out to be quite the sand artist. He built a tiny little mega city for us in the sand. His work is featured in the documentary.
It was also very interesting meeting a group of young boys of Bengali origin picking mussels from the mud flats of Bundal Island. They were complaining to us about the hardships of their job, and how with no Pakistani ID cards, they are unable to get any other kind of work. An elderly gentleman with a withered face sang a very lovely song for us in Bengali. It was surreal, sitting in those mangrove mud flats at low tide with the Creek Towers and construction cranes looming behind us on the city shores.
What was it like shooting the turtles you show in the documentary?
It was a real treat to be able to see a turtle up close and film it. Hawkesbay and Sandspit are one of the 11 beaches in the world where sea turtles come to nest every year. Each year, female turtles come back to the same beach where they were born to lay eggs. Each turtle lays about a 100 eggs and buries them under the sand. In two months, the eggs hatch, and the young baby turtles make their way to the sea. Only one in a thousand survive. Many of them are inadvertently caught in our shrimp trawlers’ fishing nets. None of the trawlers use the Turtle Excluder Device (TED), despite there being a law in Pakistan about it.
If you want to go see the turtles, contact the Sindh Wildlife Department first. They take people out to see the turtles during the nesting season. It’s important to not disturb a turtle that’s coming out of the water as then it will go back without laying any eggs. Let it come out of the water and find a place to begin digging and laying eggs. This can take quite some time. Only when it’s well into laying eggs can one quietly approach it and sit nearby to watch.
One night, we had gone to the beach to film the turtles, and were just sitting around in the dark finishing our dinner. Suddenly we felt these small creatures moving around almost right next to us. They were baby sea turtles! Some had emerged out of the sand, others were just beginning to pop their head out into the world. We got our camera ready and began filming. Soon about a hundred baby turtles were crawling about our feet! We had to turn our torches off, as otherwise they would not head towards the sea. The Sindh Wildlife Department staff was with us, and we made sure all of them made it to the water.
All sea turtles are listed on the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species. They were here long before us, and we’re the ones encroaching upon their nesting habitat with our beach development. Their nesting area at Hawkesbay and Sandspit needs to be declared as protected before we lose them forever.
And the huge buffalo farm?
The Cattle Colony in Landhi is the largest concentration of dairy animals in one place in the world. Its 1,500 farms and 400,000 buffaloes release thousands of gallons of ozone depleting manure untreated into the sea via the mangrove channels. At Rehri Goth, we were surprised to see the top layer of mud at the edge of the creeks was not mud at all.. it was pure manure! The water buffaloes at the Colony, despite being so close to water, don’t get to do what water buffaloes were meant to do, which is, submerge in water for the better part of the day. They are tied up all day and night, pumped with hormone injections a couple of times a day, their young separated upon birth, and milked for all their entire short lives, till the time they are sold for meat. The lack of basic hygiene and the crowding of the animals made the trip absolutely appalling.
What does the sea mean to the people of Karachi?
We’re a city by the sea, but we generally don’t appreciate that. Our lives are so far removed from it.
See http://ko.offroadpakistan.com/the_sad_state_of_karachi_beaches/
What kinds of problems did you face while compiling this documentary?
The only problems we faced were while filming in Mubarak Village. The local people there did not want us around, and some of them wanted money from us, till the son of the village elder came along. Everywhere else the people were welcoming.
It’s the problems that the fishing communities themselves face on a daily basis that are of great concern. Abdul Ghani, the son of a watchman and founder of the Fisherfolk Development Organisation (FDO), filed a petition in the Sindh High Court in 2006 in a bid to save the mangroves next to his village of Kakapir at Hawkesbay. When we interviewed him for the documentary, he explained to us the importance of the mangroves and his community’s struggle to save them. But he was no match for the land grabbers who took his life in the summer of 2011. Abdul Ghani died fighting for the mangroves. How then, are the people of his community to save their environment and thus their livelihoods?
In your opinion, how do you think the people of Karachi can contribute in protecting the mangroves and preserving the wildlife?
In the backwaters of Sandspit one afternoon, we ran into a group of young men busy cutting down a large mangrove tree. They stopped when they saw us, but seeing that we were armed only with a camera, they got back to work. But soon there was a problem. Their saw got stuck in the tree trunk. The tide was rising fast and they were already in waist deep water. This is the mangrove channel that’s very close to Baba Island. Mohammad Hussain of the Pakistan Mahigeer Tehreek told us most of the mangrove cutters come from Machar Colony or beyond, and the trees are chopped off and sold for firewood. Inside the channel, there are huge pockets of bare patches, with only the stubs of once thick tree trunks remaining.
The people of Baba Island are aware of the importance of mangroves as nurseries and so try to stop these people, and sometimes even catch them to hand over to the authorities. But the authorities say there is no law under which to prosecute these people, and so no action can be taken against them.
With the tide now high and sunset fast approaching, the mangrove cutters gave up on their hopes of bringing the tree down that day. We called them towards our boat so we could have a little chat with them. They said the authorities catch them often, but release them after they confiscate their electric saws and boats. And so they keep coming, especially in the summer months when fishing is banned for the locals. They didn’t think there was anything wrong with cutting the mangroves, saying this big tree would “spring back up in about a year”. They told us to come back in the afternoon the next day, when they would resume their botched up job. We didn’t really believe them, so come 8am, we were back at the mouth of the channel. And sure enough, they were there, and had more men with them who didn’t want anything to do with us. The tide was low and the men were standing on solid ground, with the roots of the tree sticking out of the mud, and lots of crustaceans crawling about. After about an hour of sawing away, the big tree, which was at least 20 years old, finally came crashing down, and almost on top of the men!
These mangroves that are in the in the city are being cut down under our very noses. Already, they have shrunk from 600,000 hectares in 1980 to just 41,000 hectares on the Sindh coastal belt. Can we really afford to lose any more?
We should create public pressure for the authorities to take strong action against those who chop down mangrove trees. The locals only cut what they need for firewood, and that too they take the dead wood. They know how important mangroves are in preventing us from the ravages of storms and cyclones, and how they are nurseries for fish and shrimp on which their very livelihoods depend. And it is these mangroves that are a haven for migratory birds and crustaceans. It’s a fragile ecosystem and one that must be protected at all cost. People like the woodcutters we met live hand to mouth and need work, so we can’t really blame them either — rather as a society we need to figure out how to provide more opportunities to them, along with vocational training and education. It is time to take action. People can contact NGOs like WWF and IUCN to see ways in which they can help.
What kind of reactions are you expecting from the people who watch this documentary?
I hope this documentary is an eye-opener for the people of Karachi, and prompts them to take action to protect their environment.
Did you uncover any interesting Karachi facts or secrets during the process? Something that you maybe didn’t know before?
The sewage. We don’t realize just how bad the situation really is, and how urgent it is to do something about it. For instance, did you know that only 20% of Karachi’s sewage makes it to one of its three treatment plants? And that those three treatment plants are barely functioning? The bacteria that is supposed to break down organic matter is rendered useless by the copious amounts of toxic, heavy metal laden industrial sewage that passes through these plants. So all that waste that’s fed to Lyari and Malir rivers ends up untreated into the sea, killing off marine life and the mangroves.
Untreated sewage is also channeled through drains reaching the main Clifton and Seaview beaches. There’s one right next to McDonald’s drive-thru and people walk about oblivious to their surroundings. There’s a big one near Shireen Jinnah Colony in front of the Oyster Rocks. Currently, KPT is reclaiming land there for its deepwater container terminal, so not sure if you can get to it, even if you do battle your way successfully through all the oil tankers hogging both sides of the road.
Try walking from one end of the beach to the other. You won’t be able to. First, there’s the illegal monstrosity called the “Floating Ship” which will completely block your way during high tide. So you’ll have to get back onto the road, and then back to the beach. You’ll grimace at all the plastic bags embedded into the gray sands. And you’ll have to jump over the sewage that’s flowing out from the various drains dotted along the beach. Then you’ll come across a really big drain that will leave you wondering whether you should trek on, or turn back. It’s just not a pleasant experience.
How did you get interested in making documentaries?
It started with home videos. Since then I’ve always been behind a camera.
What does Karachi mean to you?
Karachi is home. It’s a bit dirty and ugly, but it’s home. We can only try and clean up some of its filth. If you live in a garbage dump, how do you expect the people to behave any better?
If the projects by the sea are to be affected and reconsidered by your documentary, what will you feel?
It was the economic downturn that has shelved most of these grand mega development projects for now. But as mentioned in the documentary, “Finance, like nature, abhors a vacuum. When the time is right, the greed for land and profit will rear its head again. It is imperative for the people, representatives and institutions of Karachi to recognize their vulnerabilities and protect their strengths. They must work together to ensure their interest in communal spaces like seashores is held sacred as Karachi evolves.”
The Roman Emperor Justinian, in 530 A.D, wrote down the “Institutes of Justinian,” the body of Roman civil law.
“By the law of nature these things are common to all mankind; the air, running water, the sea, and consequently the shores of the sea.”
All civilized countries adopt this approach. I hope any future development projects along the coast keep that in mind. I’m not against development, but ecology of the area must not be destroyed in the process.
What is the one thing that you would recommend everyone to go see after making this documentary?
I highly recommend every Karachiite go see the mangroves at least once in their lifetime. We live in a city by the sea, blessed with these magnificent but dying forests at the edge of the Indus Delta. Most of us have been to the beach, but not to the mangroves. I recently asked a friend to go, and this was his reply “What?! Go see the mangroves?! They’re so disgusting! It’s so dirty there.. the water is pure sewage!”. Well, yes, exactly. That’s why it’s so important to go see it for yourself, before they disappear completely. And maybe try to save them.
What is your idea of Karachi and its’ development?
Development is not just fancy flyovers and underpasses and malls and Envicrete and Conocarpus trees and Diamond Bar Island cities and Hyperstars and plexiglass bus stops. Real development would bring meaningful changes in peoples’ lives, such as improving public transport, fixing the road and sewage networks, providing access to clean drinking water, and education for all.
It seems very strange, for example, that in such a poor country our taxes go into building roads for cars and none for buses or bicycles, which is what the poor use. Not having sidewalks in most of the city is no small matter, and shows how there is absolutely no respect for human dignity.
In the rest of the world they are busy moving away from overly car reliant infrastructure towards one which caters more to people who can’t afford cars, while in Karachi we build roads which only benefit the very few — a case in point being the Gizri flyover (which, of course, doesn’t have a footpath!).
How far can you go to get your idea across?
Till YouTube. Hopefully, the policymakers are watching.
If you had the chance, resources, and funds to enhance any part of the city, what would you work on?
I’d reclaim the wetlands in the city and fix the sewage system, before we drown in our own filth. And, at the same time, save the last of the remaining open spaces, plant lots of local trees, especially fruit trees. I’d also encourage people to get together and grow their own vegetables in their homes and as a community in their empty neighborhood plots. Oh, and I’d build a flyover at Mai Kolachi. It’s the one place that the city could’ve done with a flyover, and they didn’t build one.
What area of the city do you turn to when you want to be alone?
It’s difficult to be alone in a large city like Karachi. I like to go to the mangroves, but even there the filth and refuse of 18 million people comes to haunt me. And on the other end of the city is Cattle Colony and all the waste it generates, so really, where can one go?
I’d go to Bagh Ibne Qasim early in the morning, but it doesn’t open till 4pm. Besides, the last time I was there, seeing all the foreign Conocarpus trees and not a single Neem or Badaam tree, was just too distressing. Why don’t we all protest and have them plant lots of fruit trees there? So what if 5 people eat all the guavas?
Which part of Karachi motivates you the most to keep working for a cause?
From one end of the city to the other there are constant reminders daily of all the work that needs to be done. “Stem the rot”, as someone who’s given up said to me recently.
Or go mend a pothole with the Greener Karachi Trust one Sunday morning. It’ll make the ride less bumpy for at least some of us living in the city.
Greener Karachi Trust can be found at:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greener-Karachi-Trust/167114886718622
What is the next step after releasing this film?
What I’d really like to do is a film about the sewage and drainage system of Karachi. That ought to be good, clean fun.
Originally published on afewmofilms.com in 2010.
