Arabian Sea in Shambles

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Dr. A. A. Quraishy

Although the coastal banks in several countries are under threat of pollution and degeneration at various levels, the one on the Arabian sea is one of the worst. It also extends to several ports of India particularly in Gujrat and Maharashtra, but the worst area lies in Pakistan.

It was not as bad up to the late fifties. It was like we see in national geographics. Once right at the level of our feet, on the pier of Keamari where boats put-putted for the passengers to Manora, mud crabs scurried before your very eyes. The minnows and fries of several species of fish swam fearlessly in the crystal-clear water. Children giggles and swam effortlessly, urging the visitors to toss a coin in the clean water. As it went dancing down, they divide in and recovered it before it touched the bottom of four or five feet of water. It fun for everyone and a joy to see the restless sea just as it was a million year ago.

We watched mighty waves in the open sea from manora island in the forenoon. One could see huge, three to ten pounder tunas leap high in fright from the snapping barracudas, shark and mackerels. Shoals of bait fish as large as twenty to thirty feet across and five feet thick could be spotted frequently.

Anchovies and Clupeiformes forming in groups were plentiful right up to the pillars of netty jetty bridge. The contractors of the fish for Karachi Zoo, the exuberant, hardy and versatile ABU, would just through a net from the shore and haul five, ten to twenty kilos of fish fries for the pelicans, storks and ducks of the zoo. This phase continues right up to the industrial boom of Ayubs regime.

The highly polluted coastline is stinking with heavy metals that is washed down untreated from over three thousand tanneries have been pouring millions of kilos of arsenic, mercury, cadmium, lead, alkaline and pesticides. Oil and sludge, also find its way into the sea from several oil refineries. From Ibrahim Hyderi to Jiwani, tons of plastic bottles and polythene bags are to be seen right up to forty miles or more, across the sindh and mekran coast.

In this very water were whales of different species and the largest of fish, the whale shark, measuring fifteen feet, floating harmlessly just below the sea surface in the clean sea, chasing planktons, fries and small fish. I have seen lobster weighing upto four kilos in the Churna island and light house coastal belt. Now there is total devastation as pollution, illegal netting and overfishing for the past three decades has taken its toll. The sindh environment protection agency, the coastal development authority, the KPT and other marine conservations and development authorities are totally unstirred.

Islamabad knows not even a drop of sea science and does not seem to care. They treat the sea as if it were an alien territory.

The bottom line is that in the last 60 years, we do not have any pier, not any jetty for the recreation starved citizens and also no anti Katra campaign. The municipal wastes and the industrial effluents from Lyari and west wharf were just a trickle for the extremely efficient purifying potential of the ocean. It washed away most of it to the mangroves and diluted it with the rising ebb and tide every six hours. Water was just a little murky at places but one could jump and swim in it without feeling the stink and smell. Ram Swami of Hindus which still exist on the KPT pier near tower area was a clean heaven for the bathers.

I have seen transparent water lapping at Clifton where smaller fisherman fixed their nest and hoisted them for fish that they could get for the pot and for the piggy bank. But the best was in the open sea. Once I sailed in the company with Dr. Rahimullah Quraishy, the marine director general of Pakistan. In his newly acquired machhera (fisher) research trawler, to survey what existed in the coastal water. We may have gone for 1 hour about three kilometres from the coast (Manora and other buildings were visible) the crew cast the net which was a very efficient modern fishing kit. The depth was around twenty to thirty feet, the bed was much deeper as the sonar monitor it constantly, and purpose of the expedition was exploratory.

After half an hour, the heavy sea going trawler tilted some 40 degrees with the weight of catch. After which the fishing net was lifted mechanically and when released at the deck, presented a fascinating sight. There were groupers, barracudas, lobster, tunas, pipefish, trevally, sea snake, prawn, crabs of three species, skates, rays, puffer, porcupine fishes, triggers, sergeant major, catfish, two sea horse, a parrot fish, different versions of Pomfret and a lone starfish had been scrapped out of the shallow and sandy bed.

But the best was that every species was clean, healthy and colourful in its original marking. No cast over, plastic cans, on empty coke tins, no bottles, on drums, bucket, no rubbish only few of sea weeds came. The bed was salubrious exactly the same manners in which the eco system was designed by nature three million year ago.

We did not drag the fishing nets on the seabed for more marine life. Down there where oysters, urchin, hydroids, periwinkles, barnacles, whelks, clams, clown, sun fish, jelly fish, mussels, cockles, murex, blue crab, sand dollar, pen shells, angel wings, corals, butterfly fish, octopus, conch, snappers and even barber fish, that love manicuring the large denizens of the sea.

Nor did we go for dolphins, but they were all along the coast from Hawks Bay onwards to the last limit of the open sea on the region of Lasbela, Ormara and Jiwani which was crowned with several species of mantas, hammerhead and saw-nosed sharks. I have seen a sword as long as seven feet dangling sportingly on one of the huts of the fisherman and way to sandspit. Smaller sized sawfish were every where.

An old man hand on the Mubarak village admitted, he has seen some twelve footers and larger saw-nosed sharks, demons of the sea that must have been a frightening sight. I have seen a painting that shows a tiger fish thrown across a camel’s back with its tail reaching the belly level of the camel and the head with sharp teeth of the brute opposite to this end on the other side. It must have measured around fifteen feet from tip to tip and in the good old days this sight was not a rarity. Very sadly, the Arabian sea has now been turned into the miles of barren green desert.      .