Greenpeace 'turtles' seek insurance cover

Mumbai, June 20 (UNI) ''Greenpeace India'' activists, dressed as turtles, appeared at the Mumbai office of TATA AIG Life Insurance, asking for insurance cover to protect them from Tata's proposed port at Dhamra in Orissa.

Four Greenpeace ''turtles'' yesterday reached the TATA AIG Life Insurance office and unfurled a banner outside the office which read, ''TATA, Take a Turtle-Friendly Look at Life!'' ''We are here seeking insurance cover on behalf of the 500,000 turtles that congregate along the coast of Orissa every year. We want the Tatas to insure us against the risk of the Dhamra Port destroying our feeding and mating grounds,'' Greenpeace activist Sachin Gupta said.

The Tata port, he alleged, poses an immediate danger to the very survival of turtles as it threatens their most important habitat on the entire planet.

Tata Steel's proposed port is less than 15 km from the world's largest mass nesting site at Gahirmatha, where around 500,000 turtles have been known to nest in a single year.

Earlier, on June 8, Greenpeace India released a study that alleged that Tata Steel's Dhamra port project in Orissa was an ecological blunder causing irreversible destruction. The study was carried out under renowned herpetologist and member of the IUCN's Amphibian Specialist Group Dr S K Dutt and his team from the North Orissa University between February and March this year.

The study had established the presence of turtles in the offshore waters near the port and had also recorded other rare species on the port site itself, which have been ignored in the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) done for the project. Greenpeace has been in touch with the Tatas since the release of the report but the points raised by the study have yet to be addressed, said Ashish Fernandes, Ocean Campaigner for Greenpeace.

Tata Steel has continued to claim publicly that the port will not impact turtles, though they have not been able to provide any evidence for this statement, he said.

The Tatas have said that if there is scientific evidence that the port will harm the turtles, they will withdraw from the port project, Mr Fernandes said. The Tatas must act now to save the turtles by withdrawing from the port project, he said.

UNI