“Vizhinjam was once known as the harbour of pro-creation,” said Father Michael, parish priest of Lady of Good Voyage Church in Vizhinjam in the south Indian state of Kerala, told Mongabay-India. But today, the reality is different.
Vizhinjam is a coastal region approximately 16 kilometres south of Trivandrum, stretched between Kollam and Kanyakumari in the southern district of Kerala. The seabed in this area is full of rock formations, sandy bottom ridges, floor slopes and sloping ridges, making the space a rich breeding ground for mussels and a variety of marine organisms.
At least 12 unique reef systems have been discovered here, say researchers from Friends of Marine Life, an indigenous coastal community non-profit composed of scientists, scuba divers and fishers in south India. In 2016, they carried out a survey of the sea bed of Vizhinjam, to document the biodiversity of the region. Kumar Sahayaraju, a marine biotechnologist, who was part of the team, told Mongabay-India that the region is “like a forest in the sea.”
“The sea bed is full of sessile and sedentary marine life. There are at least 12 different reefs, forming the perfect habitat for fish to live and breed. And now they don’t have a home,” he said.
This ecologically rich region is also the site of the Vizhinjam International Sea Port, an ‘international transhipment deepwater multipurpose seaport’ that is being developed by Adani Ports as a public-private partnership (PPP) project on a design, build, finance, operate and transfer (DBFOT) basis. The PPP structure is based on a landlord model where land will be owned by the Government of Kerala (GoK) through Vizhinjam International Seaport Limited (VISL), a special purpose vehicle set up to manage the port development.
For the people of Vizhinjam, life has been divided into two parts – before the port, and after the port. They say it wasn’t as if everything was rosy before the port was constructed. They were sold the idea of a dream destination, that the port will bring them new opportunities, a better, more secure future. But the reality could not be further from this dream.