KENDRAPARA: Illegal shrimp farms in an area of about 100 hectares in the seaside village of Badatubi under Mahakalpada forest block of the district were demolished in the last two days.
“In a joint exercise, forest and revenue officials with police protection demolished large tracts of illegal shrimp farms. The farm owners had erected prawn gheris within 500 metres of the seacoast by violating the Coastal Regulated Zone (CRZ) Act. The farms blocked the flow of tidal water in many creeks. As the water was not released to the sea, we dismantled the illegal farms,” said Kedar Kumar Swain, Divisional Forest Officer of Bhitarkanika National Park. The Forest department will regenerate mangrove forest in the demolished farms, he added.
Hundreds of farmers of the seaside villages have been blaming the illegal shrimp farms for destroying their agricultural land.
The effluents released from gheris to nearby agricultural land affect the fertility of land. Several farmers have been complaining of white patches on topsoil of their farm land and its gradual loss of productivity. They attributed it to a large number of shrimp farms.
The unplanned shrimp farming is one of the major reasons for increasing salinity in the coastal belt, said Sudhanshu Parida, an environmentalist.
Ten years back, the farmers converted seaside land and mangrove forest into prawn farms without realising their destructive nature. Now the farmers and traditional fishermen are raising their voice against prawn farms to save their agricultural land, said the DFO.