The Forgotten and Cursed Wetlands of the Gulf of Mannar
By S. Rengasamy, Hon. Secretary, People's Action for Development (PAD). This post introduces his longer essay on the Tharavai; the full article can be downloaded at the end.
A word nobody had heard. In PAD's early days in Vembar, a panchayat president remarked during a training session that life would have been far better if the tharavai had been looked after. None of the PAD team knew the word. When they went to see it, they found thorny bushes growing on soft, silky soil, and villagers who spoke with deep feeling about how this land had once sustained them. Their request was simple: rather than helping each village separately, restore the tharavai, because it serves them all.
A water body without a name. Tharavai is a Tamil word, from the root "tara" (land), used for land where water collects and stays. It is heard only along the Gulf of Mannar. On official maps, the nearly 30 km belt from Mookaiyoor to Periyasamipuram appears only as an unnamed "swampy area". Rengasamy first wondered whether a place with no name could matter much. An elderly villager put him right: like God, the tharavai has many names, because it takes the name of every village it passes through.
What people remember. Filled by the Gundar and Vembar rivers, the tharavai held fresh water for months. It kept the sea from seeping inland and recharged wells whose water was "sweeter than the tender coconut". The area was known for betel leaf and palm jaggery; children picked fish from the shallows and learned to swim there before going to sea. Fresh water seeping from the tharavai into the sea is, people believe, part of what makes the Gulf of Mannar so rich in life. Villagers describe water changing as it travels, like a person through life: a bride, then a mother, then a grandmother.
Why it was forgotten. The essay argues that the tharavai fell between government departments. The Public Works Department looks after rivers, tanks and lakes with banks, inlets and command areas, and the tharavai has none of these. Conservation in the marine park concentrates on coral reefs and the sea. Experts file it under the general heading "wetland" and miss what is distinctive about it. Meanwhile more than 60 check dams on the Gundar alone, salt pans, failed prawn farms and encroachment cut it off from its water. Because no one owns the tharavai, no one defended it, except the fishers and farmers who depend on it and have the least power.
Learning by listening. Much of the essay is about how PAD came to understand the tharavai: not from official maps, which were hard to obtain, or from visiting experts, but by listening to fishers, farmers and panchayat leaders through participatory methods. PAD staff even learned to use GPS from local fishermen, and went on to map the tharavai themselves.
Why restoration is the wise choice. PAD's GPS survey found that about 750 hectares of the tharavai still remain. Rengasamy argues that, if maintained, it could recharge groundwater across 7,000 to 8,000 hectares, at far lower cost than engineered recharge. He also points to falling population in Kadaladi union, where villagers insist that people are not "migrating" but escaping scarcity.
Written in 2017, this essay laid the foundation for the Tharavai restoration work that PAD and the Tharavai Rehabilitation Committee are carrying forward today.
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