Smt. Pratibha Patill, The Hon'ble President of India, Rashtrapati Bhavan New Delhi

Sub : Do Not Implement CZM,

Respected Madam,,

aRecognizing the traditional and customary rights of the Fishing Community,the CRZ notification(1991) regulated the coastal law based on principles of coastal ecology. However, the recent move of the Govt., we hear, is to scrap  CRZ notification and implement CZM notification as per the recommendations of Dr. M.S. Swaminathan Committee. If this new notification is implemented, it will seriously affect the lives of the fishing community and coastal environment. We express our deep resentment against this action, undertaken without any consultation with the fishing community and the representations of the organizations working with the fishing community.

In this context, the National Campaign Against CZM Notification has called for a nation wide agitation on August 9th, 2007 the Quit India day. As per this call, the Kerala Campaign Committee Against CZM organized a campaign against CZM in front of the Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram on July 28th , 2007. A giand banner with a caption  ‘Do Not Implement CZM’ was signed by various poets, writers, politicians, environmentalists and people’s movements. So far the Ex-Prime Minister I.K. Gujral, Aruna Roy, Medha Patkar, Anand Padwardhan, Sugatha Kumari, Dr. R.V.G. Menon, Panniyan Ravindran M.P., V. Shivankutty M.L.A., Rajaji Methew M.L.A, Prof. Ninan Koshy, Kadakampally Surendran, D. Vinaya Chandran and hundreds of others have expressed their support to the Campaign Against CZM. We are enclosing the banner with signature as well as a copy of onlinepetition against CZM.

We request you to do everything within your means to pressurise Department of Environment and Forest to put an end to all actions related to coastal zone management.