The Ichamati River in West Bengal has seen a big decline in fish stocks due to infrastructure projects and agricultural activity. But one environmental activist is trying to clean up the river together with local residents.
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00:00 Sorting through the dozens of varieties of fish in search of fresh catch and a good bargain
00:07 is a daily chore for many in Kolkata.
00:11 We here in Bengal grew up eating fish and rice.
00:18 A Bengali simply can't imagine life without fish.
00:22 You could say that we Bengalis eat fish or some kind of seafood in at least one meal
00:27 almost every day.
00:31 Markets like these sell tons of fish every day, caught in nearby regions by fishers like
00:38 Shridham Biswas.
00:42 He has been making a living from the Ichhamati river for 35 years now, but his daily catch
00:47 is no longer what it used to be.
00:52 Before the 2000s, we would find a lot of fish in these waters.
00:56 Now we get around half of what we used to.
00:59 All kinds of fish and especially varieties of prawn were found in abundance.
01:04 The river was even named after these prawns.
01:08 There was a time when you could cast your net and catch as much as a hundred kilos of
01:13 fish every day.
01:18 The river runs through some of the most densely inhabited areas in the world.
01:23 Road and bridge infrastructure and increased agricultural activity are all partly to blame
01:28 for choking the river.
01:32 According to geographer Debajit Dutta, who studies the effect of human action on river
01:36 ecosystems, the Ichhamati is in a dire state.
01:41 The course of the river was getting shrinked in the upstream areas.
01:45 And when there is no freshwater flow, the river Ichhamati only survives in the downstream
01:50 areas and it has become in our terminology, we call it a tidal inlet.
01:54 A tidal inlet means it is one channel coming from the sea and which is only having the
01:59 saline water, not the fresh water.
02:02 Fishers now mostly get their fish by breeding them in reservoirs and canals that store fresh
02:07 rainwater during the monsoon.
02:09 Meanwhile, the remaining flow in the Ichhamati is under threat from growing river bank settlements.
02:16 Animal and human waste often ends up directly in the river.
02:20 Untreated sewage is one of the primary causes for the growth of an invasive aquatic plant,
02:24 the water hyacinth.
02:26 It reproduces fast and starves fish of oxygen in the water.
02:30 We have got to the point where fishing is dying out as a way of making a living.
02:37 People have migrated to Gujarat, Mumbai and are doing odd jobs to make ends meet.
02:44 However, some like Sabarna Saraswati are staying on and doing their best to revive the Ichhamati
02:50 river.
02:51 The zoologist is an activist in his spare time and regularly leads locals on water hyacinth
02:57 clean-up drives.
02:59 Some 8,000 members of the fishing community have joined forces to clean 12 kilometres
03:03 of the river.
03:06 The cleaning drive meant the river was able to see the sun for the first time in ages.
03:13 The boats can move again.
03:15 I get emotional just speaking about it.
03:18 This is an amazing and unique experience for me.
03:21 The fisher people can now fish again and we are seeing fish grow to their full size.
03:30 Sabarna Saraswati knew that to make this a long-term success, he needed to find a sustainable
03:35 way to handle the vegetation they were removing from the river.
03:39 So they set up 80 vermicompost pits to process the water hyacinth waste, mixing in easily
03:45 available banana leaves and cow dung.
03:50 Each pit can produce up to 40 kilos of organic fertilizer every month.
03:55 It is sold to farmers in the region who use it instead of chemical fertilizers.
04:03 After we cleaned the river, I helped make a lot of vermicompost.
04:07 It earned me a lot of money.
04:09 And I wasn't alone.
04:10 I know 80 other families who have profited too.
04:15 Sabarna's love for the river of his childhood has proven infectious.
04:19 People from dozens of nearby villages have started their own clean-up drives.
04:24 Parts of the Ichamati are beginning to breathe again.
04:27 And locals have even reintroduced fish species that used to swim in these waters before.
04:34 The activist knows this is only the beginning.
04:40 If I start from the mouth of the river, then my first recommendation would be dredging.
04:45 Then the cleaning up of water hyacinth.
04:48 Third, remove all encroachments.
04:51 Fourth, stop all pollutants from temples, homes and markets.
04:56 And lastly, have a long-term plan for the river's survival.
05:04 Sabarna Saraswati knows that the road to a fully revived Ichamati is long.
05:09 But already, dozens of communities are reaping the benefit that's come with conserving
05:13 the source of life and livelihoods in the region.
05:16 (water splashing)