Hills to Ocean (H2O)

With a coastline of more than 7,500 km, India is endowed with a diversity of coastal and marine ecosystems. These ecosystems provide numerous services and benefits including fisheries, coastal tourism, as well as protection provided by mangroves and sand dunes against natural disasters such as tsunamis and cyclones.

The CMPA project is part of a dedicated Indo-German Programme for enhancement of the conservation and sustainable use of India’s coastal biodiversity in line with the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). This will ultimately benefit the local population depending on healthy marine and coastal ecosystems. The CMPA project is being implemented at seven sites in four states – Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

The Project is funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety (BMU). It is implemented by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Government of India, and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of BMU.

‘Kheldho’ float commissioned by the CMPA project steals the limelight at the Goa Carnival 2016

The CMPA Project used a glittering ‘Kheldho’ float at the Goa Carnival 2016 parade to draw attention to the declining biodiversity due to pollution from plastics, untreated sewage and overfishing. The Mudskipper, a remarkable fish species known in Goa as ‘Kheldho’, is ubiquitous to India’s estuaries and coastal mudflats. It spends more time on land than in water and its survival is closely linked to the health of estuaries and mangroves. Its disappearance could signal a degradation of the estuaries. With the float the project wanted to highlight the range of men-made environmental pressures that the rivers and backwaters suffer from and the impacts this has on local livelihoods such as fisheries.

The ‘Kheldho’ was made entirely out of waste: the body was formed from empty plastic bottles, each of which being fitted with an LED light that gave it its shiny appearance. The Mudskipper’s head was made from papier-mâché and oval cans intricately bound together. The tail consisted of flattened cans attached to a wire mesh and artistically arranged in yellow and red longitudinal series to give the impression of a rayed fin. The Carnival was held from February 6-9, 2016 and the floats presented in four different locations, with an estimated 400,000 spectators attending the parade this year.