People think of St Mary's Island as a beautiful, sylvan place. But, this is how it looks after the rave party: the place is littered with condoms, torn lingerie, used syringes and empty vials of morphine (no prizes for guess what they were used for), pet bottles, plastic containers (some of them with food), heaps of cigarette butts and the remains of bonfire.
It is not just the visual appeal of the place--which is eight nautical miles from the beaches of Malpe, Udupi—but also the endangered life forms that have taken a beating owing to the merrymaking.
“It was a mindless move to have a rave party there in the eco-sensitive island of St Mary's antiquity,” ornithologist and scientist, Dr NA Madhyastha, said. He added that there are several endangered species living on the island, including 34 varieties of snails, slugs and other sea creatures like sea urchins, sea cucumbers, star fish and an organism known as sea anemose, which is rare.
Further, Dr Madhyastha said the island was home to Osphrey, a species of birds included in the endangered category in Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Pointing out that the bird is highly sensitive, he said that with the kind of cacophony at the rave party, the bird did not have much chance to survive.
“The island is suited only for eco-tourism and not for the kind of tourism promotion that happened there,” he said.
Green activist and geo-scientist G Shastry said St Mary's Island came into existence 80-100 million years ago. He said it was the only island in the Arabian Sea to be known as a geological monument. He said that the kind of rave party that happened there was harmful for the island and its unique features, such as naturally formed vertical and hexagonal risms.
The environmentalists said they had alerted the then minister for environment and ecology, Krishna Palemar, about the threat the rave party posed to the endangered life forms at the island. However, no official visited the island before or after the party to assess the party’s impact. The environmentalists are planning to approach the additional director general of police (CID), forests, to take action.
No permission
Suresh Shetty, president of the Badanidiyur panchayat, under which St Mary’s Island comes, said the district administration, police and other authorities did not seek the panchayat’s permission to hold the party on the eco-sensitive island.
Thousands of litres of diesel was burnt to run the big generators. Besides air pollution, sound pollution was caused by blasting music as loud as 24,000 watts. He said such activities are not permitted without the consent of the panchayat, but the administration overlooked all the rules.
Independent councillor of Udupi municipality, Nithyananda Volakad, who is also a civic activist, told DNA that MLA Raghupathi Bhat brushed away the poor panchayat. He said it was because of Bhat’s instructions that all environmental concerns were waived for the rave party. He alleged that Bhat himself attended the party on all the three days and enjoyed the hospitality of the organisers.
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