A National campaign against the Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project with the participation of fishing communities, environmentalists and community-based organizations will be held opposite the Fort Railway Station next Wednesday.
Organised by the National Movement Against Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project (NMSSCP) the protest is a part of the bilateral campaign against the SSCP in Sri Lanka and India.
A petition highlighting the objections against the SSCP would be handed over to the Indian High Commissioner Nirupama Rao following the protest, organisers said.
Meanwhile, a demonstration was held at Arakattuthurai in the Nagapattinam district in Southern India against the SSCP last week.
Nearly 750 volunteers of the Movement Against Sethusamudram Ship Canal project and fishermen joined the demonstration, raising slogans against the project which they said was ruining the livelihood of fishermen.
An attempt by the volunteers and fishermen to go into the sea off Arakattuthurai in 200 fiberglass boats and block the dredging work there was averted by the Police.
The project is claimed to cause great damage to the marine eco-system in the Gulf of Mannar, including the National Marine Biological Reserve which houses some 3,600 species of plants and animals including a number of important species of corals.
The whole area is biologically rich and is rated among the highly productive seas of the world. The coral reefs in the gulf houses nearly 750 fish varieties with nearly 800,000 fishermen from both countries being dependent on these resources.
The most far-fetched and the worst prediction had been made by the Tamil Human Rights and Environmentalist group, Manitham. Manitham in its interim report on SSCP had predicted that half of Jaffna peninsula and nearly 85 islands on the Western and North Western coasts of Sri Lanka and half of Rameswaram would go under the sea if the Miocene era lime stone reef link between the Jaffna peninsula and Rameswaram is to be broken by dredging.
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