Volunteers belonging to more than 30 youth organisations from across the city took part in a “March for the Marshlands”, as part of the Save Nemmeli Marshlands campaign, on Saturday, demanding an end to the destruction of the city’s wetlands.

A press release here said the organisations demanded that the State government stop the work to create the Mamallan reservoir and take steps to save other marshlands.

Narayanan, a fisherman from Kovalam, said the march was to remind the public that the Nemmeli marshlands were living ecosystems, not vacant land awaiting development. They store floodwater, buffer storm surges, support fisheries, sustain biodiversity, and help cities adapt to climate change. Destroying them in the name of climate resilience was morally indefensible, he said.

One of the organisers, Benisha B.M., said the proposed Mamallan reservoir was the defining test for the TVK government, which, she said, had neither halted the project for an independent scientific review nor addressed concerns raised by ecologists, fisherfolk, and coastal scientists. Instead, the work had only been expedited. 

Prashanth J., a wetland researcher, said: “It is fishing communities, Irulars, Dalits, and other marginalised groups that bear the environmental and economic costs, while the benefits flow elsewhere.” 

Kavya, a Class 12 student, said, “Successive governments have worked for corporations and elite interests while sacrificing the commons that sustain ordinary people. We refuse to inherit a city stripped of its wetlands, fisheries and resilience.” 

Raju, an environmental activist, said that as long as governments force the poorest communities to surrender their lands, livelihoods, health, and futures for projects that mainly benefit the powerful, people are justified in calling it modern casteism disguised as development.

Subashree, one of the participants in the march, said the present generation has inherited shrinking opportunities, worsening climate risks, and disappearing commons. “The fight for Chennai’s marshlands is a fight for a liveable future.”