Too often in India the laws and notices issued by the authorities to protect the environment and vulnerable communities go unused by the people they are meant to be helping because of the sheer complexity and dense presentation of the content. The Coastal Regulation Zone notification issued in 2011 is a case in point. It’s a one-dimensional, text-heavy document that utterly fails to communicate the purpose of the notification.
So that local people can use and understand these regulations – and identify where large industrial developments are infringing them – Namati has 
created a Coastal Regulation Zones booklet that covers all the information available in the notification, but it is presented in a way that ordinary people can understand. The intention is to enrich local people’s existing knowledge of the coastal regulations, while empowering them with tools to protect it.
This is achieved using maps to show different zones and sketches to visualise possible scenarios, grouping regulations into different sectors and re-framing the content in order to put the users’ understanding first. The booklet shows all of this in both English and local languages. The first languages to be published are Tamil and Gujarati. The final section of the booklet provides all the necessary information for enforcement and details of the authorities concerned. Additional to this comprehensive booklet, a pocket reference guide for quick reference to difference zones and regulations was created.
Both language versions of the documents were developed with the inputs from fisher folks, community leaders and other concerned stakeholders.
Namati has already used the new materials to train members of the community group, Mundra Hitrakshak Manch, which campaigns for the rights of people living on the Mundra coast in Kutch, Gujarat.
