Plans to clean the heavily polluted Ganges have been continually ineffective. This is one interesting solution that involves an organic means to specifically target non-point source pollution from the decomposing bodies floating in the river, which no other technical solution could do. According to this India Today article, they may have been either been directly thrown into the river or left on the riverbank, some partially cremated and some not at all.
Solution #1: Raising flesh-eating turtles specifically for release into the Ganges.
This solution does not address any root causes of why bodies are in the Ganga in the first place. As highlighted in a previous post, it has to do with being unable to afford to properly dispose of the body. Additionally, it could be due to the belief that the river is sacred. Many devout Hindus believe that sending the bodies of their dead loved ones off in the Ganges would allow the person’s soul to live forever.
Since 1984, the turtle idea has been regarded as an organic solution for the rotting corpses polluting the river under the Ganga Action Plan. However, not much information is available about this solution, at least from my searches done in English. This solution has been tried out over the years since the late 1980s but was met with failure. That said, another attempt was made in 2018 which has been more widely covered by the media. Still, there seems to be a great lack of publically available coverage regarding results from this strategy.
Judging by the continued news coverage of bodies in the Ganges and the criticism of environmentalists interviewed in a VICE video, it can be inferred that the turtle solution has not proved useful in cleaning the Ganges. Furthermore, the turtle solution is said to perpetually fail because of corruption and the poor management of the turtles in the river.
Different species of carnivorous turtles once thrived naturally in the Ganges but were largely poached, causing turtles like the Indian/Ganges Soft Shell Turtle to become endangered. According to this Times of India article, the turtles considered for usage for the corpse pollution problem were actually rescued from illegal trade, then rehabilitated and bred in sanctuaries set up under the Ganga Action Plan (aimed at improving the water quality). But corruption and poor management of the released turtles have allowed these newly-bred turtles to suffer the same fate of being poached. And to no surprise, pollution itself is killing the turtles.
Instead of reaping the benefit of both conserving the turtles and cleaning the river, this case illustrates failure on two fronts. Firstly, the failure to address the problem of rotting bodies polluting the Ganga as intended. Secondly, regardless of the efficacy in solving the corpse pollution problem, corruption and poor management have led to the failure of an admirable conservation effort. It is a downright shame that the great effort put into saving, rehabilitating, raising and breeding these turtle species native to the Ganges has been put to waste.
References:
https://www.wii.gov.in/nmcg/priority-species/reptiles/ganges-soft-shell-turtle
