Villagers will be saved but the cities will not… Will it be an
overstatement? Not at all. Look at the cities all over in our pride nation, particularly
the coastal areas. The coastal areas are mean for the weekend relaxation to the
city people. But do they really know the living of those coastal people who
build weekend homes at the cost of dearly friends the “Mangroves”. We people
are habited to curse our government for every tragedy happens, May it be a manmade
disaster or its a natural calamity. But we, the city people are neither tend to
nor willing to take responsibility to save our environment. The mangroves which
are covering Mumbai’s coastal area are the hurdle in our so called Vikas. And
we are impetuous to cut them as our soldiers are gunned down by the enemy
forces. We have cut the mangroves to widen the city area. Then we blamed the
Government for the flood and water logging. Does it make any sense? We must
learn a lifesaving lesson from the villagers.
Villagers who are the prime sufferers are taking initiatives to
save everyone’s life from the flood and storms happened in past. From 2012 a
dozen villagers of the tidal sensitive of Patharpara village on Gosaba block of
South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, got together to restore about 20
hectares (49 acres) of empty land adjacent to their embankments, planting
Community Mangrove Forests that run along tidal streams.
Patharpara village, which shares the border with Bangladesh,
was among many Sundarbans villages devastated by the ferocious 2009 storm. Similar initiatives are also underway in other
parts of India's coastal states, such as Odisha and Tamil Nadu, as well as in
Bangladesh, Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
The villages still haunt with the memories of those tall
tidal waves which broke through the earth embankment, rushing into homes and
fields, gulping down everything that came their way. The villagers said 30-35 km (19-22 miles) of
embankments are now better protected as a result of their efforts to grow mangroves. The trunks,
branches and above-ground roots growing from the stems of mangrove trees
dissipate wave energy and reduce coastal erosion, functioning as a natural
braking mechanism on the water - a phenomenon known as "wave
attenuation". The aerial roots that
protrude from the soil - enabling the trees to breathe during high tide – also
exert frictional drag on waves, lessening their force further. These mangroves
are the “lifelines" that stand as sentinels against the incursion of this
saline tidal water into the villages.
With the Sundarbans regarded as one of the world's climate
change hotspots amid rising sea levels, locals recognize their growing
vulnerability to the impacts of global warming. Leading the community
plantation drive, Arjun Mandal from Rajat Jubilee village said his team begins
by collecting mangrove seeds that are dispersed by tidal waters from the
forests and deposited on banks when the tides recede.
The gathered seeds are planted in small gunny bags, where
they develop into 3-foot saplings, looked after by local women. With growing awareness among experts and
environmental groups of how mangroves can cut the risk of disasters, villagers
are now being encouraged to use their expertise to restore forests that have
become degraded over time.
Mangroves have proved to be our true friends in need.
Mangrove forests stabilize the coastline, reducing erosion
from storm surges, currents, waves, and tides. The intricate root system of
mangroves also makes these forests attractive to fish and other organisms
seeking food and shelter from predators.
The Indian Foundation Nature Environment and Wildlife Society
(NEWS) and Livelihoods are working with the local communities of the Sundarbans
to restore these shrinking mangrove forests. The project aims to plant more
than 16 million mangroves to strengthen the existing man-made embankments that
protect the communities’ homes and farmlands from flooding. It also aims to
restore local biodiversity, as mangroves are nurseries for fish, molluscs, and
crustaceans, which will bring additional economic and nutritional value to the
communities that are impacted by this project.
What are mangroves?
There are about 80 different species of mangrove trees. All
of these trees grow in areas with low-oxygen soil, where slow-moving waters
allow fine sediments to accumulate. Mangrove forests only grow at tropical and
subtropical latitudes near the equator because they cannot withstand freezing
temperatures.
Many mangrove forests can be recognized by their dense tangle
of prop roots that make the trees appear to be standing on stilts above the
water. This tangle of roots allows the trees to handle the daily rise and fall
of tides, which means that most mangroves get flooded at least twice per
day. The roots also slow the movement of
tidal waters, causing sediments to settle out of the water and build up the
muddy bottom.
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