Tamil Nadu - Nagercoil   

Stress on planting mangrove saplings to prevent calamities

Nagercoil: Tsunami that occurred in December 26, 2004 damaged the entire coastal environment in Kanyakumari district, said environmentalist G. Santhanakumar.

Presiding over a seminar organised by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board and the National Green Crops here on Saturday, he said that thousands of coastal people died and their belongings, including their animals were lost. Several schemes were initiated for preventing and managing such natural disasters and one such a programme was afforestation of estuarine and the coastal areas by plating mangrove saplings.

Execution of the Green Coast Project had been carried out for the uplift of coastal environment and fishery development, he said.

The involvement of the local coastal people, lessons learnt and the constraints faced during the project along with the success story of mangrove afforestation were discussed in the seminar.

Mangroves are halophytes living only in tropical and temperate seacoasts and estuaries. A large number of forests are there in Malasiya, Indonesia, Columbia, India, etc. In India the Sundarban forest of West Bengal has around 26 varieties of tall mangrove trees and pitchavaram mangrove forest has 12 verities of mangroves of short stature, said Mr. Santhanakumar.

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Stress on planting mangrove saplings to prevent calamities

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