Mangrove cover not shrinking,says forest dept

However,steps are now being taken to increase mangrove cover by 2016 through a three-pronged strategy. “The strategy is to retain private land cover as it stands today and re-vegetate the barren parts of the mangrove areas handed over to us by the government. This land is given as a parcel as mangrove growth may not be continuous,” said Vasudevan.

Government-owned mangroves were declared as protected forests by high court in 2005 and were asked to be handed over to the forest department. “We are also looking at areas outside mangrove cover such as mudflats which had mangrove cover earlier. We will see if it is possible to bring the cover back. Although,these have not been handed over to the forest department yet,” he said.

A positive thing that has been noticed by protecting mangroves is that regeneration has been observed in areas where demarcation of boundary was carried out by the department,said Vasudevan.

“A similar thing will presumably happen in other areas handed over to the forest department by the government,” he said.

The forest department has 5,469 hectares of mangroves,all in Mumbai,under its control with about 15,000 hectares from all over the state expected to be added soon.

Monitoring of mangroves in the state leaves much to be desired with routine cases of felling to make way for development or destroyed due to pollution,the most recent being 30 acres of mangrove at the Sewri bay which were choked by cooking coal. However,the state will soon have a mechanism in place. “We will create a special monitoring mechanism in a few months. All violations related to mangroves can be reported and be directly acted upon by us or by an appropriate authority,” said Vasudevan.

The mangrove cell which was officially formed on January 5,2012 to protect mangroves has been struggling to fill department posts. Of the 37 sanctioned posts only 13 have been filled owing to administrative issues. However,an assistant conservator of forests and four regional forest officers and 12 forest guards are likely to join April end.