honey moons | Rejuvenation of Mangroves for Disaster Management

Dr. Ashok K. Panigrahi1, Mrs. Mishra2, Sri H.S. Behera3 ,Sri Bhanu Giri4 & Sri P.K.Giri5

Concept Paper: Immediately after the Orissa Super Cyclone of 1999,internationally reputed environmentalist Dr Vandana Shiva and the late Banka Bihari Das invited national and international environmentalists and thinkers in to a meeting held at Bhubaneswar on 26 January 2000 to assess the situation and develop a comprehensive and effective model which can prevent future large scale destructions of lives and properties of the coastal communities from sea borne disasters arising from the turbulent Bay of Bengal identified as the second most dangerous sea of the world after the Gulf of Mexico. The author1 being an invitee to that meeting presented a concept for the coastal district Balasore, which was subsequently published by the RFSTE, New Delhi, in a book, “Perspectives of Environment, an Analytical Study.”

Years after that Dr.Vandana Shiva arranged funds for the authors to implement the concept on the Balasore Coast. The authors, however, finding the conceptual site at the Balaramgadi Estuary lost to the Tsunami of 2004 decided to implement the same at the Sartha Estuary, also on Balasore Coast. Today there exist a substantial concentration of true mangrove diversity comprising of a total of about 2 lakh plants of 22 species in an area about 50 hectares of coastal mud flats at the Sartha Estuary on Balasore Coast. The site also creates the perspectives of a future research, education and ecotourism site. Besides, the plants do have known commercial and medicinal usages and that way it will benefit the local community in more ways.

HYPOTHESIS

A coastal evergreen diversity based mangrove forest consisting of trees on an area of 50 hectares of estuarine mud flats any where may be perused as a substantial concentration which in time and space and human care is sure to gain in size so as to effectively protect the local communities from sea borne disasters like tropical cyclone locally and counter the impacts global warming universally. Mangroves being ever green and large leaved, soak up large amount of carbon dioxide, the principal green house gas.

A tropical cyclone is characterized by creation of a low pressure on the sea surface that produces strong winds and flooding rain. It feeds on heat released by the condensing moist air. The latent heat gets converted into kinetic energy which, in term, results in the production of strong winds from the warm centre. These storms occurring in the northern hemisphere have counter clock wise rotations and the southern hemisphere, clock wise rotations, since they are form over the warm seas, they lose their strength once they move on to the land. Although they are devastating in their basic nature they, however, help in the glob al circulation of air mechanism. They carry heat and energy from the tropics to the poles. Some of these acquire a greater dimension resulting in massive devastations depending on the area of their formation on the warm sea surface. This is so when storms are aided by natural factors as tide levels and human factors as mangrove destructions. Mangroves are known to blunt and slow down the ferocity of the sea storm surges and reduce the wave actions that accompany these storms.

Restoration of mangrove ecosystems

Seeds, ecology, biogeography, and evolution of dormancy and germination

Mangroves of Western and Central Africa

The botany of mangroves

The energetics of mangrove forests