Serendipity : Musings of an Islander

Mangroves of Wright Myo Creek, South Andaman: Seeing is believing By Debkumar Bhadra Forty-eight kilometres from Port Blair (now Sri Vijaya Puram), where the road to Shoal Bay begins to narrow and the forest closes in on either side, lies Wright Myo, a village seldom visited, and its creek even less so. Its mangroves are dense, its forests largely intact, and its coastline unmarked by footfall that undoes wild places. Yet for all its stillness, Wright Myo holds more than what meets the eye. Scientists have found here a botanical trace so rare that it points not merely to an undiscovered species, but to a time when these islands were part of a single landmass that has since broken apart and drifted away. Wright Myo sits on the western flank of South Andaman Island. When the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake of 26 December 2004 sent a wall of tsunami waves across the Bay of Bengal, the eastern shores of South Andaman bore the brunt of it along with the rest of the country. Mangrove along the ea...

Six years back, on 26 th day of Dec 2004, when the giant tsunami waves struck A&N Islands , there was absolute mayhem.  Everybody ran uphill to protect themselves, yet those nearest to the sea, stood firm and bore the burnt of natures fury silently, for they bear on their back the responsibility of protecting our coasts and they did it with firm determination. Who are they? They are the Mangroves; the silent sentinels of our coasts. Debkumar Bhadra | Musings of an Islander Mangroves are a group of salt tolerant tree species that grows in the saline marshy areas between the shore and the sea in tropical and sub tropical latitudes. They are found in the inter-tidal zones along the coasts, bays, estuaries, lagoons, creeks and backwaters which are exposed during low tide and flooded by sea during high tide everyday. Globally there are nearly 70 species of true mangroves found dominating three quarters of the tropical coastline.   Ind...