The importance of mangroves to the environment is understated. The network of trees growing in abundance on the river banks at Mashem, Galgibag, Talpona, Tamnem and at various places in Canacona taluka. These plants are useful in many ways and they also help protect the environment. Around 15 to 20 percent of mangroves on the banks of the Mashem-Galgibag-Talpona River were destroyed in the October 2009 Canacona flood and 25 percent damage was sustained by them. Environmentalists informed that these ailing mangroves need urgent attention.
Mangroves help to protect shorelines from damaging storms and hurricane winds, waves and floods. They also help prevent erosion by stabilizing sediments with their tangled root systems and maintain water quality and clarity, filtering pollutants and trapping sediments originating from land. That apart, various birds take shelter on these trees. Mangroves are well protected under various laws of the forest and environment rules but man’s greed to reclaim land by cutting them is a common occurrence in Canacona on a rather large scale.
Environmentalists Bhanudas Naik Gaonkar and Manoj Naik Gaonkar are concerned by the wide scale cutting of the mangroves in Canacona taluka. Speaking to Herald, they said that people are not aware how much the mangrove trees help in protecting the environment.
They further pointed out how the mangroves in the flash flood saved around 10 percent of houses some years ago during the flood and also saved the lives of several cattle and other animals.
Bhanudas said that mangroves are not only important, but crucial to coastal areas. Since estuarine areas are highly populated, the slightest ecological imbalance will take a heavy toll on the environment and people. Mangroves play a vital role in stabilizing these areas. No engineering and technological solutions can be sought for stabilizing these areas. Even if we negate all benefits of mangroves as forests, their value as ‘protector s of the shoreline’ is enough to convince us to conserve them.
“Out of a total of 15 types of mangroves found in Goa, around nine are found in Canacona and preserving them is the need of the hour,” stated Bhanudas.
According to Dayanand Pagui, a Councilor from Palolem ward, Mangrove forests and estuaries are the breeding and nursery grounds for a number of marine organisms, including the commercially important shrimp, crab and various fish species. Hence, a loss of mangroves not only affects us indirectly but there are direct economic repercussions through losses in the fishing industry. Above all, mangroves are now looked after by scientists as saviours in today’s Global Warming scenario. We all know that most of the coastal areas throughout the world are going to be affected by a rise in sea levels due to Global Warming, the effects of which are already visible. Therefore, when most of the coastal areas get flooded, mangroves can provide a gene bank to cultivate a salt tolerant species of crops which could be used as a resource.
According to another environmentalist, R S Naik, the non-biodegradable materials, if washed into rivers and the sea will cause damage to the environment and pollute the water bodies. The remedy to this problem is de-silting the adjoining water bodies of the mangroves.
