Essay on disappearing mangroves around Mumbai
Answers
Bare trees with slender branches line a half-built highway overpass in eastern Mumbai. These are mangroves, trees or shrubs found in tropical swampy marshland with roots that grow above the ground. But construction has blocked their lifeblood — salt water. Their aerial roots poke through dry, caked mud instead of brackish water.
Environmentalist B.N. Kumar points to a small channel under the highway where seawater once entered the mangrove patch. It's now littered with rocks and construction debris.
"All the mangroves, about 5,000 of them, have dried up. They can only be used as firewood now," Kumar says. "It's very sad to see these mangroves dying like this."
Bare trees with slender branches line a half-built highway overpass in eastern Mumbai. These are mangroves, trees or shrubs found in tropical swampy marshland with roots that grow above the ground. But construction has blocked their lifeblood — salt water. Their aerial roots poke through dry, caked mud instead of brackish water.
Environmentalist B.N. Kumar points to a small channel under the highway where seawater once entered the mangrove patch. It's now littered with rocks and construction debris.
"All the mangroves, about 5,000 of them, have dried up. They can only be used as firewood now," Kumar says. "It's very sad to see these mangroves dying like this."