Natures most bio- diverse places are the life support system of our planet.  Every second breath we take is because of the phytoplankton in these oceans making oxygen-the Amazon rain forest in comparison makes only a tiny bit.  We couldn’t live without that phytoplankton.

I believe a huge biological brain, many times more complex than the human brain, is at work in this world.  The creation of oxygen is just one of the thousands of crucial scientific roles these eco-systems perform.  Yet, we keep plundering our own life- support systems.

This is extremely dangerous for us.  The earth always survive.  It is our species that is very fragile.  This planet is actually very small and held together by one great living system.  So, whether an ocean is in Africa or Europe, despoiling it will impact around the world.  We don’t even realize how vulnerable we are.  The covid pandemic is showing us just a fraction of what could actually happen if we keep treating nature in this way. 

I kept thinking how we, humans were designed to live close to nature.  You understand what is happening to this incredible natural world.  And you realize how much sensitivity and magic we humans have lost.         

Craig Foster, Natural history film maker and founder of the sea change Trust  (to SriJana Mitra Das)

             Mangrove forests comprise the interface between wet lands and sea grass meadows along a vast expanse of tropical shore lines all over the world.  They also occur along bays, estuaries or mouths of rivers by these shores.  Mangroves have a tremendous environmental impact – mangrove forests are one of the greatest sources of bio-diversity on this planet.  They have a rich underwater component, a surface component and an area component.

Mangroves, along with sea grasses and wet lands, comprise the ‘blue carbon’, ecosystem of stored carbon in sediments along many tropical and sub-tropical coastal zones.  Their complex aerial and submerged root systems moderate current flows and the canopies moderate wind flow- they are the interface between the wet lands and sea grass community for the continental flow of water solutes into the eco-system.  Mangroves also supply fuel wood and other forest products, like food and medicine for people.

The mangroves do so much for the planets- but we are losing them very disturbingly and rapidly to soil spills, pollution and shore line development. Still, it remains a wonderful experience to visit the mangrove eco-systems.                                                                              

Graeme P. Berlyn, Professor of forest management at Yale University , (Courtesy  to Times Of India)