Pichavaram Mangrove Forest, Tamil Nadu

The striking feature of Pichavaram village settlement is that it is a stretch of land between two estuaries, namely the Vellar estuary in the north and Coleroon estuary in the south. This unique positioning gives the village one front which holds the backwater reserve that meets onto the sea and another front where the tidal tributaries empty into its backwaters. Such unique natural disposition has made it the adequate home for mangroves which infest the backwaters rising above the level of water to soar upwards. Their roots firmly grounded in the water bed, provide a unique habitat for flora and fauna and give the place a singular appearance of its own.

Pichavaram is not an amalgamation of land bodies or set of tight conglomerate islands. Instead they are land bodies that are close to each other yet separated by water bodies interspersed between them with unique vegetation of mangroves surrounding them all around. Pichavaram mangrove forest reserve is very dense and thickly populated and it is the second largest mangrove forest in the world. The backwaters meet into the Bay of Bengal which is separated from merging into the Pichavaram settlement by a stretch of sandy creek land. Funnily enough the largest mangrove forest in the world is also in India, in the state of West Bengal. These mangrove forests have been recently identified by regulating bodies as indigenous environment which need global attention to be conserved as they contribute a lot towards maintaining the balance of the eco system.