Mangroves stand on an island within the Sundarbans. Photograph Credit score: AP
The Union authorities has taken up about 22,560 hectares of land to revive and preserve mangroves underneath the Mangrove Initiative for Shoreline Habitats & Tangible Incomes (MISHTI) initiative over the previous two years.
Nearly 85% of land, measuring 19,220 hectares, underneath the scheme has been acquired in Gujarat alone.
MISHTI was introduced within the Union Price range for 2023-24 and was launched on June 5, 2023 to revive and promote mangroves as a novel, pure ecosystem and for preserving and enhancing the sustainability of the coastal habitats.
The target of MISHTI is to revive mangrove forests by enterprise mangrove reforestation/afforestation measures alongside the coast of India, states Authorities of India.
The Ministry of Atmosphere Forest and Local weather Change in response to a query within the Lok Sabha in August 2025 identified that an space of 22,560.34 hectares has been taken up via convergence throughout 13 States/UTs for plantation and restoration of degraded mangroves within the 12 months 2023-24 and 2024-25 underneath the scheme.
Following Gujarat, about 1060 hectares of forest land in Tamil Nadu, 837 hectares in Andhra Pradesh and 761 hectares in Odisha has been taken up for mangrove plantation.
Low acquisition in Bengal
Nevertheless, solely about 10 hectares of land has been acquired underneath the initiative in State of West Bengal, which has the most important mangrove cowl within the nation.
The overall mangrove cowl within the nation stands at 4,991 sq. km out of which West Bengal alone accounts for two,119 sq. km, which is about 42% of the mangrove cowl within the nation. Gujarat holds the second highest mangrove cowl ranging about 1, 164 sq. km (23%), based on the newest report of Forest Survey of India (FSI) 2023.
In the course of the ‘Mann ki Baat’ program on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted the importance of mangrove restoration. Mr. Modi mentioned that 5 years in the past, the Forest Division (of Gujarat) began planting mangroves close to Dholera in Ahmedabad, and “immediately, mangroves have unfold over three and a half thousand hectares on the Dholera coast”.
“The impact of those mangroves is seen all through the world immediately. The variety of dolphins within the ecosystem there has risen. Crabs and different aquatic creatures have additionally elevated in quantity, in comparison with earlier. Not solely that; migratory birds are additionally coming right here in massive numbers now,” the Prime Minister added.
Ajanta Dey, of Nature Atmosphere and Wildlife Society, a corporation that has been working for mangrove restoration in numerous states together with West Bengal mentioned that MISTHI was an consequence of multi-stakeholder participatory strategy which was developed in West Bengal in 2020, the place totally different schemes underneath MGNREGA have been used for mangrove restoration.
Ms. Dey whose organisation’s mannequin Sustainable Aquaculture in Mangrove Ecosystems (SAIME) within the Sundarbans has not too long ago been acknowledged globally, mentioned that the main focus in West Bengal must be mangrove restoration as a substitute of prioritizing solely new plantations.
She highlighted that the importance of mangroves in fragile ecosystems just like the Sundarbans is that they act as bio-shields and the necessity is to have a platform involving totally different departments of the State. authorities to create an environment-assisted pure regeneration of mangroves.
Revealed – October 27, 2025 04:25 am IST