Why in News
Kadalundi, a village on the southwest coast in Kozhikode district of Kerala.
Its had about 8 hectares of nutrient-rich inter-tidal mudflats in the early 2000s.
Today, the expanse of mudflats in the estuary of the Kadalundipuzha river has reduced to about 1 hectare.
This too is gradually being covered with sand, depriving prey to thousands of shorebirds that migrate from colder climes in winter to the village.
Researchers point out that if the mudflats are not protected and restored.
Kadalundi will vanish from the global map as a prominent destination of migrant shorebirds in a few years.
It is the abundance of prey such as polychaetes and crustaceans in the mudflats that attract a wide variety of migrant shorebirds to Kadalundi from places such as Siberia, Ladakh, Mongolia, and Scotland.
Now th efforts are on to popularise ecotourism in the Kadalundi-Vallikunnu Community Reserve (KVCR) by widening the expanse of mangroves.
The 154-hectare KVCR had less than 50 hectares of mangroves until a few years ago.
But these trees that thrive in salt water have proliferated so fast that they currently occupy more than 60 hectares.
Kadalundipuzha
COMMENTS