This mangrove-rich area constituting a reserve forestland of the forest department is soon going to be a part of the new Mundra Special Economic Zone (Mundra SEZ) to be set up by the Adani Group on 10,000 hectares of land close to the new Mundra Port.

"This the second biggest patch of mangrove forests in the state. Lakhs of lush green mangroves were destroyed in the nineties to create a new state-of-the-art port at Mundra. There was much hue and cry then, but even the forest department could not do much," said Zunzuwadia.

He said this useful sea vegetation, which is a strong natural barrier against the cyclone and salinity, is again due for a mammoth destruction. "Every thing is ready on paper to hand over 1,814 hectare mangrove forest land to the SEZ company," Zunzuwadi told this paper on Friday. Though the forest department admits this to be their land, it denies the wide presence of mangrove in the marshy land.

"The 1,814 ha mangrove forest area we are going to give for the SEZ, on compliance of certain conditions, has no dense mangrove cover. It is a land where no creek water comes in to keep the sea alive. It is a 'dead land'. We have also asked the SEZ company to pay a net present value of over Rs 165 crore for use of this land at a rate of Rs 9 lakh per ha as per the guidelines of the Supreme Court," said V T Korvadia, deputy conservator of the forest.

He said the company had already given them a substitute land at Koteshwar in western Kutch as compensation for this

stretch of land.

When asked why is such a high price being charged from the company, and that too when there is no dense mangrove in the forests, the official said that the charges were due to the land being a coastal one.

He also informed that the land was granted to them only after a clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests. He said the process was started in 1998-99, and the approval of the Centre was received in 2004.

But Zunzuwadi contested the claims that the marshy land was without mangroves. "This is totally false. We visited 30 small creeks in small boats and nine creeks in bigger boats, accompanied by local experts including retired officials, to know the things by our own. We found that 65 per cent of the area is full of thick mangrove cover. At certain places, there are hardly one to two inches of space left between two trees. The trees are as tall as 20 to 22 feet. There are areas where dwarf trees of 3 to 4 feet height can be seen. The area is flat in this portion of the mangrove forest. The experts have opined that the mangrove forest is at-least some five centuries old," he said.

He said the mangrove forest cover was depleting rapidly in the country, and there was a need to rejuvenate the same in the Kutch area, but sadly they would now fall to the axe.