ALAPPUZHA: The district administration will plant casuarina to protect 82-km Kayamkulam-Aroor coastline with the support of local bodies. The project is expected to take off on August 15. The decision follows a June 5 report in Deccan Chronicle on the tree's ability to combat sea erosion. District panchayat president G. Venugopal said NREGA workers would help to implement the project. People’s representatives in the coastal panchayats will head ward-level committees.
They will plant the saplings every meter of the coast of 16 panchayats and Alappuzha municipality. A meeting he chaired at Collectorate on Thursday took the decision as sea erosion leaves increasing number people of homeless every year. “Casuarina clusters created by social forestry department in various parts of Purakkad panchayat in 2008 had helped save the coast,” he claimed. Places like Thottappally, Payalkulangara, Punthala, Pazhavangadi and Anantheswaram also had clumps of casuarinas planted, but they were lost to sea surge except in Thottappally.
The deep-rooted casuarina plants can create a web of roots beneath the ground holding the soil. In 2013, data showed, eight families lost their houses while it increased to 11 in 2014 and 39 in 2015. Though the season is yet to peak, this year so far 22 families have lost their homes. “None of them are properly rehabilitated and are living in either rented houses or camps," said V.C. Madhu, former Purakkad panchayat president. "Growing Casuarina is the best eco-friendly method to save the coastline. The committees should care plants without fail."
