Ennore Creek, which was the site of an oil spill during Cyclone Michaung in Dec 2023, is showing signs of recovery with a greener outlook thanks to the forest department’s restoration efforts — planting mangrove saplings and native species along the creek’s bund to revive the ecosystem.
District forest officer V Subbiah says about 1.6 lakh mangrove saplings of three species — Rhizophora (red mangrove), Avicennia marina (grey or white mangrove), and Excoecaria (milky mangrove) — were raised in their nursery and planted in the creek area. The species are commonly found in creek areas in Chennai and its neighbouring districts.
“The fish-bone method is usually adopted while planting mangrove saplings. But in the Ennore Creek area, the linear and block method is used, which is equally good. The mangrove species are slow-growing,” he says.
The department has also planted two lakh mangrove associated native plants such as ficus, naaval, pungan, marudham and vembu as well as in some of the islands around the creek.
“Before planting the saplings, authorities should check the soil for oil spill residues and clear them. However, the successful survival of the saplings will be about 75% only,” says D Narasimhan, former associate professor of botany at Madras Christian College.
Subbiah says that during the recent rains in the district, surplus water released from the Red Hills Reservoir by the water resources department caused flooding in the Kosasthalayar River, which extended to the creek area. As a result, some smaller mangrove saplings were destroyed. “The department is taking measures to replace the damaged mangrove saplings.”
R L Srinivasan, a fisherman from Kattukkuppam near Ennore, says that after the oil spill, the state environment department collected water samples from the creek. “But residue that settled on the creek bed disrupted the catch of white prawns, the main source of livelihood for fishermen in the area. “Maybe another spell of rain will clean this stretch of the creek and bring back the prawns,” he says.
