In August this year, Mumbai's greens had some reason to cheer when the state government announced that the white chippi (sonneratia alba) or sweet scented apple mangrove was declared as the official mangrove tree of Maharashtra. The state and the city can boast of its mangrove cover; however, it continues to be under constant threat due to development projects, not to forget, rampant encroachments.

In fact, a few weeks back, a news report had highlighted that while the state has 30,000 hectares of mangroves, only half of it is protected through survey methods like geo-tagging or physical marking, which means they are under direct threat from all kinds of devastation. That revelation made the mind take a little a fantasy leap [it can be a beautiful distraction especially in these times] to an earlier visit to the Pichavaram mangrove forests off Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu.