Umbrella

A few weeks ago at Pallikaranai, I was fooled into thinking that the Forest Department had erected an observation tower, only to find out that it was just a water tank. But this one did not have any such surprises. What looked like rest-stop, with this thatch roof and a bench, was just that. It is the only one on the banks of the Pallikaranai marsh. It must have been the Foresters who had this put up. 

I just hope that there will be a few more such. And that they do not turn it into a lakeside eating joint or something!

High-rise sunrise

The marsh at Pallikaranai is somewhat better protected these days, at least on the southern side of the SH109. The fringes are greener than what they used to be. A small concrete cabin at the eastern end of the marsh indicates the presence of the forest department, even though I have never seen the cabin occupied. 

Haven't gone across to the southern bank of this marsh, though. Apparently there is a walkway into the marsh, as well as an observation tower there. Maybe if you climb up that tower, you can see the sun rise a few seconds earlier!

Deep waters

India's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), in the waters around its territories, covers almost two-thirds of the country's land area. Although various maritime nations had drawn up bilateral or multilateral treaties about how they would share the resources along their coast, all of those were scrapped when the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was concluded in 1982. 

It was probably the adoption of UNCLOS which prompted the Government of India to think about having a dedicated organization to figure out how to reap the benefits of the natural resources available within its EEZ. Marine engineering only scratches the surface of the oceans, and hence in 1993 was born the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), based in Chennai, with its facilities at Pallikaranai. The NIOT carries out programmes for observation of the ocean as well as for the deployment of vessels to carry out deep-sea surveys in the EEZ. 

Since its founding, the NIOT has surveyed over 13,500 sqkm of the EEZ. The whole extent of India's EEZ is about 2,300,000 sqkm (If you think that's a lot, consider Japan's: over 4,479,000 sqkm, or New Zealand's, at about 4,300,000 sqkm). With so much of available area left to cover, the NIOT certainly has its work cut out over the next century or so!

Highway traffic

Tamil Nadu has about 61,500km of roads running across the state. Of them, roughly 9,200km are designated as state highways. There are not many that were conceptualized as highways and constructed accordingly; most of them are roads that were in existence and were given the title because of their importance. 

State Highway 109 was not one of those. There are stretches where SH109 has taken over existing paths, but more than half of it was specifically laid to connect the suburb of Pallikaranai with Thoraipakkam. In doing so, it cuts through the Pallikaranai Marsh, which has now been designated a reserve forest. 

Getting on to this stretch of SH109 early in the day, one is bound to spot many of Chennai's bird watchers. On both sides of the road, there are literally thousands of birds to be seen and that brings both amateur and professional ornithologists in sizeable flocks. But this place also attracts folks with a different passion: a fairly smooth and straight road, with minimal traffic, is the ideal stretch for the power vehicles to vroom away. In a 20 minute span, we saw a couple of Audis, a Porsche and a Harley open up their valves and fly away!

Sunrise industry?

The post title has been shamelessly stolen from a friend's description. We had gone to try and shoot some birds at Pallikaranai a couple of weeks ago. I had no hopes of getting a picture, but it is always good to go and take a look at the birds. We had stopped at the edge of the marsh and this picture suggested itself; a nice orange sunrise, even though it was quite bright around us at that time, despite a mildly overcast sky.

It was a good walk, but many of the regular birds hadn't reached the marsh yet. It has been gut-wrenching to see the marshland being turned into a vast dumping ground as the city expanded. In the past three or four years, the forest department has been doing its best to contain the damage being caused to the marsh ecosystem. Last week, they got a big boost up, when about 300 hectares were turned over to them; 125 ha coming from the revenue department and 170 ha from the Corporation of Chennai. 

Now, with the plan to declare the Pallikaranai marshland a reserve forest, the growth of such factory sheds in the area will slow down. Not entirely a bad thing, really. How can we enjoy the sunrise industries without being able to appreciate the sunrise over the marsh!

One for the birds

Last weekend at the Pallikaranai Marsh; this was one of the quieter spots, with not too many birds around. Just a few egrets, a few pond herons, a couple of pelicans swimming in the water and two purple moorhens - or purple swamphens, if you want to call them that.

It would take a bit of looking to spot the moorhens in the picture, though!*


*They are at the edge of the water hyacinths, to the left of the pelicans....

Birdspotting

The garbage dump at Pallikaranai may be stinking, but that doesn't prevent waterbirds stopping there during their winter migrations.

The black specks on the water are black winged stilts. I had never seen one earlier, and then, one Sunday, I got to see a few thousand of them!

Choking the marsh

Just over a year ago, a large part of the Pallikaranai Marsh was declared a reserve forest area. While it was certainly a good deed in the cause of preserving the biodiversity of the estuarine ecosystem at Pallikaranai, what went ignored was the continued sanction to use a part of the wetland as a dumping ground.

The Pallikarani Marsh was home to over a 100 species of birds, besides having a variety of reptile, amphibian, insect and plant species. Unfortunately, it is immensely difficult to figure out how many remain. The smoke and stench from the dumping ground chase out even the most committed nature lover.

The Marsh has shrunk to less than half the area it occupied 15 years ago. The boom of Velachery as a commercial hotspot continues to put a lot of pressure on the land around the Marsh to be opened for development; that has been resisted, for the most part. But with the dumping ground spilling outside its allocated boundaries, it won't be long before the waste chokes the swamp - both on the ground and in the air. It is about time the Forest Department reclaimed the Marsh - not just on paper!