RAJAMAHENDRAVARAM: Narasapuram and its surrounding mandals in West Godavari district are witnessing a quiet but devastating ecological collapse. Vast stretches of mangroves — long hailed as nature’s own armour against cyclones, tidal surges and coastal erosion — are being wiped out at an alarming pace. In their place, illegal aqua ponds have sprung up almost overnight, reshaping the fragile deltaic landscape and exposing deep fractures in administrative vigilance.
For decades, the mangroves stretching across the Godavari delta, the Upputeru creek region and adjoining estuarine belts have stood as one of the region’s richest ecological assets. These wetlands are fish nurseries, natural carbon sinks and the backbone of local livelihoods tied to fishing and eco-tourism. Yet today, those dense green canopies have thinned into broken patches of mud, bunds and water bodies engineered with clinical precision by an entrenched aqua mafia.
Forest Range Officer M Karunakar, speaking to TNIE, said that while revenue maps clearly demarcate mangrove blocks across Narasapuram, Mogalthuru, Yelamanchili and Bhimavaram, the ground reality is starkly different. “The belts that once stood lush and impenetrable have been replaced by ponds constructed in violation of every environmental norm,” he said.
The turning point came when Inspector General of Forests Trinath Kumar noticed suspicious changes in land patterns during routine satellite monitoring. Fresh clearings between Darbarevu and Etigattu along the Vashista river bund raised immediate red flags. Realising the scale of the destruction, he promptly alerted the District Collector and senior forest officials.
What followed was one of the swiftest enforcement actions the region has seen in years. The Collector ordered coordinated field inspections, leading to the seizure of a proclain used for clearing mangroves. Cases were registered against eight individuals, and penalties of `2.5 lakh were imposed—a rare show of urgency in a region where encroachments have long flourished unchecked. Forest officials later confirmed that the destruction had spread into notified forest patches that are legally protected.
In a positive signal, the Collector recently undertook a survey of the Darbarevu mangrove belt and indicated plans to develop the region into a sustainable eco-tourism zone. Meanwhile, the forest department has formally urged the Andhra Pradesh government to transfer all mangrove-listed lands in revenue records to forest jurisdiction, in line with Supreme Court directions.
The department has also recommended the formation of a joint task force comprising forest, revenue and police personnel to demolish illegal bunds during the monsoon tidal cycle. Such action, they say, would allow natural regeneration to reclaim degraded stretches.
Karunakar painted an unsettling picture of the scale of destruction. He revealed that 297 acres of mangroves in Narasapuram, 67 acres in Mogalthuru and additional stretches in YV Lanka have been lost. Nearly 1,000 acres, he estimated, have been encroached by aqua farmers. Upputeru creek, once sprawling across 10,000 acres of forested wetland, has shrunk to barely 3,000 acres.
With fractured jurisdiction and outdated records slowing intervention, the forest department has warned that West Godavari stands on the edge of a major environmental disaster. Unless mangrove lands are urgently consolidated under a single authority, the region risks losing its most vital natural protector — one pond at a time.