The Kerala Police Officers Association’s (Coastal) green initiatives have won them the Vanamitra award for Kollam district, instituted by the Kerala Forest and Wildlife Department.
The honour comes as a major recognition for their various efforts to conserve biodiversity, including the ‘Shuchitwa Theeram, Surakshita Theeram’ project. The award carries a purse of ₹25,000 and a citation.
Mangrove afforestation
Shuchitwa Theeram, Surakshita Theeram was launched as an initiative to eradicate plastic waste from the coastline and the coastal police had followed it up with a massive mangrove afforestation project.
The project was implemented with the support of clubs, libraries, green collectives and voluntary organisations. In the initial phase, mangrove saplings were planted near the Neendakara estuary, which also included rare ones like Ceriops tagal (yellow mangrove).
A total of 5,000 mangrove saplings were planted and preserved in the past five years along the coastline from Paravur to Azheekkal and near Ashtamudi, Vattakayal and TS Canal.
As part of the project, the officials had also conducted a string of awareness programmes, educating various sections of society about the necessity to conserve the mangrove habitats that make an important part of the aquatic ecosystem.
In 2019 another project was launched to bring back the now rare Calophyllum inophyllum (Punna) to coastal areas.
Thousand Punna saplings were planted as part of the 12-phase project.
During the pandemic, the project was continued maintaining physical-distancing norms.
Punna nursery
The Coastal police have set up a Punna nursery in front of the station and every day they work nearly two hours for the project without affecting their duty timings.
District Police Chief T. Narayanan is the patron of the project and association Kollam city secretary M.C. Prashantan is the coordinator.