Former Youth Congress leaders G. Manjukuttan and Sumanjith Misha have been campaigning to protect Kerala’s mangrove forests for the past 13 years, not flinching even from fighting their own party.
The two residents of Karunagappally, Alappuzha district, have been educating people that the Pallikal mangrove forest not only protects the coast but supports
biodiversity and helps with carbon sequestration (capturing and storing carbon dioxide to reduce its atmospheric concentration and mitigate climate change).
“We also urge others to plant mangrove saplings (as part of what they call the Pallikal Challenge),” Manjukuttan, 39, said on Friday, on the eve of World Mangrove Day (July 26).
“Our battle to protect the Pallikal mangrove forest drew us into a fight against a municipality ruled by our own Congress party, as it had granted permission to construct an apartment complex by uprooting mangrove trees.”
Sumanjith, 40, told this newspaper how their campaign — which led to a legal battle in Kerala High Court against the powerful Karunagappally municipality — was taken up in the Assembly by former CPM chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan.
“It gave us an immense sense of content when we won the fight against the Karunagappally municipality. This led us to come out with the Pallikal Challenge and also campaign for a plastic-free environment,” Sumanjith, who works as project officer at the Gandhi Smaraka Nidhi in Karunagappally, said.
Manjukuttan, who can easily pass off as a spiritual leader with his flowing hair and beard, received the state forest department’s Vanamitra Award for the best environmentalist of the year in 2017 and 2019.
A former secretary of the state Youth Congress, Manjukuttan has written a book, Container Number: 22, about the time he accompanied Rahul Gandhi on his 145-day Bharat Jodo Yatra in 2022-23.
Their campaign, “For us, for soil”, now includes classes for the young on the need to protect mangroves.
The duo are now planning to visit the Sunderbans in Bengal, the world’s largest single block of tidal halophytic (adapted to living in salty conditions) mangrove forest.