A proposal to notify the East Godavari Riverine Estuarine Ecosystem (EGREE), a wetland mosaic landscape consisting of 44 high-impacting fishing villages encompassing the Coringa Wildlife Sanctuary, as a Ramsar site has been pending with the Forest Department for quite some time.
Coringa is the second largest mangrove in India after the Sundarbans in West Bengal with exceptional coastal and marine biodiversity. Though conservation activities are in progress in Coringa, the wildlife region outside the mangroves is being severely affected by industrial development.
Although the industrial units, including those related to fishing, aquaculture, salt pans, port and shipping, oil and natural gas, and manufacturing units, are observing certain environmental safeguards, they are found to be inadequate to effectively address the special conservation needs of the EGREE region.
