At low tide, the river pulls back.

The mudflats of the Devi River mouth begin to appear, alive with the movement of crabs. 

Women walk out in a line, their sarees hitched above the ankle, hands full of small, green propagules or mangrove seeds. They stop at marked patches, bend, and press the young plants into the soil methodically.

Among them is Nalini Kandi of Sana Jhadling, who moves with practised ease now, but there was a time when these mangrove stretches meant little more to her than firewood and muddy ground. 

Like most families in her village, Nalini’s survival depended on the river: on shrimp, fish, and crabs collected daily because the land they owned was never enough to sustain them. Years ago, on one such trip to gather firewood, she came across a small group of young volunteers sorting mangrove saplings by the riverbank. Curious, she stopped to ask what they were doing. “At first, we did not understand why planting trees in muddy, waterlogged areas was so important,” she tells The Better India.

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The volunteers explained how mangroves were not just trees but living barriers. They explained how mangroves protect riverbanks from erosion, act as natural shields against storms, and sustain the fish and crabs their lives depend on. That was the turning point. 

“What convinced me most was learning that healthy mangroves help sustain the fish, shrimp and crabs that our families depend upon,” she says. Soon, Nalini and four other women from her village learnt how to restore what years of erosion and neglect had taken away. 

What began as a handful of women carrying fragile Avicennia and Rhizophora saplings through knee-deep mud has now grown into a wider community mission, with over 60 families across nearby villages taking part. 

Nalini still remembers those early days: wading through tidal water, planting each sapling by hand, uncertain if they would survive. Now, watching them rise taller and stronger, she sees more than trees. She sees protection, livelihood, and hope. “It is about securing our future,” she says, “so the next generation inherits something better than what we had.”

Because this stretch of coastline was not always like this. More than two decades ago, this same stretch of land told a very different story.

In October 1999, the 1999 Odisha Super Cyclone tore through Odisha’s coast, killing more than 10,000 people and permanently altering its fragile deltaic landscape.

The Devi River mouth, spanning parts of Puri and Jagatsinghpur districts, was among the worst affected. Mangrove forests were destroyed, agricultural land turned saline, and settlements were left exposed to tidal surges.

“After the 1999 super cyclone, more than 10,000 people lost their lives—this coast is extremely vulnerable,” says Soumya Ranjan Biswal.

Biswal, whose work has long focused on the link between ecosystems and livelihoods, sat down with The Better Indiato trace the story of this coastline, what it once was, how it changed, and how women are now stepping in to rebuild it.

How locals understood survival depends on a vanishing coastline

Around the Devi River mouth, across villages like Nuagarah, Jhadling,........

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