Ambapani Sanctuary Orissa

Introduction

The state of Orissa has a vast coastline, which is strewn with offshore islands, salt flats, lagoons and deltas along the shores of the Bay of Bengal. The state of Orissa comprises a part of the Eastern Ghat ranges of India and has a diverse geography, which consists of valleys, hills, thick evergreen forests, estuarial and manmade forests, and scrub jungles. The total forest area of the state of Orissa is approximately 38 percent of the complete geographical area.

The region of Ambapani is famous for the idol of Budharaja, which is established in a small temple at the base of a hill, and is located at a distance of 77 kilometers from Bhawanipatna, and at a distance of 45 kilometers from Nowrangpur. The Ambapani hills are picture-perfect and offer a bird's-eye view of the nature around. There is a valley in the range of Ambapani hills, called Haladigundi, which exhibits certain erratic shapes due to the reflected sunrays.

About Ambapani Sanctuary in Orissa

The Ambapani Sanctuary in Orissa is generally much-admired for its biodiversity - its rich flora and fauna. The Ambapani Sanctuary is the second largest dense mangrove ecosystem in India. Ambapani is considered as both a Sanctuary and National Park. The entire area of the Ambapani Wildlife Sanctuary extends for more than six hundred square kilometers. It is one of the very few evergreen repositories of the luxuriant mangrove vegetation in the world. In this sanctuary, more than sixty varieties of mangrove plants are found, which provide homes to a variety of pretty rare and unusual species of the plants. The breathing roots, which are known as the pneomatophores, stand like the sentinels of the land of Ambapani.