The mangrove forest is a tardy ecosystem that can possibly stem the more devastating effects of tsunami, cyclones and on a lesser scale, tidal inundation. It is salt-tolerant with its own filtration and root system in coastal saline or brackish water, and helps prevent sea water from getting into rivers. It can sustain all kinds of life like fish, crab and prawns, and all kinds of micro-organisms. But like all living forms, with rejuvenation and decay, it will eventually be reduced to peat. Dark Bakau has a more sparse veneer with snorkelling-like tendrils stick out, very much like the mangroves recycle oxygen within its depths. Few mangrove forests are gazetted like in Matang, Kuala Selangor, Bako, Kota Kinabalu and Sepilok. Latiff Mohidin catapulted onto the world stage when his Pago-Pago was celebrated in a landmark exhibition from February-May 2018 at the Pompidou Centre in Paris (In-Focus Gallery), making him the first artist from Southeast Asia to be featured there. He was accorded a major Retrospective by Malaysia’s National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, in 2012-2013. In literature, he won the pinnacle SEA Write Award in Bangkok, Thailand, in 1984, and swept the Literary Award of Malaysia from 1972 to 1976. He was also the Creative Fellow in Universiti Sains Malaysia (1997) and Guest-writer, Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (1988). He graduated from the DAAD German Academy (Student Exchange), on a scholarship, in Bonn 1960, and was awarded the John D. Rockefeller III Fellowhip in 1965 and the French Culture Ministry’s scholarship to study printmaking at the Atelier La Courrier in Paris in 1969. He won 2nd Prize (Graphic) in the 1968 Salon Malaysia. Latiff Mohidin’s Pago-Pago Growth I (1968), 77 x 77cm, oil on canvas, was sold for RM1.3 million recently at an auction house abroad.