Post by Rishi Aggarwal
After a very long time I organised some activity around Wetlands Day – especially a walk. Wetlands Day is celebrated on 2nd February worldwide in appreciation of wetland ecosystems. Wetland ecosystems play a very important role in sustaining a wide diversity of life besides providing important services for human beings like flood control, pollution control, food, resources etc. Our walk was consistent with the theme of the year. You can know more about Wetlands Day, how it was formed and more at www.ramsar.org
Mumbai especially is blessed with a wide variety of wetlands, which do not get the love and respect they deserve.
The walk was poorly organised in not giving sufficient notice but the message did reach the key target audience in time, being the residents staying in buildings immediately opposite the mangroves where the walk was planned. I have added more notes at the end about why poorly organised, why long gap etc.
The thought for the walk came on the spur of the moment 10 days back when I passed this stretch. I pass this stretch more frequently in the past three years because I have to meet my colleague and friend Dhiren Thaker who stays down the road and I would feel pained with the edge conditions everytime I passed. I could think of similar walks in 10 more locations and hopefully this post will invite some readers to enroll as walk leaders whom I could work with to develop the right program. There was a time till few years ago when some event around Wetlands Day would be organised every time.
The invite below went in the whatsapp group of at least one of the buildings opposite. You can use scroll bar to see the second and third slides.
The key intent of the walk was to sensitise the residents to the edge conditions and to inspire and support them in creating a plan to clean the edge and maintain it. Last I did anything around mangroves and wetlands day in 2016 I had made the presentation called Conserving mangroves – Lets clean up the peripheries. Presentation is at this link.
Penkarpada mangroves are roughly 1 sq km or 200 acres. The red line which constitutes one of the boundaries and the most accessible one is around 800 meters. We walked along that route. If you would like to zoom in an out and explore the edges of the mangroves more closely then you can so so at this link
Below are the images at where we started.
One precious participant joined! 23 year old Jaya pursuing her law degree and with a very keen and sensitive interest in her surroundings and knowing the subject well. She shared exactly the same concerns and so I could do away with humouring a bigger crowd and the pretense of knowing enough about mangroves ecologically or having to show birds and this and that, which I can find quite boring.
I got down to photographing the edge of the mangroves while both of were engaged in a deep conversation, Jaya sharing her observations and concerns, me sharing the background of efforts over the years, authorities involved and specific interventions needed at this edge.
We discussed the enormous value that mangroves provide to a city like Mumbai and how their upkeep is something which all residents of Mumbai need to be involved with.
- Mangroves are lungs, the green carpet gives out large volumes of oxygen every hour.
- They are like kidneys as well because they are filtering a lot of toxins from the highly polluted water quality in the creeks.
- They are wonderful air conditioners or coolers. The space under the dense mangrove cover is always in shade and this cools the air over there considerably. This cool air then flushes into the surrounding areas whenever there is a breeze. The city generates heat because of so many surfaces on which sunlight falls heating up the micro climate.
People do not experience mangroves in the centre of a large patch nor by stepping anywhere inside. Where they experience them is at the edges and which we maintain very poorly.
Below are the pictures from the walk with captions.
On the right are the mangroves but all that you see is this more than a meter mound of debris and garbage which has overgrowth from the monsoons. People urinate, thrown garbage and traffic and walkers pass by. 
At some places the height of the debris reduces but at all times it is higher than the road level. Morning walkers can be seen walking by. 
There are mangroves behind and had the edge ben absolutely clean then one could stand at the edges and watch the mangroves, see the tidal waters. A coucal could be seen and heard towards the left 
All manner of interiors waste can be seen along the edge. The Mira Bhayander Municipal Corporation is the one which should be looking into the observations and purpose for which the walk was organised. 
Some of the Avicenia marina trees are very tall, but in the foreground we have non mangroves vegetation and trees of other species taken over. 
The boundary wall is of a police chowky and they have full powers to book offenders. One would imagine that offenders would have fear of dumping here in the first place. 
The police chowky. Citizen interaction with institutions and oversight is the key. Just the institutions on their own will rarely do what is needed. 
After the chowky, suddenly this clean footpath and edge appears. There is high boundary wall and this stretch has no garbage, debris or urination. 
A little ahead on the opposite side, this banner is a salt on wounds. 
Tightly under lock and key. 5-6 years back there were some who were very excited with these. 
Ahead the situation progressively deteriorates. 
Buses are parked and behind them is even bad. 
A small drainage channel is overwhelmed by sewage and lot of garbage. 
Right in the beginning we also decided to a short portion on the other side. Right next to the nalla and the Kalpataru complex is a road and on the nalla facing side a new storm water drain has been developed. All the excavation from the civil work has been dumped on the nalla side. Even next to the bridge both the corners saw a lot of incidence of dumping of debris and garbage. Below slideshow from that side.
The bridge boundary with a narrow unusable footpath. 
The sight behind the boundary. Highly polluted water and mangroves of the Avicenia species growing. Housing complexes on the right side. 
Debris dumped on corners. 
Again, there is a police chowky but does not seem to deter dumping of debris. 
Two kids could be seen showing something moving in the creek to each other. Mostly a rat. This is the sight of nature that children grow up with. 
Clean edges, good water quality in nalla, a great footpath would make the same spot a great recreation spot. 
The newly constructed storm water drain can be seen in the top left. 
All the excavated mud dumped into the nalla side. Urination is rampant on the stretch. 
The same space could be a nice 5 meter wide promenade with a very clean edge and a sight of the nalla with clean water flowing. 
This is the state adjacent.
After we finished our walk, I was keen to explore two pond/lakes which were showing closeby on google maps. A short walk away we could visit and view from outside since both were heavily gated and closed. The one which could be called a lake is called Natasha Pond and the one which should be shown as pond has been shown as Tulsi lake.
Entrance to Natasha Pond 
Locked 
The entrance had a lot of religious offerings from passerby’s. 
Heavily gated. Two layers of iron fences. We need to make lake edges soft and engaging. The same edge could be two feet walls which could create a long seating area for people to sit and relax. 
There are many ways of shaping peoples behaviour. 
This is Tulsi lake, right next to the road and with same treatment of two high iron fences. Again the whole edge taken over with discards from rituals. 
And at the end we decided to take a photo of ourselves as well
Background
Twenty years back I was very active in saving the mangrove forests in the Andheri West area. Along with Usha Kiran and Pravin Choudhary we had then decided to create Mumbai Chapter of Mangrove Society of India to serve as an overarching platform to work on mangroves conservation in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Seeing our efforts and success in Andheri we were beginning to get distress calls from other areas in the region.
From 2003 till about a decade I single handedly steered the efforts of the Chapter undertaking numerous activities, during which time this blog was also formed. But I was getting increasingly frustrated and burnt out because of lack of funds and more hands to support. Before 2015 there was almost zero large scale interest in environmental issues unlike the situation now.
In 2015 I finally gave up and went through my burnout and trying to handle the same.
In 2016 I registered Mumbai Sustainability Centre (MSC) to create a more formal platform to migrate lot of my ecosystems and urban work on one proper platform. But the burnout has delayed things for too long.
The walk was held under MSC but is also clearly a part of MSI(Mumbai Chapter).
These are also the practical on ground challenges of running efforts for a better environment. Everyone would like to have a good environment but very few will ask those involved for what support they need.
If you have read this far in the post, please do connect if you would like to be a partner in these efforts. Giving time, donation, keeping events and more.
Posted by msimumbai 
Mumbai Mangroves 