Malad Creek 20 years later

Imagery below from Madh Creek and follows from the instagram post here.

Received a call yesterday from a citizen activist in Bangur Nagar, Goregaon West wanting to share his disbelief at all that was going on at the edge of the creek over there and the land use and development plan for the area which does not have a single playground in a neighbourhood of 20,000 plus people.

With meticulous detail, which is highlight of all such individuals he took me through a wide sweep of events, interactions with the authorities meant to save mangroves and other documents.

I had to inform him I have not been active for a long while now and decided to download him with my own thoughts, though briefly because hearing it becomes annoying soon enough for me.

I ran Mangrove Society of India (Maharashtra Chapter) almost solo from 2003 till 2012. 2002 is when some of us – Late Usha Kiran, Pravin Choudhary, Late Dr. Arvind Untawale and others founded the Chapter in Versova at a ceremony at Central Institute of Fisheries Research.

But the day to day operations did not follow through because we had all spent every single day between mid-2001 and end 2002 lording over the mangroves in Malad Creek and ensuring their safety from the real estate forces gone a mock. We owned the creek and its mangroves then saving about 2000 acres of mangroves easily.

Good intentions are fine but it needs more than those to proceed ahead. I had been clear earlier on in life that I was to be an environmentalist and this was a natural though solo progression for me and foolhardy by all reasonable assessment from family and friend alike.

Between 2005 and 2012 I hired full time program managers five times only to let them go in three months due to inability to pay salary. I informed the gentleman – Mr. Chaddha – about how I had some delusions in 2005 about having 10,000 subscribers for the Chapter in a city of 12 million who would willingly pay Rs. 500 per annum atleast. And we would run a full fledged secretariat with field officers and lawyers and people who make newsletters and more. That never came. I had a deep interest in institutions since my teenage and was clear that well funded environmental institutions with large membership base is the only way to go about.

By 2012 I was fed up and burnt out never to come back with the same enthusiasm and energy. I slipped into Aarey in the early stages shaping early organisation and one significant success and was out soon enough.

Today I decided to spend some time in my old playground – the Malad Creek. I was one of the earliest users of Google Earth in 2005, thrilled with the potential to aid our conservation activities, had soon mapped and measured all large mangrove patches in the Mumbai region and it was a rush. Around then is when I set up this blog.

We used to joke in 2002 – fresh into our learnings about development plans and reservations and all that goes on in the corridors of power – how the real estate mafia takes a long view of things and is far visioned. While we can fold up in a year or five they can plan for two lots of two decades each. Almost for perpetuity. I can see it play out in those two satellite images.

I last spent time in detail on the Marve and Madh roads in 2006 when a local citizen wanted me to see the large scale dumping of mud and debris that was happening besides the road. We spent half a day on that beautiful road, which passes through the thin strip of the beautiful Madh Island, the Arabian sea on one side and the inland creek and back water on the other. The island is lush green with some of the best trees and vegetation to be experienced. I don’t know if this is the large ground we visited or one ahead but the one we visited had a large presence of Shri Satya Sai Baba Trust. I was amused and not surprised.

Since then we are a woke world. The city swarms with teen climate activists and people retired from corporate careers and awash with personal wealth taking on the mantle of the environment but their own image. We have a full fledged Mangrove Cell, something which many of us envisaged and contributed to between 2005-10. And yet the most fundamental of the mangrove (city) issues and responses to them is in the realm of only these handful of individuals who will step in and give what it takes. No question of institutional approach. Scale and sincere direction eludes mangrove conservation efforts as it does other issues.