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.
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.
Bridge over the Jafri nalla and starting point for the walk.
Kalpataru Complex opposite the mangroves
General view of the mangroves opposite
The creek, with mangroves on the side and deplorable water quality.
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.
This post comes after long. Today some of us took stock of the damaging and completely unnecessary storm water drain works happening on a section between SVP Nagar MHADA and a large patch of mangroves behind Seven Bungalows bus depot in Andheri (W).
The piling work is being carried out by a contractor on behalf of MCGM Storm Water Drain Department with an office in Andheri (E) and to provide a concrete slap 27 feet below the location where we were standing. Thus there will be a concrete box created with a dimension of 27 meters by 5 meters over a length of 600 meters. Pictures and GE image below help explain. Co-orelate the photos with the GE images angles.
The light blue colour channel and the mud path next to it are 2-3 years old. Not much need. Water drains away naturally in this area. All that is required is to not throw garbage.
Behind the wall are mangroves. Co-orelate with GE image. The wall will choke movement of water and prove to be a threat to the mangroves. There is no need for the wall on the mangroves side and is a complete waste of public money.
This is the side we were standing on.
Piling work in progress
A base slab is being put up
After the base is concretised, all the mud will be removed. Making this an impermeable concrete box drain (which will soon be filled with garbage) further chocking water movement to mangroves.
What benefit will all this effort and expenditure of public money bring? Is this not a complete wastage of public money and an attempt to choke of water supply to the mangroves? Maybe the purpose is not to provide storm water drainage but to kill the mangroves and then reclaim and create real estate? How much public money is being spent on this?
The mangroves behind Seven Bungalows bus depot provide great flood control for the entire neighbourhood and also cool the area and regulate temperature.
The need of the hour is to stop all the dwelling units next to the ‘drain’ from dumping their household waste into the drain/nullah/mangroves. The natural nullah or water channel is more than sufficient to drain out the water during monsoons and such heavily concretised drains serve absolutely no purpose.
It has to be borne in mind that huge amount of concrete will be used for constructing this drain and the cement, sand, water are all natural resources which are being wasted in the process. The cement comes from limestone mining and the sand is from dredging river beds. All for a work whose utility does not seem apparent at all.
Massive dumping has resumed at the biggest Coastal Regulation Zone violation site in Mumbai region. Since a few months intermittent dumping was going on but since past few days 300 trucks are dumping everyday between 2 – 9Â am
Thi picture is taken sometime in 1997 by one of the residents in the neighboring skyscrapers
This is a picture from 2000 of the same location
This image clearly shows the brown piece of land stand out as a sore thumb in the creek and the mangroves around
Area demarkated with red is the one covered with thick mangroves like exist to the left of it.
100s of trucks enter through this gate
Most of the trucks carry debris down this road right to the end next to the creek and mangroves where a breach is leeting sea water in
One of the key coordinators of the dumping who is inside the property
Some of the freshly dumped debris is visible
Far at the end of the road is the breach. Also visible is the Malad creek and some of the water which has entered the plot
Dec 2009 – The sea is clearly coming back to the area
Copy of order suspending the clearance for golf course etc. in September 2002
The Google Earth images above give an idea of the location of the area and a better idea of the scale of destruction
Videos
Attn: FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION
Mr. Jairam Ramesh
Union Minister for Environment and Forests
Mrs. Valsa Nair Singh
Secretary Environment
Chairman Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority
Government of Maharashtra
Mr. S S Sandhu
Divisional Commissioner
Konkan Division
Government of Maharashtra
Dear Mr. Ramesh, Mrs. Singh Mr. Sandhu and others,
Dumping of mud and debris has resumed at the 500 acre plot opposite Millat Nagat. Just to give a brief background, the concerned plot of land is situated in Andheri (W), opposite Millat Nagar.
What is land now was 500 acres of lush mangroves till the end of 1998. Between 1999-2002 almost 500 trucks of debris were dumped on top of the mangroves everyday and the whole forest was flattened out to make land for a golf course and villa scheme.
There is enough record to show that the government officials and even some civil society groups were sufficiently seized of the matter but no action was taken. Between Jan 2002 – Sep 2002 some local activists worked at getting various pieces of information together which showed a long trail of illegal practices and mis-representation followed to get the permission.
On 30th Sept 2002 the evidence was presented to MOEF, which immediately revoked the permission and dumping stopped.
After a year the parties concerned managed to get an order from Bombay HC to resume dumping which was finally challenged by a SLP in SC by BEAG in Jan-Feb 2004. Since then there has been no activity at the plot even as the sea has started moving in at places.
Now since a month there has been an increased incidence of dumping of debris and the modus operandi this time is t dump between 2 – 6 am. We have received calls from atleast 3 neighbours expressing concern and inquiring as to whether there have been some changes in the legal status.
We are attaching the blog link below to show all relevant information, pictures, Sep 2002 order suspending the permission etc.
Requesting MCZMA and Mr. Jairam Ramesh to take cognizance of the matter, call for an immediate halt to the dumping of debris and presenting the MOEF position on what action should be taken towards reversing the damage and punishing the violators all of whom are well identified.
Requesting Mr. Debi Goenka of BEAG to kindly update with reference to the conditions of the SLP and the efforts of BEAG/Debi since 2004 in this regard. A copy of the 2004order will be much appreciated.
Requesting all those marked on this list to show their involvement in this important violation. The learning from 26/7 should not be forgotten and it is important that when this kind of a violation happens then those concerned for the state of governance of the city as a whole rather than just particular neighborhoods show responsible action by intervening.
Sincerely,
Pravin Choudhary                               Rishi Aggarwal
Hon. Secretary                                 Hon. Jt. Secretary
The images below speak for themselves. This post has been possible due to the recent timeline feature of Google Earth and much thanks to them.
This is not an isolated incidence but more the norm. In 2007 Mangrove Society of India (Mumbai Chapter) started an exercise to document all such imagery but unfortunately due to the perpetual shortage of resource the exercise did not progress much.
On the first anniversary of the 26/11 attacks when there will be a lot of discussion on saving ourselves from the enemies outside it would be good to understand whether it is people from Pakistan who have come and helped break the CRZ notification and build slums like the ones below, in important mangroves and creek areas, which drains water from heavily populated areas behind?
(For best results, right click and open images in new window)
The initial dumping of debris over mangroves and preparing ground for slums has just started. Note that this is post the then 1995 slum deadline and even past the now 2000 deadline.
By now the damage to the creek and the mangroves is quite clear and the first slums have established themselves.
The job is complete. Your illegal slum is well established.
The red rectangle shows the affected area between SVP MHada (Versova Telephone Exchange) and Seven Bungalows
This is how it looks
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Would these slums have come up without support from local politicians and police and Collector patronage? Some of the MSI members who were very active in 2002 did bring authorities to site and have a demolition. A second demolition was supported by some residents close by and then nothing.
Again this is a coastal area and who knows who can come up the creek and use these slums as a base? Where is the security then?
Are these slums provided with photo passes which push them behind 2000 or 1995 deadlines? How can the police which supports such illegality be expected to protect?
Its time those who engage in candle marches and other forums started involving themselves with the numerous visible breakdowns and serious initiatives to prevent them.
We will be submitting a petition to the CM about action to be taken on these illegal slums. If you would like your name to be on the petition do let us know.
Just received call from Francis Xavier about 100 mangroves being cut at Sai Dham Nagar opposite Charkop Bus Depot. GE images below should make the matter clear. The Charkop Bus Depot is clearly seen and the mangroves being cut are behind the slums.
(Right click and open pics in new tab)
Charkop, Mumbai North
I spoke to the R North Assistant Municipal Commissioner Mr. Bagalkar, who expressed his desire to cooperate but requested that we persuade MHADA to reveal the photo passes it has issued for the area, which will give him documentary evidence to pursue the matter. The Sr. PI there has also been pursuing the mater and the AMC is willing to share the correspondences.
Posted by msimumbai 
Mumbai Mangroves 