Rampant construction turns wetlands into badlands

The growth of a city inevitably entails pushing out the countryside. But when it comes to an island city like Mumbai, which is built out of seven islands on reclaimed land, how much should one push?
The deluge of July 26, 2005 vindicated the city environmentalists’ decades-old rant against unregulated development and the destruction of hills and mangroves.As the land use maps accompanying the story show, the concrete city has pushed nature to the margins. Especially mangroves, which act as the city’s sponges, shrunk from 235 sq km in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai in 1924 to 160 sq km in 1994. An additional 1,000 hectares are estimated to have been destroyed in Mumbai by 2000, much of them in violation of the 1991 coastal regulation zone (CRZ) rules. How much more has been destroyed since then is anyone’s guess, geologist Hrishikesh Samant had earlier told TOI when this paper revealed the changing concrete-to-green ratio of the city in the aftermath of 26/7.
Environmentalists pointed out they were not seeking to stop development, but were only asking for planned growth. “We need to build in accordance with the carrying capacity of the area,” Shyam Chainani of the Bombay Environment Action Group had said in 2005. In this case, experts said that reclaimed areas like the Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC), Esselworld and many others must restore the original culverts to let water drain.
Much has been said about BKC’s role in blocking the flow of the Mithi river and aggravating the 26/7 floods. But it’s just one of many large-scale reclamations that have taken place in the last two decades, many in gross violation of the 1991 CRZ rules.
As satellite imagery taken from a study by Hrishikesh Samant of the geology department of St Xavier’s College shows, vast tracts of mangroves were cleared in Gorai (Esselworld), behind Millat Nagar at Goregaon (illegal golf course), Thane creek, Mankhurd and Mahul creek. Almost half of this has been around Mankhurd and Malad (including Versova, Oshiwara and Madh island).
Samant’s study showcases some of the biggest examples of state-sponsored wetland destruction—the Goregaon golf course was approved by the environment ministry while BKC was initiated by the state government. There’s no dearth of documentation to show that mangrove destruction has continued on a large scale in the western and eastern suburbs, invariably under the authorities’ nose.
Citizens’ vigilance has highlighted mangrove destruction in Malad, Andheri Lokhandwala, Borivli (behind former mayor Harshvardhan Patil’s bungalow), Versova and Navi Mumbai, whether by slum encroachment, debris dumping or outright slash and burn. Often, a clever strategy was evident—an outer perimeter of mangrove would conceal the clearance within. These incidents triggered a PIL, filed by the Bombay Environment Action Group in the Bombay high court late in 2004, demanding that mangroves be protected. “The authorities turned a Nelson’s eye to what was happening. The state government has been acting on a builders’ agenda for years,” environmentalist Debi Goenka had said.
“Green areas act as a sponge; they absorb and release water. So no one should be surprised at what happened on 26/7. Nature has its own way of coming back,” Chainani had said. Environmentalist Bittu Sahgal had said, “The lesson for us here is that you cannot interrupt the flow of rainwater into the sea, or tidal water into mangroves. The result will only be disaster. There is no free lunch.”
In recent years, there have been several moves to dilute or scrap the CRZ, which protects creeks and coastal areas. “Would the victims of the Mithi river flooding now agree to this?” Sahgal had said, noting that the situation would have been much worse if the national park had been eroded by road and slum rehab projects since it sponges up the rain that falls over its 103 sq km.
Mumbai is lucky that it has such a long coastline and a national park in its midst, Sahgal had said. “We are a seascape city. We can be world class by celebrating the mangroves, the flamingos and the national park.”