On a hot, sultry afternoon, I made my way to Charkop in Mumbai’s western suburbs. All through the journey from Dahisar, a distance of around 10km, I couldn’t shake the intense, consuming worry about just how hot it was. It was only February, but already 35 degrees Celsius. Worse, I could barely see buildings even 200m away. The smog was too thick. And still, they want to cut all these trees? I kept thinking. Despite living barely 30 minutes away all my life, I had never explored the mangroves of Charkop. Or those of Gorai, Dahisar, Versova or Bandra, for that matter. So when I heard that Rajneesh Sharma, a 22-year-old naturalist, was leading a nature walk through the area, I decided to join. Sharma runs The Mumbai Wildlife, a student-led initiative focused on environmental awareness about the city’s biodiversity.
The proposed Versova-Bhayandar Coastal Road Project is envisioned as a major coastal highway linking the western suburbs from Versova to Bhayandar. The project, led by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, aims to ease traffic congestion and shorten travel time from 90 minutes to 15-20 minutes along one of the city’s most densely populated corridors. But despite enormous investment in road infrastructure, private cars still account for only a small share of daily trips in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, rising from 4.6% in 2005 to just 8.5% in 2017, according to the detailed project report submitted to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
But the road’s construction could affect over 45,000 mangroves along Mumbai’s coastline— around 9,000 expected to be directly cut, while tens of thousands more fall within areas proposed for “diversion”, which allows mangrove forest land to be used for non-forest purposes. Such projects usually promise compensatory afforestation elsewhere, though ecologists say newly planted mangroves rarely replace the ecological functions of mature forests. This comes at a time when the city is already screaming for more green cover, after losing thousands of trees to infrastructure projects like Metro construction in recent years. Mumbai also routinely struggles with flooding during the monsoon, extremely hot summers and poor air quality in winter—though lately the air seems bad for nearly eight months of the year.
Some citizens have been fighting back through protests, marches, social media campaigns and petitions. A few others are mobilising by organising nature walks that spark curiosity and wonder about mangroves. “My goal with these walks is to make people aware of what we are losing and what mangroves really are,” says Sharma. “If people are protesting to protect them, they should also know what they’re fighting for, right? And it’s not just us that will be affected. It’s the trees, animals, insects, flowers—everything.” The group of about 30 included children as young as six or seven, as well as senior citizens in their 60s. Over 2 hours, we explored mangroves that many (like me) had never visited despite having lived in Mumbai all their lives. We observed mudskippers, crabs, lichens growing on barks (often read as a sign of good air quality), termite mounds, butterfly eggs, and the distinctive aerial roots of mangroves. The ecosystem quickly revealed itself as densely alive.
“It’s like nature’s own air-quality monitoring station,” one participant said, pointing to the lichens. “How do the mangroves breathe in salt water?” asked another. “Don’t step on the crabs,” a seven-year-old shouted at one point, deeply concerned. We learned that river mangroves and grey mangroves are among the most commonly found species in Mumbai. Because the fruit of the former resembles a chilli, they’re called mirchi mangroves in Marathi, Sharma shared. For many of us, the walk felt like a crash course on mangroves—except that it was real, unfolding in front of us rather than through a textbook or virtually.
Mangroves remain one of the city’s least understood ecosystems, often dismissed as “dirty” or “dead” wastelands. Poor accessibility only deepens this perception. “Usually, there are big boundaries and behind them are mangrove forests,” says Sharma. “You can’t just easily go there and explore.” Places like the Airoli Mangrove Park, where people can observe mangroves and flamingos up close, he adds, are unfortunately rare and not prioritised.
A similar effort to build curiosity and awareness is transpiring elsewhere in the city. Educator Ritu Desai and illustrator and naturalist Sefi George, both 30, have been leading walks inside the Zen Garden in Dahisar for the past three months. The garden sits right beside the Dahisar mangroves and could also be affected by the coastal road project. “The garden used to be a dense forest until only about 15-20 years ago,” says Desai. “Even today, there are some ancient forest trees like the ghost tree and the red silk cotton tree inside. Then you also have the mangroves, and all the associated plants that grow around them.” Because of its unique setting and ecological history, the garden is a haven for anyone wanting to observe birds, discover insects, or simply learn how to look more closely at the natural world.
In cities as concretised as Mumbai, we often forget that complex ecosystems exist right under our noses. Desai’s goal with the walks, she says, is to help people build relationships with the wild around them. “The idea is simply that we know these things because we’ve been coming here for a long time,” she says. “We’re not experts. I’m not a botany teacher. But people leave these walks having learnt certain tools. We talk a lot about observing things mindfully, and you can actually see people starting to do that more.” Over the course of the walk, we learnt why some tree barks develop thorns when young, observed cup moth cocoons, learned where castor oil comes from, discussed invasive species, and peered at wasps living inside figs as part of the pollination process. Rebecca Philips, 29, one of the participants, has long been fascinated by mangroves. “
One of the highlights of travelling to college by train was the stretch from Mahim to Bandra—the bridge... one of my favourite things to do was stand by the door and watch the mangroves.” “I feel like I’m grieving part of myself,” she adds, referring to the possibility that many of these mangroves might soon disappear. “Mumbai was always a semi-land city. It was islands, marshland, wetlands—we’ve never been entirely land. Sadly, we’re forcing it to be something it’s not. And it feels like our government isn’t listening to us at all.”
Few realise that Mumbai hosts one of the largest mangrove ecosystems within a major city anywhere in the world, with estimates placing its mangrove cover at roughly 6,000-6,600 hectares. These forests have also been the subject of significant legal protection over the past two decades. In a series of rulings beginning in 2005, the Bombay high court recognised mangroves as ecologically critical areas and placed restrictions on their destruction. The state government even established the Mangrove Cell in 2012 to oversee their protection and restoration. Yet even with these safeguards, large infrastructure projects continue to test the limits of what counts as permissible ecological damage.
Mumbai-based environmental activist Natasha Pereira, 34, warns that destroying mangroves invites a cascade of consequences—from increased flooding and soil erosion to rampant real estate development in these regions. “Mangroves store three-five times more carbon than normal trees,” says Pereira. “Cutting them would mean that this carbon gets released as carbon dioxide and methane in huge quantities—heat-trapping gases that will significantly raise temperatures.” But climate impacts are only one part of the loss. Pereira also points to what happens to the wildlife that depends on these ecosystems. In recent years, vast swathes of mangroves and wetlands have been cleared to make room for the new Navi Mumbai International Airport. “I believe that could be one of the reasons flamingos aren’t visiting the region as frequently anymore,” she says.
It is important to clarify that most citizens opposing the project are not against development itself. But when development becomes blind and treats nature, already scarce in the city, as expendable, something has to change. Pereira stresses the importance of preserving existing trees and mangroves, and of pursuing development that benefits the majority of the city. “Why should less than 5% of people use a coastal road?” she says, pointing out that only a small proportion of the city’s residents own cars. “Instead, increase the number of public buses. Build better roads and pavements so people can walk and cycle more often.”
In March, the Supreme Court declined to halt the felling of nearly 45,000 mangroves. But according to activists, the project has not yet received its Stage-II forest clearance, even though surface-level mangrove clearing has already begun in many areas. What happens next remains uncertain. Until then, citizens have another role to play: continuing to visit these ecosystems, keeping watch over them, and advocating for them. “I see them like patients who need help,” says Sharma. “They’re not exactly diseased, but they need care and attention. We are like their relatives—and we should visit them to know their current condition.”
Tarang Mohnot is a Mumbai-based independent journalist.