Mumbai. A March afternoon. The din of cars, and the hot cloying air of the city. And then, we reach the mudflats of Sewri in South Mumbai. We are, suddenly and unexpectedly, looking at a lattice of pink, scarlet and white. 10,000 Lesser Flamingos, feeding calmly. Like ballerinas, they shift their wings and legs, suffusing the air with elegance.
The noise of the city becomes distant. At the mudflats of Sewri in South Mumbai, this Spring, the Lesser and Greater … Read More
We witnessed a huge forest fire while doing some field work in the Nagla Block of Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai, in March 2012. It took two of us more than an hour to create a fire line and beat the fire, preventing it from spreading further west. However we couldn’t do anything about the Southern side. Perhaps the fire had been raging since the night before. Around half a square kilometre of forest on the Eastern side had already … Read More
The Maharashtra state forest department has decided to declare Thane creek as a Flamingo sanctuary, to protect the flamingos and several other birds that are threatened by pollution and habitat destruction in the north-eastern Mumbai area. The notification is expected soon. Mumbai based NGO Vanashakti had approached the state forest department seeking its intervention to protect the birds and mudflats along the Thane creek. Kavita Mallya, project officer with Vanashakti said that the number of birds arriving has reduced drastically … Read More
Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) in the north of Mumbai seems to have always been associated with leopards attacking humans. However, a little delving into the patterns of attacks finds that conflict is a recent phenomenon. The attacks began around the nineties and took on its worst form in 2004, when in a single month in May, nineteen attacks on people were reported. Now again, post-2006, there have been no attacks on humans.
Recently the Forest Department of SGNP (headed … Read More
The Bombay Natural History Society organized Flamingo Festival attracted a lot of visitors including children. The annual festival, organized since 2007, highlights the thousands of Flamingos that visit the Sewri-Mahul mudflats. However, the mudflats are at risk as they are the proposed starting point for the Sewri-Nhava trans harbour link. BNHS director, Asad Rahmani, believes there is a way to develop the Sewri-Nhava trans harbour link can be developed around the mudflats thus also making the link a world class … Read More
Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) is said to be the lungs of Mumbai and provides the bustling metropolis with clean drinking water among other ecosystem services. Biologically rich, SGNP is often in the news as the site of conflict between people and wildlife, mainly leopards. The forest department of SGNP has taken a proactive step to help manage the park better, mitigate conflicts and engage with the interested citizens of Mumbai.
The Forest department has launched a project called ‘Mumbaikars … Read More
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