Realty boom takes a toll on mangroves

MUMBAI: The boom in the real estate sector in Mumbai and Thane has claimed 30% of mangroves — the natural buffer between land and sea. This has been revealed in a high-resolution satellite survey commissioned by the forest department of Maharashtra to identify mangroves in the state, officials in the know told ET. The images show a sharp depletion in mangroves since the last satellite mapping done in ’05, sources added.

“The satellite survey in ’05 pointed out 600 sq km of wet land in the state, most of which is in Mumbai, Thane, and Konkan, of which 257.71 sq km are mangroves. The ’05 maps show around 40 sq km of mangroves in Mumbai and Thane. There is at least 30% depletion in mangroves in Mumbai and Thane, according to the latest survey,” a forest department official told ET.

The forest department will soon issue a notification declaring mangroves on government land as ‘protected forests’ and those on private land as ‘forest’, a senior official told ET. In October ’05, the Bombay High Court had directed the forest department to carry out a high-resolution satellite survey to identify mangroves and update land revenue records.

The HC order, which came in response to a petition filed by Bombay Environmental Action Group (BEAG), asked the government to update land records with satellite maps of mangroves and declare them as ‘protected forests’ by August 20, ’06, a deadline the government has failed to meet as reported by ET earlier this month.

Environmentalist Debi Goenka of BEAG said depletion of mangroves since ’05 was quite possible since there has not been any effort by the government to protect them. “The government is not even ready to show the satellite images of the second survey.

The environment secretary, after keeping me waiting for the images for six weeks, flatly refused to share them later,” Mr Goenka told ET. The environmentalist said the government deliberately wanted to delay declaring mangroves as ‘protected forests’ and hand them over to the forest department. “Delay would lead to further destruction of mangroves by builders,” Mr Goenka said.

The BEAG petition had pointed out rapid destruction of mangroves and sought court intervention to stop it. In response, the HC not only put a freeze on all construction activity and dumping of debris within 50 metre of mangroves and made forest department responsible for their protection from unscrupulous builders.

The court also asked Nagpur-based Maharashtra Remote Sensing Applications Centre (MRSAC) to conduct a second phase of high-resolution satellite survey since the first phase results did not have details.

“But the second survey, which has given much better images, indicates that large swamps of mangroves shown in the ’05 maps have succumbed to builders. The depletion is particularly worrying along the Thane creek where real estate sector has seen an unchecked growth in the last couple of years,” a senior bureaucrat said.

The government had told the HC that the forest department would create a separate cell for protection of mangroves and also for clearing mangroves of encroachments. “This is unlikely to happen for another three to four months.

Only declaring mangroves as protected forests won’t help, the government has to ensure than they are protected. Unless the government physically protects mangroves, they would continue to fall victim to builders’ avarice,” an environment department official said.

Depletion of mangroves since the ’05 survey is in keeping with the general decline. Between the early nineties and ’05, Mumbai and Thane lost 40% of its wetlands and mangroves. In fact, over 700 acres of mangrove land along the Mahim creek was reclaimed by builders which resulted in the only outlet of the Mithi river into the sea getting smothered.