MANGROOVES

Mumbai Historical records indicate that there were several islands around Mumbai during 1670. However, the Britishers, who were ruling the country identified the importance of these islands for commercial purpose. They deforested the fringing mangroves and reclaimed these islands into one continuous landmass, which later came to be known as "Greater Bombay". Since then the developmental and bsequently population pressure rapidly increased and being the coastal area, it took the toll of mangrove land. During the process of deforestation and reclamation, a few mangrove patches are still left in the heart of the city, which proves that today's megacity had a luxuriant past of mangrove forests (fig). Major mangroves are seen today in Mumbai along the Vasai Creek, Thane Creek, Manori and Malad, Mahim - Bandra, Versova, Siwari, Mumbra - Diva and few more places.

Importance of Mangroves for Mumbai

Mangroves represent the spirit of Mumbai they are plucky survivors. But each day, millions of citizens in Mumbai pass these hardy plants imagining they are little more than dirty, muddy weeds growing pointlessly along the shoreline. How little people understand just how important mangroves are to the quality of life of the citizens of Mumbai. By trapping silt, mangroves

maintain the integrity of Mumbais shoreline. This is a vital service to the city of Mumbai as it is very prone to erosion, having been built on reclaimed land that is battered by the sea on all three sides. The recent rains in Mumbai and the disaster that followed demonstrated the consequence of tampering with the ecology of fragile ecosystems like mangroves. Had Mumbais Mithi river and Mahim creek mangroves not been destroyed by builders, fewer people would have died and the property damage would have been dramatically less. The Koli community in Mumbai worships mangroves because they know that these are breeding and nursery grounds for the marine organisms on which their sustenance depends.

Mangrove community of Mumbai

In the early nineties, perhaps over 37 sq. km. of mangroves existed in Mumbai, largely in the Thane creek, Mahim, Versova, Gorai and Ghodbunder, with sporadic patches in places such as Bandra, Malabar Hill and Colaba. Mumbai has probably lost 40 per cent of all its mangroves in the past decade or so, largely because of reclamation for housing, slums, sewage treatment and garbage dumps. Fortunately, thanks to the Godrej family, we still have excellent mangrove forests in Vikhroli (Link). Around 20 out of the 35 species of true mangroves found in India have been identified along the Maharashtra coast and 15 species of these are found in Mumbai.Because of the high salinity of the soil, something like 60 per cent of Mumbai

mangroves comprise Avicennia marina. Nor surprisingly this species also tolerates pollution including heavy metals such as lead, mercury and chromium, all found in significant concentrations in the Mithi river.

Mangrove destruction in Mumbai

Rapid developments like housing, industrialization, pollution and increasing population of Mumbai has resulted into degradation of mangroves. There are two important creeks, Vasai Creek towards north and Thane Creek toward south where luxuriant mangrove patches are still left. Otherwise the State Govt. agencies have failed to protect this important, productive mangrove ecosystem from building mafias.v The worst affected area in Mumbai is the entire western front excepting Carter Road where the mangroves have grown and have also registered an increase in height in the last 10 years. This has been possible due to the participation of citizens forums fighting individually. In India, a legal protection is afforded to this ecosystem by way of legislation in the form of Coastal Regulation Zone Notification. Recently Mumbai High Court has ordered freeze on destruction of mangrove forests in Maharashtra and has banned construction within 50 metres of them. The court has also directed to notify mangrove areas as protected forests. Thus, there is already a mechanism provided for management of this ecosystem. Unfortunately, however many a times the legal provisions are not

being enforced to curb the illegal activities. In such a situation, protection of the mangrove ecosystem is possible only through the participation of the local community and by building up pressure groups for ensuring management of this ecosystem and strict implementation of the legal provisions by the Government. Thereby, integrity of habitats critical for spawning, juveniles and feeding and for biodiversity, apart from ecological sustainability and communitysustainability could be maintained.In the past few years there has been an increase in the awareness of the people in Mumbai. Residents associations are coming together to spread this awareness. They realize that the rapid destruction of mangroves along the coast of Mumbai will have far-reaching effects on the city. The NGOs in Mumbai are making efforts to highlight the issues like land reclamation, coastal regulation zone notification and illegal destruction of the mangrove areas through the interventions of the local state government and a local bodies.

CAUSES FOR MANGROVE DESTRUCTION

Large demographic pressure is exerting tremendous stress on the coastal environment. The main culprit in the destruction of mangroves is man. To achieve harmful supremacy over nature, human have destroyed this magnificent ecosystem almost irreparably. Land reclamations and industrial effluents are the major causes of mangroves degradation.Systematic dumping of all kinds of waste and debris in the mangrove areas destroys them. Land reclamations and industrial effluents are the major causes of mangroves degradation.

This waste/debris creates a barrier preventing the sea water from entering the mangroves and eventually kills the mangroves. In many instances, this is done intentionally to reclaim land for construction activity. There is an urgent need to stop this systematic degradation of mangroves.

Major threats
Land reclamations for construction activity, aquaculture, agriculture, tourism Industrial and domestic pollution Port development Dumping of all kinds of waste and debris Deforestation for fuel wood Over harvesting of marine resources

The main causes for mangrove destruction are Urbanization: The mangroves along the coast line have been destroyed for human inhabitation in, Kolkata and Mumbai. Mumbai is one of the best examples for the mangrove destruction due to urbanization. All the seven islands of Mumbai were reclaimed and linked to a continuous landmass after destroyed (Kathiresan, 2000) Agriculture: Sundarban is the best example of conversion of mangrove forests for agricultural purposes. This reclamation process was initiated in 1770 and it continued till recent past. About 1,50,000 ha of mangroves were destroyed during the past 100 years, and these were mainly reclaimed for agriculture. The mangrove areas are deforested and reclaimed with rainwater to drain the salt content of the soil and these areas are protected from seawater intrusion by constructing embankments (Kathiresan, 2000). Aquaculture practices: A large scale destruction of mangroves was made for aquaculture in several areas like Pichavaram. This specific area has already lost 75% its green cover within the last century and about 90% of the forest area is degrading Cutting for timber fuel and charcoal: Mangroves are cleared for timber, charcoal and firewood. Because of higher calorific value, the mangrove twigs are used as firewood. The mangrove wood is rich in phenols, and hence is highly resistant to deterioration, and it is widely used as timber for construction purpose. The mangrove wood is highly suitable for chipboard industry and quality paper.

Oil pollution: Oil or gas exploration, petroleum production, and accidents by large oil tankers cause significant damage to mangrove ecosystems. Mangrove ecosystem will be severely affected, causing defoliation of trees, mortality of all sessile and benthic organisms and contamination of many water fowls. Once the mangrove forest is affected by oil pollution, it will take a long time of at least 10 years for recovery of the forest . Other pollutants: Mangrove habitats serve as a dumping ground for solid wastes and for discharging the effluents from various sources. The best examples of this are coastal cities like Kolkata and Mumbai which adversely affected by pollution. Need for Conservation The value of mangroves has gone unrecognized for many years and the forests are disappearing in many parts of the world. Mangrove systems require intensive care to save threatened areas. So far, conservation and management efforts lag behind the destruction; there is still much to learn about proper management and sustainable harvesting of mangrove forests (Kathiresan and Bingham, 2001).Steps to be taken to conserve mangrove ecosystemGrow mangrove plants along the coastline to increase the nursery grounds for the marine organisms, which comes for feeding and breeding.Help in formulating Government regulation for the protection of mangrove area. Mobilise community opinion on same platform for the management of mangroves.Help the conservation agencies involved in mangrove protection to continuously assess the area of mangrove to check the destruction. Mobilise communities on the need to develop parks and reserve areas to protect mangrove vegetation.Proper legislation to stop all types of unsustainable exploitation of mangrove ecosystems Implement co-management schems for mangroves protection though peoples participation. Sustainable use of Mangrove wealthAgriculture, Capture and Culture fisheries activities should be conducted without destroying the mangrove environment.Mangrove plant should be used to obtain natural medicinal products and ensure the availability of them for future production.Use of mangrove for timber, honey collection should be done at a level to get the same resources time after time.Traditional communities living around mangrove forest should take part in the activities like mangrove plantation, awareness campaign, and maintenance of mangrove canal to jointly

manage the resources along with the government agency (comanagement schems).

Mitigation measures
Remediation and restoration: Management techniques such as remediation of polluted land and restoration of degraded mangroves are some of the various management policies available for mangrove mitigation. A study of the proposed land use patterns and existing land uses around the mangroves of Mumbai highlights the need to incorporate a mangrove mitigation plan into the regional plan of Mumbai. The impacts of pollution caused by industrialization and urban development around mangroves need to be abated. The industrial land use surrounding mangrove forests are a part of the regional plan for Mumbai and the future development scheme proposes conversion and redevelopment of brown field sites like the 20industrial sites in Mumbai need to be remediated to improve the environmental settings. The remediation activities include an assessment of contaminants on site and locating the hotspots of concentrated pollutant presence on site. The assessment of contaminant impacts over the surrounding mangrove forests is also required to determine the need for restoration. Remediation process such as phyto-extraction, phyto-stabilization, and phyto-transformation can be applied on the site to remove the pollutants from the free system and contain them into the organic cycle of specific vegetation. Capping of highly polluted areas to hold in certain hazardous chemicals may be required. Restoration of mangrove forests is a complex set of methods to stabilize the mangrove ecosystem and to return the natural environment settings, which aid the growth of mangrove seedlings.