Mumbai's seasoned crooks are at it again! Slimy politicians are colluding with greedy builders to gobble up the Maharashtra Nature Park (aka Mahim Nature Park, MNP), one of the city's last few green lungs, to develop real estate
Illustration/Uday Mohite
Mumbai's seasoned crooks are at it again! Slimy politicians are colluding with greedy builders to gobble up the Maharashtra Nature Park (aka Mahim Nature Park, MNP), one of the city's last few green lungs, to develop real estate. Its 41 acres, a veritable gold mine, are sandwiched between the swank Bandra Kurla Complex commercial hub, across the Mithi River, to its north, and the sprawling slum of Dharavi to its south. The government claims that the MNP is being included in the Dharavi Development Plan "for better planning of redevelopment of Dharavi". A notification by the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), seeking to do this, was issued on March 5, giving the public a month to raise objections. Plans include a five-storey car park, restaurants, a bridge and toilet blocks. Environmentalists believe that once the park is included in Dharavi's development plan, nothing can stop builders from grabbing it. So, we have barely 10 days to save our own fate and Mumbai's.
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The MNP is a miraculous, man-made biodiversity park, a forest really — home to 14,000 trees and plants of 380 varieties, 128 species of birds, and 84 species of butterflies. MNP also conducts conservation programmes and welcomed 1.5 lakh visitors in 2014. In some years, visitors were restricted to naturalists and schoolchildren. More recently, environmentalists claim, they have been denied permissions for nature-related events, including an organic farmer's market and a cyclists' meet, so it can be claimed that the MNP does not get many visitors. In fact, the Sanjay Gandhi National Park and Aarey Milk Colony are under threat, too.
It is a well-known, scientific fact that trees and forests help generate rain, which a city like Bombay — and a drought-prone state like Maharashtra — desperately needs. A former office bearer of the Maharashtra Nature Park Society, set up by the MMRDA to develop the park, stated that the Supreme Court has marked MNP as a "deemed forest". Another environmentalist clarified that the MNP is "protected forest land" vide a government resolution of March 16, 1991, and threatened legal action if it was encroached. Moreover, the MNP plays a vital role as a 'soak' that helps control monsoon flooding of the Mithi river. According to Avinash Kubal, Deputy Director, Maharashtra Nature Park Society, as many birds nest there, they control pests and also assist in pollination. Additionally, as the soil is exposed, it absorbs rain and moisture, making the city cooler.
Originally, the MNP was a stinking garbage dumping ground of plastic, faeces and animal carcasses. In 1982, ornithologist Salim Ali and the World Wildlife Fund planned to convert it into a biodiversity park, which was later implemented by its chairperson Shanta Chatterji, and the MMRDA, through the MNP Society. A shining example of a citizens' initiative.
Anyone doubting the power of even a single ordinary citizen's persistent efforts to change the fate of their cities and environment, can take inspiration from American journalist-activist Jane Jacobs, and Assam's 'forest man' Jadav Payeng. Jacobs saved New York City from big builders, and is featured in the rousing documentary Citizen Jane: Battle for the City. Author of Death and Life of Great American Cities, she battled Robert Moses, New York's tsar of big projects, in the 1960s. "The city is not about buildings, the city is about people...People have to insist on the government trying things their way," she told the press. In 1969, Mayor John Lindsay withdrew his support for Moses's big projects. In Assam, Jadav Payeng — also subject of the film Forest Man — has single-handedly planted trees over 40 years, transforming the eroding Majuli island into a dense, 1,300-acre forest that is home to tigers, elephants, deer, monkeys and many birds.
As we have very little time, do post messages on social media to save the Maharashtra Nature Park, tagging the Chief Minister.
Meenakshi Shedde is South Asia Consultant to the Berlin Film Festival, award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist. Reach her at meenakshishedde@gmail.com.
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