On World Migratory Bird Day on Saturday, experts from Mumbai came together to discuss ways to protect lesser flamingos.
They said four decades ago, conditions were ideal for flamingos to visit the city but today they are being forced to feed within a tiny piece of land owing to the continuous destruction of wetlands and development activities across many areas.
A webinar titled, ‘The Flight of the Pink - How can Mumbai protect the lesser flamingoes’ was organised as a part of the ‘Biodiversity by the Bay’ campaign, initiated by Ministry of Mumbai’s Magic — a citizen’s collective comprising Mumbaikars who wish to bring the issue of protecting biodiversity to the forefront.
Speaking on ways to protect the iconic bird and the wetlands where they feed in Mumbai, Stalin Dayanand, Director of Projects, Vanashakti, said, “After the loss of 2,000 hectares of wetlands for the Navi Mumbai International Airport and JNPT expansions, the habitat for flamingos and wetland birds has shrunk to 20% of what it was. The Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary is the last refuge for 1.5 lakh birds which concentrate here now. It is an important bird area that needs all the mangroves, grasslands, water bodies, rocky areas of the creek in contiguity with the sanctuary to be added to the sanctuary. Presently, more than 60% of the habitat has been kept out of the sanctuary limits obviously to help real estate and other projects later on. The ESZ notification status won’t protect it like a sanctuary can.”
Other experts in the webinar included Bahar Dutt, award-winning environment journalist; Ashima Narain, wildlife filmmaker; Virendra Tiwari, CCF and Head of Mangrove Cell; and Ritwick Dutta from Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment.
The group also discussed how wetlands at Uran used to be a flamingo hotspot, which has been reclaimed to make way for a new airport. The ongoing construction of the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link — a 22km sea bridge — cuts across mangroves and mudflats to Navi Mumbai. This means no large flocking of flamingos at Sewri bay, which lies between Thane Creek and the Arabian Sea.