While Mumbai is preparing to provide affordable housing to thousands of people, the home to winged visitors of the city – just 60 km away - is on verge of complete destruction.
Around 60 hectare wetland near village Phunde in Uran has been vanished posing a grave threat to very existence of the birds. Uran is known for rich avifauna like Flamingos, Painted storks, Oriental white ibis, Grey heron and others.
According to Kamini Thakur, an intern with WWF-India, who is doing a research on wetland, “The bird habitat near Phunde has virtually been wiped out due to large scale reclamation. Around 60 hectare wetland has vanished in last ten days.” Surprised by the development, Thakur approached CIDCO, the owner of land. But was advised to submit an application to get information about the reclamation. “The land is apparently allotted for SEZ and the reclamation is part of the same,” Thakur said.
Dr Goldin Quadros, Education Officer and Interim State Director, WWF-India, MSO said, “The large scale dumping is bound to destroy the wetlands which will eventually result in serious problems for birds coming there.” The wetland in and around Uran is home to winged visitors of the city and a most sought after destination of birders. But the reclamation that began around ten days back, has destroyed it, Quadros said, adding, “If the authorities fail to check the reclamation, the winged visitors of the city will be lost forever.”
1 comment:
Hi, I am part of Lloyds cleanup group that is looking into area improvement for Wadala East and Antop Hill areas. Several of us use the salt pan road connecting Barkatali Naka (via IMAX) with the Bhagwan Swaminarayan Flyover to reach Priyadarshani Circle. The road overseas some mangroves on either side and there are boards of reserved forest along the road. The area has seen haphazard development over the years and the salt pans as well as mangroves are endangered due to dumping of debris by construction workers, pollution from L&T cement mixer on this road and the Rashtriya Chemicals plant. Also, we have noticed steady decline in migratory birds that used to visit the saltpans over the years. The pollution in the salt pans is rampant due to passing truckers driving over the debri-ridden drains all the way into salt-pans to wash their trucks, slum dwellers using the debri mounds to relieve themselves and flying cement particles constantly depositing themselves into the saltpans. We are looking for some media exposure and/or direction to resolve this problem. Can you please help us with information on some NGOs who can help resolve this issue?
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