We can’t be silent onlookers to environmental degradation

The lake as it was in 2005, five years before it was allegedly illegally filled by the land mafia

The alleged connivance of the land mafia and senior government officials has reduced a 50-year-old wetland of 4.5 acres at Charkop in Kandivli West to 1,000 sq ft, as encroachers have opened garages and godowns to store soft drinks as well as restaurants, eateries, tea and paan-bidi stalls. Recently, civic officials razed a few encroachments, but encroachers still fearlessly rule the roost.

Locals have also alleged that the land mafia dumped debris and earth to fill the lake. Protection and regeneration of this wetland after the removal of encroachers is of paramount importance in the larger interest of Charkop residents; more so, in the light of prevalent large scale environmental degradation and pollution, an activist has stated.

In 2021, activists associated with River March, an organisation that works towards rejuvenating the city's rivers, wrote a letter to the chief minister and environment minister as well as local public representatives requesting them to give the lake legal protection.

Charkop and other wetlands play an important role in influencing bird dispersal in the region as well as in protecting the mainland from floods.

While court battles and signature campaigns are on, it is important we understand why this has occurred in the first place. Allowing or turning a blind eye to one encroachment, means there is a rapid and uncontrollable multiplication. Many times, it is the powerful who are behind the encroachments. The very leaders or those who wield influence are responsible for this wanton destruction, or are in connivance with those who do so.

There is the severe blowback to these actions which we experience during the monsoon. Nature has a way of hitting back in the most devastating ways and if we continue to think that it will not affect us.

Protect or you are in peril, is the message.