It’s shore time, folks!

Our city’s shoreline deserves more than ad hoc clean-up drives and beautification plans. A sustainable, sensitive and expert-driven effort to protect its fragile ecosystem and waters ought to be implemented soon to avoid further assault than what already exists thanks to infrastructure and commercial projects

“Let’s face it. We call ourselves a coastal city but we take our coastline for granted. It’s bad enough that we’ve had to sacrifice vast tracts [including some truly stunning panoramas] of our shore to the highly contentious Coastal Road project on one side and the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link on the eastern front. We’ve been blinded by blinkers from both sides, from a geographic viewpoint.

Whenever I use the Eastern Express Highway, I gaze at the swathes of green that include the natural guardians of our ecosystem, the mangroves. I am grateful that they are still around. And every time I am able to catch a glimpse of the promenades at Bandra, Worli or Mahim, despite the efforts to ‘beautify’ it, the litter that washes up its shores, remains an eyesore. Over the weekend, I caught a segment in a travel documentary that focused on how a popular beach in Hong Kong was able to use citizen participation as an effective tool, as well as on a consistent and massive scale to help minimise the menace of littering along a popular beach which was a coastal tourist attraction.

Big Wave Bay Beach is a favoured haunt for surfers and beach bums alike. However it had also become famous for all the wrong reasons – litter from dry and wet waste washed up on the beach that was junked in the sea by tourists, surfers and sailors, as well as ocean and cruise liners. It became a huge concern for environmentalists and citizens of the island.

An app was developed by a local environmentalist that created alerts whenever huge volumes of garbage would accumulate at various points along this stretch. This made it easier for her and other likeminded individuals to mobilise more such people, and together, they went about cleaning this stunning beach. We watched with awe how regular junta showed up and got down to business. Young, middle-aged and senior folk, even kids went about picking litter and segregating it. And mind you, this wasn’t a one-off, let’s-change-the environment kind of Sunday plan. a way of life for the islanders, and soon enough it grew into a large movement, and a matter of pride for those who ensured they got their favourite beach back, and in good health. It was a combination of public participation by a civic sense-following population, and technology. It made us wonder why something of this scale cannot be adopted on a war footing here, especially since we pride ourselves on our people power.

Of course, it’s not like we don’t have our homegrown heroes. We’ve seen many local custodians do their bit in a big way, all of which have made a remarkable difference to our coastline. Many have received international recognition as well for executing these terrific turnarounds. There are also the other bands of dedicated folk who conduct shore walks and awareness programmes to educate people about the rich, fragile marine life that exists along our shoreline, and how littering harms them in unimaginable ways; the long-term repercussions of it, we shall not get into, simply because it is only going to further dampen the mood of this column. In fact, I believe that the best way to gauge the ‘Then and Now’ timeline of our city’s coastline is to strike up a chat with any Koli elder residing in any of our surviving koliwadas. We were lucky to have had such an encounter many years ago with a Thane-based Koli, [and this was even before the Coastal Road Project had taken off], who shared concerns of the lack of respect that we as city folk have exhibited towards our coast. “It’s only a matter of time where we won’t have any beach to sit at, watch the sunset and eat ice gola. And forget about eating our prized rawas, too,” he said, wryly.

As we watch concrete and steel barricade our eastern and western shorelines, what chance do we have to keep its waters and beaches clean. Once these mega road projects get fully operational, imagine the extent to which litter and other toxic pollutants will reach our seas on a more regular basis? How can we, as an environmentally-conscious community collaborate with our rule-makers, and ensure life insurance for our already-threatened coastline? It needs a serious look-in, because with every passing minute, that warranty period is getting used up.

Sensitively planned civic and beautification projects must be planned by experts while clean-up drives must be an all-year initiative so as to stamp a long-term Laxman Rekha for the waters that line this city. Unless immediate attention and intervention isn’t brought into play, the generations to come will be left to fend for themselves in not-so-ideal scenarios.

mid-day’s Features Editor Fiona Fernandez relishes the city’s sights, sounds, smells and stones...wherever the ink and the inclination takes her. She tweets @bombayana
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