Mangroves Help Fight The Effects Of Climate Change. So Why Is Mumbai Destroying Them?
Studies show that the city lost nearly 40 percent of its mangroves between 1991 and 2001 — about 9,000 acres. And rapid urbanization continues to threaten them.
Bare trees with slender branches line a half-built highway overpass in eastern Mumbai. These are mangroves, trees or shrubs found in tropical swampy marshland with roots that grow above the ground. But construction has blocked their lifeblood — salt water. Their aerial roots poke through dry, caked mud instead of brackish water.
Environmentalist B.N. Kumar points to a small channel under the highway where seawater once entered the mangrove patch. It's now littered with rocks and construction debris.
"All the mangroves, about 5,000 of them, have dried up. They can only be used as firewood now," Kumar says. "It's very sad to
