720 volunteers clean up mangroves along Bandra's Carter Road of 3,000 kg trash
The Maharashtra State Mangrove Cell began its city-wide 'Clean Mangrove' campaign on Saturday, and started with removing 3,000 kg garbage from Carter Road in Bandra. In all, 720 volunteers, including students from Rizvi College, St Andrew High School, St Pauls Institute of Communication Education, and RD National College, local residents, and cell members participated in the drive.
The Mangrove Cleanup drive is expected to continue until May 31, 2018, and eight locations - Dahisar, Borivli, Versova, Bandra, Sewri, Bhandup, Airoli, and Turbhe - have been identified.
N Vasudevan, additional principal chief conservator of forest, along with senior officials were present at the event at Carter Road.
He said:
"This will be a regular clean-up drive and will be done on a rotational basis. On weekdays, our officers and workers from the municipal corporation will clean these areas and on weekends, volunteers will supplement these efforts. The idea is to clear the trash near the roots of the trees."
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According to a report by Hindustan Times, two websites – mumbaimangroves.org and konkanwetland.com – were launched recently to enable citizens to file complaints regarding mangrove and wetland destruction.
Vasudevan said:
"Two committees constituted by the Bombay High Court had ordered us to set up these websites, and now citizens can check the status of their complaints in real-time."
Mangrove forests are important ecosystems for the marine environment, and for the people. It is home to a large variety of fish, crab, shrimp, and mollusk species, which form an essential source of food for thousands of coastal communities around the world. The dense root systems of mangrove forests trap sediments flowing down rivers, and off the land, which helps stabilise the coastline and prevents erosion from waves and storms.
With inputs from IANS
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