In a development welcomed by environmentalists, the Maharashtra Maharashtra State Wildlife Board (MSWB) has declared the Delhi Public School (DPS) wetland area in the satellite township of Navi Mumbai as a DPS Flamingo Conservation Reserve.
The decision to declare the DPS Lake or DPS Flamingo Lake — as it is popularly known — was taken at a MSWB meeting presided over by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavisin Mumbai.
Spread over 30 acres in the Seawoods area of Navi Mumbai, the Delhi Public School Flamingo Lake is part of the Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary’s satellite wetland ecosystem.
Many flamingos fly to the wetlands like Panje, DPS lake, and NRI and TS Chanakya wetlands in Navi Mumbai during the high tide in the creek for resting and in search of food. The neighbouring Thane Creek hosts many birds migrating on the Central Asian Flyway — and is a Ramsar site.
Flamingos descending in thousands on the wetland areas of Navi Mumbai are a common sight between November and May every year. More than a lakh of pink-winged birds are sighted every year. Flamingos migrate to Mumbai for feeding purposes from breeding sites in the Gujarat region as well as Iran.
Three years ago, the then Maharashtra chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had cleared the proposal for designating the biodiversity-rich Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary (TCFS) in Thane-Navi Mumbai belt as a Ramsar site as per the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, for submission to the Centre.
Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and various organisations in Navi Mumbai had given their representations to the MSWB, seeking its declaration of DPS Lake as a Flamingo Conservation Reserve.
Welcoming the MSWB’s decision to declare DPS wetland as a conservation Reserve, BNHS’ Director Kishor Rithe said that his organisation had for long been rooting for such a decision.
Forest Minister and vice-chairman of the MSWB Ganesh Naik, who pushed for the decision, said, “The DPS lake is
a crucial destination for flamingos
and deserves protection as a sensitive
ecological zone”.
It may be recalled that Naik, who had earlier visited the lake and noticed its terrible condition, had ordered the opening of two inlets and asked Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) to lower the pipes to ensure proper flow of tidal water.
“Plenty of algae accumulated in the lake due to the stagnant water, but now almost 60 per cent of the muck is cleared,” a senior forest department official said.
With the partial restoration of the water flow, the pink beauties have once again begun to flock to their favourite destination, the DPS Flamingo Lake.
Environmental organisations —NatConnect, Navi Mumbai Environment Preservation Society (NMEPS), Save Flamingos and Wetlands Forum and Kharghar Wetlands and Hills forum — had also formed a human chain twice last year to focus attention on the plight of the flamingo abode.
Sandeep Sareen of NMEPS said endorsement of the proposal for the conservation reserve is a collective victory for all environment lovers. He too presented a memorandum to Naik during the Minister’s janata darbar recently.
“With this decision, a wetland in the Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary’s (TCFS) satellite ecosystem will receive such protection,” NatConnect Foundation Director BN Kumar said.
BNHS had in the past recommended repeatedly that the satellite wetlands would have to be conserved as part of the TCFS management plan.
The Thane Creek falls under the Marine Ecoregions of the World (MEOW) but is fed by numerous freshwater sources, making the water brackish. Its mangrove forests provide nurseries for several fish species, sustaining the local fisheries, and also act as a natural buffer against floods, cyclones and seawater intrusions, enhancing the resilience of surrounding areas to such climate-related hazards.