India’s mangrove conservation movement is synonymous with Late Mr. Sohrabji Godrej like Ornithology is with late Dr Salim Ali. It has taken foresight, commitment over decades and innovations by Godrej family and G&B for them to emerge as one of the leaders of conserving mangroves in India.

The journey of mangrove conservation at Godrej began formally, in 1985, but its roots go back much before, when the importance of mangroves and its diversity were not commonly understood.

In that era, ‘protection & proliferation of Pirojshanagar’s green cover’ was the mandate that prompted G&B to deploy security at the creekside to prevent felling of mangrove trees and prevent anti-social activities in the isolated areas. However, it was a PhD thesis on the mangroves of Pirojshanagar that offered insights and the way forward that led to the adoption of the three-pronged strategy of Research, Conservation and Awareness for managing mangroves in a scientific way at Godrej. Since then, G&B has taken many ‘first of its kind’ initiatives that have yielded widely accepted tools and methods of managing mangroves across India. In 1997, G&B adopted the ISO 14001 certification for managing the environment and extended it to the managing of mangroves initiative of G&B, making Pirojshanagar mangroves as the first ISO 14001 certified mangrove forest of India. In 1999, the World Bank, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai and G&B joined hands for mangrove plantation on a 40-hectare plot. Several topographical, hydrological interventions were made, which included growing mangrove saplings at Pirojshanagar and bringing in mangrove saplings from other regions as well. This was the first large-scale experiment of mangrove plantation of Maharashtra which is visible today, when we enter the air space of Mumbai as lush green mangroves with tall trees.

In 2001, G&B was the first to create a dedicated Mangrove Information Centre and offer mangrove trails for its employees & schools, NGOs of Mumbai Metropolitan Region.

In a few years, a visit to Godrej mangroves became an essential activity of the academic calendar of Mumbai’s several educational institutions. In the same period, we started the ‘Mangrove Club’, Mumbai’s first nature club at Godrej’s Udayachal High school, to introduce generations of Godrejiites to the wonderful world of mangroves. The challenges of conserving mangroves emerged out of interactions among all concerned and various initiatives taken by G&B. One of the key challenges to emerge was the limited understanding of the mangrove ecosystem and inadequate identification of various species even by the seasoned botanists, researchers, teachers, officials of the forest department and the NGOs concerned. Limited availability of books, identification keys and subject experts posed significant obstacles in creating awareness and popularizing mangroves. To overcome these obstacles, in 2017 we developed the ‘Mangroves mobile App’ in English for the identification of 24 mangrove species which was launched by the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra. The App became popular beyond expectation and was downloaded by the users from over 50 countries! This encouraged us to create an enhanced version of the App to cover 67 mangrove species in 11 Indian languages. The multi-lingual App helped people at the grass roots, who do not speak or read English, such as the fisherfolk, forest guards and persons working for NGOs.