After getting the requisite permissions from the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) in Nagpur for translocation of corals in the city, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) along with the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) has begun the process of shifting the corals that happen to be on the path of the Coastal Road project.
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These corals are situated at Worli and Haji Ali and are expected to be finished over the next few days. Authorities said that the corals will be attached with a global positioning system (GPS) after they’re migrated to the new location, while they will also be marked with numbers for easy identification.
A team on Thursday started surveying the corals in Haji Ali that will be soon translocated whereas officials will survey the corals at Worli on Friday.
Virendra Tiwari, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Mangrove Cell).“BMC had already identified the coral colonies at Worli and Haji Ali and taken GPS locations. On Thursday, the BMC team started identifying boulders that have ‘false pillow’ species of corals present in a large tide pool at Haji Ali. These rock boulders with corals are dispersed in the tide pool and once we are sure all coral boulders have been identified, they will be assembled at one location in the tide pool. By doing this, on the day of translocation, it would be easy to move them to other places without too much difficulty.”
The BMC has previously said that it will draft a seven-day plan for the translocation of corals to their new home. It is said that the teams from the BMC and NIO will also be assisted by a marine biologist and a forest ranger from the State Forest Department.
“Corals from Haji Ali will be translocated in a tide pool somewhere in Colaba,” said Harshal Karve who is a marine biologist with the Mangrove Foundation.
“At Worli, the identified corals will be removed by cutting the slice of rock on which they are present. These portions will not be required o assembled at one location like in the case of the Haji Ali corals. These rock slices with corals will be fixed on some other rocks inside the sea with some adhesive-like material like cement concrete,” Karve said about the corals at Worli.
Although the BMC has time until December 31 for the translocation of these corals, the civic body is moving quickly to conclude the process. Officials aim to have the process finished much sooner as November 14 and 15 this year are expected to witness the year’s lowest tides.
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