of soaring real estate values, any patches of “undeveloped,” that is, unbuilt space in South Mumbai assumed astronomical value for developers. The Doongerwadi was
no exception, and its coverage in mature forest only increased its already soaring economic value.
In a city rife with real estate deals and speculative investment, this was land
with an almost incalculable financial value to developers, and hence, potential y, to the Parsi community. My colleague described a community torn by how to proceed, and understandably concerned that development pressures might eventual y
produce a more financial y stable future, but at the incalculable cost of the total demise of the forest. Those who had contacted the colleague were uninterested in
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More than Human Nature 97
selling the land regardless of its real estate value; quite to the contrary, they sought to preserve it, and in doing so work to revive the vulture population. It was crucial, then, that they understand and express alternative ways to value Doongerwadi
land, and one of these was clearly its value as urban green space. 10 My colleague told me that her organization wished to help them understand the forest “as an
ecosystem and a natural resource” in order to supplement its known value as a
cultural site, or sacred grove, and its estimated economic value as a potential parcel of real estate. 11
Embedded as it was in Mumbai’s historical moment, when the entire cityscape
was in some circles being actively reimagined, and given the central role of open
space advocacy for motivating public engagement in that moment, I was both
intrigued and hesitant. After al , this was a highly exclusive green space. Questions of access, proximity, and claims to use of any kind outside of religious purposes
were not the focus here. To assume the task my colleague requested could eas-
ily translate into helping to keep the forest social y exclusive; to il ustrate its biophysical value would hinge, of course, on the uniqueness of the forest as old, as
closed canopy, and as relatively unmanaged, unmanicured, and, in the language
of natural resource management, undisturbed. Did I dare play a role in shoring
up arguments to keep this forest closed and exclusive? On the other hand, without
a set of additional ways to understand and articulate its value, this ecological y and social y significant green space would surely succumb to the power of real
estate pressures. These, in the end, could prove far more powerful in present day
Mumbai than any political movement to “reimagine” the city.
A great deal of political ecology research shows how scientific discourse is
often used to provide falsely “neutral” arbitration in otherwise seemingly intractable socioenvironmental disputes. This left me further weary of assuming the easy
role of an outside so-called expert who could give an authoritative account of the value of this urban forest “as a forest.” Furthermore, my actual expertise in forest assessment and forest science was limited—a skil set developed only as a graduate student in a handful of courses. I was hardly the specialist who might evaluate and enumerate the species composition, forest health, and specific characteristics that gave the Doongerwadi value beyond its potential as a piece of developable
real estate.
And yet I was also keenly aware of the unique set of questions before me. How
might we understand this forest as a socionatural green space among open, green
spaces that are largely imagined as parks and leisure spaces in Mumbai? Did this
represent a chance to foreground the complex biophysical interplay of various
types of green spaces, and to amplify their role in urban socioecological vitality? In some ways, I was being asked to participate in a process of literal y imagining an alternative future for the Doongerwadi, one guided by an ecological narrative that would reinforce an existing cultural one, and one that would challenge the logic
that anticipates urban development as a de facto response to market forces and
98 More than Human Nature
powerful corporate-bureaucratic interests. In other ways, I was being asked to help strengthen a case for reproducing a green space almost completely inaccessible to
the vast majority of Mumbai’s population. In either scenario, the forest’s very existence “as a forest” was clearly at stake. I was once again reminded in an experiential way that there is never such a thing as neutral research.
The narrow band of analytical engagement with green spaces that I recounted
above—the prevailing inclination to read them either as opportunities to promote
social justice or as spaces inevitably implicated in new forms of social exclusion—
was instantly insufficient here. Yes, the Doongerwadi was a highly exclusive forest on grounds rooted in social identity and sacred territory claims. For centuries its interior had been accessible only to select groups of Parsis, but the invitation was now extended to me, to walk the forest with the community’s forest steward. I
interpreted this as a significant signal of how deeply fraught with urgency this
matter, and hence the forest’s preservation through reinvention, had become.
Back on the phone, my immediate reply to my colleague was one of gratitude
for thinking of me but also a detailed claim that I was not qualified to undertake a forest assessment. Without a baseline evaluation of the species mix, age class, and general health of the trees on the site, additional surveys of the biodiversity mix the area was supporting was not possible. But my colleague had clearly anticipated this response. Suggest a botanist, a forest scientist—suggest the team that would
be needed, she quickly offered. The important thing was that I would meet the
Doongerwadi forest steward and coordinate a set of formal questions that could
serve as the basis of a study. This would then help the community discern the area as a forest. My involvement would get the initiative started, she explained, so that it could assume its own momentum, as determined by the Parsi community.
On learning further that the Bombay Natural History Society, India’s Central
Zoo Authority, the Ministry of Environment and Forests, and others were already
deeply involved in large-scale efforts to reverse vulture extinction trends, my curiosity was piqued. I agreed to meet the forest steward for a walk in the Doongerwadi, nervously conscious of the fact that very few non-Parsis had ever been granted
such an invitation. Clearly just by granting me entry, the remaking of this forest area had already begun; my presence in that process might allow me to suggest
biodiversity as part of a conversation heretofore focused on vultures, ritual practices, human identity formation, and real estate development. Perhaps it could also add other forms of open space to a civic conversation that often conflated desirable open spaces exclusively with ful y accessible parks.
• • •
In the days between our phone conversation and my first scheduled visit to the
Doongerwadi forest, I studied the vulture conservation initiative proposed by the
consortium of ministries and organizations named above. Their projects followed
from recommendations made in at least two official plans—the Vulture Action
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More than Human Nature 99
Plan of the Government of India (2006) and the South Asian Vulture Recovery
Plan (2004). Both of these called for a complete ban on diclofenac and the rapid
establishment of vulture breeding facilities.
Since 2006, state governments have set up vulture breeding programs in
three Indian states. The Central Zoo Authority also maintains vulture conserva-
tion centers at five zoo
s, but these are not considered effective or highly func-
tional. With fewer than 350 vultures in captivity across all of these centers, the need for additional breeding programs was regarded as critical within the South
Asian environmental policy and advocacy community. So critical, in fact, that the
Bombay Natural History Society, in partnership with multiple government bod-
ies, proposed to construct two colony aviaries in the Doongerwadi forest, each
“attached” to one of the three operational Doongerwadi dokhmas. These would then be linked to another breeding aviary roughly sixty kilometers north of the
city, in Sanjay Gandhi National Park at Borivili. This was referred to in project
documents as a “Main Center.”
Captive breeding and vulture conservation work at Doongerwadi would
require an aviary infrastructure that included two vast, completely closed nets
suspended at a height of thirty feet (at least twelve feet above the rims of the towers) and surrounding each of the operational dokhmas. In addition, a new complex to house staff and monitoring equipment would be constructed inside the forest.
Such a vast complex for vulture rehabilitation infrastructure laid bare the extent to which, regardless of the public access profile that might feature in the forest’s status as greenspace, it would be a socionatural entity. All of this would fundamental y
transform the sacred grove and, clearly, involve forest access to presumably non-
Parsi conservation professionals.
• • •
I agreed to meet the Doongerwadi forest steward for an introductory walk.
Arranging our first meeting by phone, my host offered gracious but detailed
instructions for how I should dress and conduct myself when I arrived. I was to
wear loose and modest garments, and to be sure my arms and head were ful y
covered. I could bring a notebook, but other modes of recording or photograph-
ing what we discussed and witnessed were best left behind. I was to arrive at a side parking lot, and to wait for my host to escort me onto the grounds.
Our tour did not begin in the forest, at least according to the introductory nar-
ratives my host offered on my arrival. Instead, he pointed out and identified the
complex of buildings at the entrance, devoted almost exclusively to the funerary
purposes for which the Towers of Silence existed and for which the forest provided sonic and visual seclusion. We sat together while my host reviewed elements of the Zoroastrian philosophy of death and dying; he explained ideas of the soul, evil,
pol ution, and purification, and how the built structures that culminated in the
Towers of Silence enabled the sanctity of those ideas through ritual. It was clear to
100 More than Human Nature
Figure 10. Looking outward from the edge of the Doongerwadi forest,
new construction looms. Photo by the author.
me that for him, the forest that surrounded us was in every way a sacred grove; it was a buffer between the dense, clamorous, concrete city beyond it and the very
separate ritual space that in many ways defined an entire religious community. In
this sense, the forest made his idea of living and dying as a Parsi not only dignified, but possible.
Nevertheless, as the forest steward, my host was also keenly interested in walk-
ing me through the forest. We stayed far clear of the Towers, but I was warmly
invited to see other aspects of the forest and complex. Eloquent in heavily British-accented English and highly educated, my host nevertheless explained that he had
little background knowledge in basic forest ecology or management. Assuming
the position of forest steward was something he did out of care for the history and preservation of the Doongerwadi complex, and so he described himself as an eager
student of the forest. As we walked and talked through its use and management,
we discussed basic processes of forest growth, regeneration, and decomposition.
Many of the points were quite new to him, so our walk was also a lively question
and answer session on elementary aspects of forest ecology.
As we made our way along wide but ever narrowing dirt paths, we walked
through a forest of easily discernable patches. As one might expect, areas more
frequently traversed in the course of funerary rites were largely covered in orna-
mental garden plants, with few trees that forest ecologists would identify as native.
But beyond these areas of garden-style management, the patches told stories of
different kinds of use, historical management attempts, and even the constant
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More than Human Nature 101
give-and-take of human community uses and non-human habitat. The stands
were of different species mixes, age classes, and densities.
Early in the walk our conversation turned to forest history. It is well known
that the Doongerwadi forest was original y significantly larger, and that a former forest section was developed for Parsi housing, at present-day Godrej Baug, in the 1970s. For decades afterward, high-rise development surrounding the remaining
Doongerwadi influenced management strategies and forest use; my host told me
that over thirty years ago a private high-rise apartment complex called the Grand
Paradise was built to such a height that residents living on upper floors could
see the funerary platform used for sky burial in one of the Towers. Complaints
from those residents, my host told me, eventual y led to the closure of the vis-
ible dokhma. Now, with a bit of anxiety, he pointed to multiple new high rises at various stages of construction all around the forest. “The super-rich who will
live in them will surely have influence,” he said, worried that they, too, would see the funerary platforms and register complaints. I recalled the proposed aviary
netting, realizing that it would do more than keep vulture fledglings in; it would also provide a new layer of seclusion, as these additional high rises would challenge the seclusion capacity of the forest canopy alone. This seemed to intensify
the urgency of discerning new narratives of value and scientific function for the
Doongerwadi.
But the high rises to come were only part of the interconnected dynamics of
the forest and urban construction. In several areas, we came upon clearings or
discernibly younger, comparatively homogenous, forest stands. Each had a spe-
cific history that began with a dumping incident. Whether with or without formal
permission, parts of the forest had served over many decades as secluded reposi-
tories for construction waste—plentiful in Mumbai, and often difficult to properly dispose. New to his position as Doongerwadi forest steward, my host said that the
details of when and how each incident happened were unknown to him, and were
in any case less important in the present than the fact that the forest management response usual y involved covering over the rubble and planting it with whatever
seemed like a good species choice at the time. Usual y this meant a monocrop,
often in an ornamental or otherwise resource-intensive vegetation type.
The mixed tropical Doongerwadi forest, then, had tucked within it a mosaic
of stands, some ornamental, some of which forest ecologists would classify as
“native” and some as “exotic.” 12 I remarked that this patchwork would make an interesting forest assessment challenge, mindful that in general, such patches fundamental y change forest structure, function, and biodiversity. To understand this specific mosaic, we clearly needed a forest ecologist or botanist.
Ami
d his urgent stories of forest threats, construction and development pres-
sures, and the denuding effects of debris dumping, my host pointed to the ele-
ments of the forest he so clearly loved. Peafowl were all around us; he spoke of
the existence of butterfly and plant species here that he was sure had otherwise
102 More than Human Nature
disappeared from the Western Ghats. “We have them,” he said with a mix of pride
and admiration, “we just need an expert to verify their presence.”
But as my host pointed to the forest elements that in his mind evidenced ill
health, I realized that he and others charged with forest management also had
some misconceptions about general forest ecology. He noted several dead tree
branches and snags, for instance, asking if they would harm the forest and should
be removed. When I explained that undiseased snags normal y provide impor-
tant habitat for birds, insects, and other animals, we realized together that these were potential assets, if a goal of forest management was to encourage biodiversity.
Likewise, decomposing treefall that my host assumed should be removed because
it might “spread disease” served as an opportunity to talk about how forest decom-
position replenishes soil nutrients and ensures soil heath, and the general benefits of in situ decomposition in forests. Creepers in the forest canopy—which he had previously assumed to be harmful parasites—might, I suggested, be benign and
even beneficial. This was true as well for a termite mound we observed, and for a
range of fungi growing on trees throughout Doongerwadi.
At the close of our walk, we agreed that a useful next step would be to identify a qualified botanist or forest scientist who could conduct a formal species inventory and forest health assessment. Like the proposed vulture breeding aviary, and even
my own presence, such an assessment would require the community to give fur-
ther permission to non-Parsis to access the Doongerwadi. This was granted, and
the senior botanist and forest ecologist from the University of Mumbai who under-
took the work was also a longstanding member of the affiliated faculty of Rachana
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