Marine Life of Mumbai (MLOM) is a citizen-driven collective that brought much-needed public attention to coastal biodiversity and habitats in the urban environs of the city. A community that started out with an outreach programme of organising shore walks for the citizens, gradually led to creating a database of photographs using GPS location, which was eventually put to use by activists and organisations who petitioned against the coastal road project in Mumbai. “We never imagined that something we did just for fun would be used for such an important cause,” says Sejal Mehta, editor and head of outreach and communication at Marine Life of Mumbai.
Sarang Naik
With the ongoing lockdown, their team is coming up with new ways to improve engagement every week. “We are using archival footage collected over the course of the last three years to give citizens an experience of walking on the seashore and watching the sunset virtually, from the comfort of their homes,” Mehta says.
Sejal Mehta
For this week, Sarang Naik, a photographer and member at MLOM suggested inviting people to send in poetry inspired by marine life that will be posted as stories on their Instagram page. “I’ve been writing poems about my experiences since childhood, and marine life came naturally to me. I thought, ‘Why not invite people to share verses about their connection with the sea?'” shares Naik who is pleasantly surprised by the response so far; they have been receiving about 10 entries every day. “I did not expect people to share the same enthusiasm for marine life.”
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