In recent news, archaeologists have unearthed massive urban networks or lost-gardened metropolises in the dense forests of the Amazon. The understanding of this vast forest as a pristine habitat which evolved without any human intervention is now challenged by mounting evidence of sophisticated human settlements that may have been responsible for the very creation of the Amazon. Researchers believe that the biodiversity in the Amazonian forests is a result of the people who inhabited it hundreds of years ago and not despite them . They claim there is much to learn from how the ancient knowledge and practices of forest-dwelling urbanites can shape how we think of urban systems and processes today . 

Around 15,000 Km away, in the dense concrete jungle of Mumbai, its Indigenous inhabitants, the Kolis, have kept abreast of the evolving, modern city without giving up attempts at preserving their ancestral connection to the estuarine waters in which the city sits. 60 years ago, they began to carve out ponds in the riverbed as a response to being cut off from the mouth of the river and sea-faring routes beyond. This network of fishing ponds represents an ingenious adaptation of the Koli fishing community. One that emerged from deeply dwelling in a fluid geography. 

Matias Echanove, Rahul Srivastava and Geeta Mehta founded urbz in 2008 by kickstarting the Urban Typhoon workshops in Dharavi Koliwada, which was, at the time, fighting the ‘slum’ tag being slapped onto the ancestral village. The workshop revealed the Koli community’s openness to alternate trajectories of development for their urbanising habitat. Rahul and Matias have long argued against the dangers of a divisionist conception of place as either urban or rural, city or forest and so on . They urge urban practitioners to recognise the diversity of habitats that constitute cities, including seemingly contradictory habitats like the ‘urban village’ or the ‘industrial forest’, bringing to our notice Indigenous settlements, like Koliwadas, that have adapted to urbanisation and forest-dwelling communities that have long subsisted on nature-based cottage industries, including artisanal mining. These examples challenge purist ideas of Nature and the City, acknowledging that every place is constantly in formation through daily practices and interrelations.

Similarly, indigenous knowledge and practices establish interdependent human-nature relationships. These practices are never static but constantly respond to emerging realities of place and are infused with ancient value systems that perceive the natural world as the embodiment of the divine. A worldview which becomes the foundation for a non-extractive relationship with the natural world, where conservation is not an afterthought but a way of life. To solve the problem of deteriorating urban ecology, we believe there is a lot to learn from the Kolis relationship to the natural world. 

With the support of the re:arc institute, urbz has been co-designing an intervention within this novel urban ecosystem— a shared habitat in a mangrove forest surviving in a dense and concretised city. ‘The Garden of Festivities’ is a project that attempts to unite livelihood concerns with an ecological imagination that grows from the Kolis collective, ancestral knowledge and expertise. The first step of the project is a participatory landscape intervention on the last remaining commons within a habitat they are struggling to preserve.

Dharavi Koliwada in Mumbai, the project site, is a habitat located on an estuarine landscape with a fragile relationship to water. Its coastline is vulnerable to aggressive real estate development, severe pollution, and industrial expansion. Despite this, it has managed to sustain a large, though highly polluted, mangrove forest in its vicinity, thanks significantly to the members of the Koli community. For them, these waters are not merely livelihood sources but are symbolic of the interdependent relationship between humans and their environment. Impulses that are symbolically interwoven into their culture. They still celebrate festivals where they worship the surrounding waters—for example, during a specific full moon day in the monsoon season called Naralli Purnima (Coconut Fullmoon), they pledge to protect their natural habitats facing destruction. While much more than a site for festivities, the project title, Garden of Festivities, spotlights this spiritual and cultural connection.  

The city would do well to recognise that the Kolis not only derive their livelihood from these waters but maintain a profound spiritual relationship with this amphibious landscape. Digambar, a teacher from Dharavi Koliwada, has filed numerous petitions against mangrove destruction for infrastructure projects like the underground metro line. He criticises the government's "SRA (slum rehabilitation scheme) approach" toward mangroves, where they "displace mangroves like they displace people in a slum redevelopment project." When authorities propose compensatory planting elsewhere, he pointedly asks, "Are the water currents the same as Mithi Estuary?" highlighting the fundamental misunderstanding of these complex ecosystems.

This contrast reveals the profound disconnect between government approaches and Indigenous communities. Water testing in Koli-maintained ponds revealed surprising results - the water was slightly alkaline, with acceptable amounts of oil, grease and chlorine, although high in organic matter. The decomposition of large amounts of organic matter puts demands on the dissolved oxygen content in the water, making it unfriendly for aquatic life. Despite this, we found that aquatic species like Tilapia, Varas, Neuta and crabs still breed in these ponds. Our observations suggest that Koli interventions in the ponds, like manually dredging organic matter, help in the survival of these species and contribute to improved ecosystem health. This evidence underscores the importance of community-led projects like the Garden of Festivities for the Kolis to continue their practices of care, restoration and repair.

The most pressing challenge is accessing these landscapes. A small parcel of village commons along the river is used to access fishing ponds but has suffered from administrative neglect, resulting in illegal debris dumping. This has made it difficult for the community to visit the river's edge without first undertaking a massive cleanup, which they do once a year before Naralli Purnima. The main hindrance is to the fishermen who need to access the ponds more regularly and risk injury due to all the accumulated sludge and hazardous medical waste. The community has resorted to renting the space to an auto-rickshaw garage and parking service to prevent further encroachment and illegal dumping of construction debris.

Through the use of our participatory methodology, we have outlined a vision and strategy to facilitate the Kolis, who have already begun reviving ancestral aquaculture ponds despite the Mithi estuary's pollution. After several workshops, exhibitions, and focus group discussions to engage diverse members of the community - from the Dharavi Fishermen’s Association, Dharavi Koli Jamat, women's self-help groups, youth and young professionals- we have identified a list of needs.  

Chandrakant Koli, secretary of the Dharavi Koliwada Fishermen’s Association, tells us that the most urgent need is for a dock and boathouse to secure, store and maintain boats and other fishing equipment. They currently have to hide their boats in inaccessible locations within the ponds to help prevent them from being stolen or carried away with the tide. During the monsoon season, the boats are stored on site, exposed to the weather and vulnerable to theft or damage. The project addresses this need through the design of a dock and boathouse. 

Chandna and Jyotsna Maushi (Aunty) from the self-help groups were eager to have a place where they could sell Koli delicacies. The women collectively run a catering service and want a dedicated location to cater to people from Koliwada and the rest of the city. The women helped to conceptualise food stalls along the street-facing edge of the site. Domnik Kini, president of the Dharavi Koli Jamat, is trying to adapt the existing stage on site to create facilities for fish processing. 

Young mothers and the elderly from Koliwada expressed the need for a garden, echoing the need of many Mumbaikars in a city starved of open spaces. 

With an ecologically sensitive approach, the Garden of Festivities project combines all these needs into a landscape intervention transforming the existing landfill. Once safe access is secured, the Dharavi Koliwada Fishermen's Association have proposed boat tours to raise awareness about the Mithi River's increasing pollution and deterioration. They believe that organising boat tours for concerned citizens will spotlight urban biodiversity, motivating them to take action to conserve the landscape. The urbz team has been on several excursions through the mangrove forest. Thanks to our friend Wilson Koli, we have had the chance to venture into the ponds on Hodi’s (Boats). The experience, despite all the visible waste and pollution, was profound. It was hard to believe we were gliding on a boat surrounded by mangroves amidst a concrete jungle. An experience that we too believe could be transformative for many Mumbaikars.

Curious about how these ponds came into existence, we asked Chandrakant, who was excited to reveal the process. He mentions a tool called a Talwar (Sword), a long, flat, sharp-tipped tool used to cut out chunks of earth, which were dumped along the edges of the pond. This strategic dumping and compacting created a bund wall around the estimated perimeter of the pond. The bund would eventually be taken over by mangroves, except for small suitable patches on which the Kolis grew vegetables and fruit trees. Chandrakant remembers digging ponds as a teenager. They would dig up to 2’ and leave the rest of the 6” to the fish. This, he explains, ensured that the fish could burrow into the soft pond bottom and carve out spaces to breed and establish nurseries. He smiles when he thinks back to how his father explained the importance of this joint effort between humans and fish to co-create this habitat. 

There is much to learn from ancient Amazonian cities that not only integrated food production but made it central to their urban logic. While we cannot turn back the clock and revive the gardened metropoles of the Amazon, we can learn from the living traditions and practices of the Kolis. The Garden of Festivities can unlock the potential for urban food production on an urbanising planet starved of holistic practices that can help repair our relationship with the natural world.  By avoiding fixed conceptions of which practices are ‘in’ or ‘out’ of place in the city, the project tries to inspire an alternative vision of the urban by recognising existing dynamics and embracing diversity. 

The Garden of Festivities project is conceptualised as more than a landscape architecture intervention, which is the first step towards restoring and preserving the larger amphibious landscape. The project, if successful, would be the first community-led, action-based intervention along the Mithi River that could bring a welcome twist in Mumbai’s story as a city, transforming the narrative of the Kolis from beyond their indigenous identity to a constitutive and highly relevant role in Mumbai’s emerging timeline.