​“What happens when we remove this natural infrastructure of the city? What happens if it floods? What happens if the air quality (index) goes really high?” asks Pooja Domadia, a member of the Save Mumbai Mangroves campaign. These are questions that many Mumbaikars have as work begins on the Versova-Bhayandar Coastal Road, which is set to affect 45,000 mangrove trees. In March this year, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition challenging the Bombay High Court order to greenlight the cutting of mangroves for the project. Is the SC decision a fatal blow to the movement? The BMC has already begun…

Urban biodiversity is often discussed in terms of tree cover, lakes, or flagship species, but far less attention is paid to pollinators—the insects and birds that quietly sustain urban ecosystems. In Bengaluru, a rapidly urbanising city with a strong culture of citizen science, large volumes of biodiversity data are now being generated by the public. But what does this data tell us about pollinators in the city? This article draws from a data jam hosted by OpenCity in Bengaluru that explored pollinator observations using publicly available, citizen-generated datasets. By analysing long-term observation records and spatial data on land use and…