How nine women are helping save India’s mangroves – with foraging and eco-tours
In a Maharashtra town that once relied on fishing, a women’s collective found boat safaris and edible wild plants pay – and help protect the forest
On a hot summer afternoon along the Mandavi River, Shweta Hule wraps her sari around her ankles and bends to her foraging, picking wild “weeds” from the creek and dropping them into a bowl. The plants will be made into fritters, to be served at the little restaurant attached to the B&B Hule manages in the Indian coastal town of Vengurla.
Wild edibles are common in kitchens here. Hule’s weed is sea purslane (Sesuvium portulacastrum) – known as khari or gole bhaji – a succulent that blooms with pink flowers and is found in mangrove forests. Harvesting some of the plant is helping conserve the mangroves, a globally endangered ecosystem of salt-tolerant trees that stop coastal erosion and absorb storm damage.
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