Miyawaki Urban Dense Forestation in Kamothe, Panvel.

Kamothe has little spare ground, but it does have edges: the boundary of a school, the strip beside a railway station approach, the margin of a reserved plot. A dense native planting a few metres wide along such an edge gives shade and birds where there were none. The ground is usually packed fill that stays soggy through the rains, so the beds are built up and enriched, the species list favours trees happy with wet feet, and watering continues until the second summer has passed.

Kamothe is a CIDCO residential node between Kharghar and Kalamboli, south of the Sion–Panvel highway, opposite Kharghar. It is made almost entirely of housing: sectors of mid-rise society buildings, with shops on the ground floor along the main roads, schools, small parks and the village that gave the node its name. Mansarovar and Khandeshwar stations on the harbour line serve it. Much of the land sits low, sloping towards creek and marsh in the west, and rain drains slowly in heavy spells. The node filled up fast, and its oldest buildings now need looking after.