Miyawaki Urban Dense Forestation in Ulwe, Navi Mumbai.

Ulwe was built on cleared and filled land, so its streets and compounds have very few mature trees and little shade. Close-planted native thickets can raise real canopy on small scraps of ground: a society's corner plot, the edge of a school ground, the verge of an internal road. The fill is often compacted and poor, so we loosen and enrich it first, plant local species close together, and keep watering and weeding until the canopy closes and the patch can look after itself.

Ulwe is one of CIDCO's newest nodes, built on low land at Navi Mumbai's southern edge beside the new international airport. Paddy, salt pans and creek-side wetland once covered much of it, and preparing the airport site meant diverting the Ulwe river and cutting down a hill. Rows of residential towers now stand in its sectors, with many more under construction, and the sea link from Sewri comes ashore close by. Schools, shops and clinics are still arriving behind the residents. Flat, bare of old trees and half-built, it is filling up year by year.