In 2017, Shweta Hule and eight other women started a guided rowboat safari on Mandavi Creek in Maharashtra’s Sindhudurg district. Through Swamini, a self-help group, members rowed visitors through the mangroves and explained the plants and wildlife they encountered. The activity offered a way to earn income while encouraging visitors to value a habitat the women wanted protected for future generations. The details below describe the project as reported in 2020; its present-day operating status has not been verified.
How Swamini’s mangrove safari began
Shweta Hule noticed that tourists visiting nearby Goa often knew little about Mandavi Creek, near Vengurla. In 2017, she, her husband and eight other women launched a safari to introduce visitors to the creek and its mangroves.
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The group approached the Maharashtra Mangrove Cell, which was working with UNDP India on regional biodiversity. The resulting support helped Swamini get the equipment and training needed to run the activity. A project case study records two rowboats and 20 life jackets, along with training in mangrove interpretation and hospitality management. A 2020 account also reports that the group received two boats and life jackets, but does not give a number for the jackets.
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The 2020 reporting describes a rowboat route of about 1.5 kilometres into Mandavi Creek. One Swamini member rowed while another guided the visitors, explaining the mangroves and pointing out birds and other creek wildlife. The group also served Malvani cuisine, according to the project account.
Members had to learn both how to row and how to identify the plants they were introducing to visitors. After training, they could identify eight mangrove species by their local and scientific names. This combination of practical boating skills and local interpretation made the women active guides to the habitat, rather than simply boat operators.
Why conservation and income belong in the same story
Swamini’s stated motivation included both earning a livelihood and building awareness of mangroves. Member Sai Satardekar described the satisfaction of helping protect mangroves and making more people aware of their importance, “Protecting it for our children and coming generations.” The group’s approach reflects a broader ecotourism idea: create an ecological as well as economic incentive for local communities to conserve mangroves. N Vasudevan, then identified as principal chief conservator of forests at the Forest Development Corporation of Maharashtra, described that as the objective of such activities.
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The 2020 report said Swamini earned close to Rs 2,00,000 during a tourist season that began in October and ended early when pandemic lockdown measures began in March. That is a reported figure for one interrupted historical season, not audited accounts, a typical annual income, or an indication of present earnings.
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As regional context, the 2020 reporting cited Maharashtra Mangrove Cell figures showing the state’s mangrove cover rising from 186 square kilometres in 2011 to 320 square kilometres in 2019. The figures were attributed in that report to the Forest Survey of India’s State of Forest Report 2019. The same account reported Sindhudurg as having 12.19 square kilometres of the state’s 320 square kilometres of mangrove cover, or 3.8 percent.
These state and district figures describe mangrove area; they do not measure the effect of Swamini’s safari. The reporting does not establish that the group’s tourism activity caused any change in mangrove cover, nor does it provide a measured ecological impact for the safari.
Plans and related businesses reported in 2020
Swamini proposed a nursery to care for saplings and help restore degraded areas, but the group could not find suitable land and shelved the plan. The project case study also described a proposed interpretation centre and said the Forest Department had initiated plans to replicate the activity elsewhere on Maharashtra’s coast. Those were plans recorded in the project account, not confirmation that the nursery, centre or replication was subsequently completed.
The 2020 reporting also described an organic farm, an open-air restaurant using its vegetables and herbs, and an eco-stay run by Shweta Hule and her husband. These are historical descriptions only. The available reporting does not verify whether the safari, farm, restaurant or eco-stay is operating now, or provide current prices, schedules, visitor access or booking details.
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Swamini’s reported experience suggests useful questions for assessing community-led nature tourism, without establishing a formal comparison with other projects:
- Local participation: Who operates the activity, makes decisions and shares its benefits?
- Interpretation: Do guides help visitors understand the habitat and the reasons to protect it?
- Habitat safeguards: How does the activity limit disturbance or pressure on the ecosystem?
- Capacity and continuity: What training, equipment and continuing outside support does the group need?
The case documents training and local guiding, but does not provide enough information to assess all these questions for Swamini today. In particular, it does not establish current operating arrangements or measured conservation outcomes.
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