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Dwarka Forest: A respite through the cracks of the city's concrete
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Authors
Nirjesh Gautam 
Abstract
Urban expansion has increasingly produced landscapes that fall outside conventional ecological and legal classifications, yet perform critical ecological and social functions. Dwarka Forest, located in southwest Delhi, represents one such landscape. Emerging through decades of spontaneous vegetation growth on land originally acquired for infrastructure development, the site has developed into a heterogeneous urban woodland supporting diverse plant and animal assemblages, including native tree species, migratory birds, and large herbivores. Despite its ecological significance, the forest lacks formal recognition within prevailing forest governance frameworks. This report documents the ecological emergence, land-use history, and governance challenges associated with Dwarka Forest through a synthesis of field observations, biodiversity records, official planning and forest department documents, and legal proceedings before the National Green Tribunal and the Supreme Court of India. By situating Dwarka Forest within the literature on novel ecosystems and urban-industrial woodlands, the report argues that existing binary distinctions between forest and non-forest land are inadequate for understanding urban ecological processes. The case highlights how spontaneous urban woodlands contribute to biodiversity persistence, microclimatic regulation, and everyday human–nature interactions, while remaining vulnerable to redevelopment due to regulatory invisibility. The findings underscore the need for process-based and context-sensitive approaches to urban ecological governance that account for emergent ecosystems within rapidly transforming cities.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.32942/X2XQ07
Subjects
Arts and Humanities, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Keywords
spontaneous woodland, novel ecosystems, urban planning, environmental justice
Dates
Published: 2026-02-19 17:19
License
CC BY Attribution 4.0 International
Additional Metadata
Conflict of interest statement:
None
Data and Code Availability Statement:
Not applicable
Language:
English
Comment #273 Nirjesh Gautam @ 2026-02-19 18:40
This report emerges from my sustained engagement with a neglected green space in New Delhi, India. I have been associated with the site for over three years and have interacted closely with a wide range of people who value this space and have been collectively, including through legal means, working to protect it. The ecological perspectives presented in this report arise from a broader concern that relatively limited research in India has focused on urban ecological contexts, particularly those outside formally recognised green spaces. The attention to human habitation around the forest is shaped by my own positionality as a Dalit researcher. For many marginalised communities, nature functions not merely as an abstract ecological entity but as a vital resource. As scholars and activists from these communities have long argued, the physicality of the land has often provided forms of relief, care, and sustenance where urban policies and development agendas have failed to recognise or include them. During my collaborations with organisations such as Greenpeace, Fridays for Future, and several smaller, less visible groups, I observed that discussions around the forest frequently centred on its role as a “green lung” for the city. In these narratives, the everyday lives of communities living alongside the forest—often those most directly dependent on it and simultaneously living under conditions of precarity and inequality—were largely overlooked. Through this report, I seek to place these ecological and social perspectives together and to bring them into conversation for urban ecologists, planners, and policymakers. I aim to broaden the framework through which urban green spaces are understood, beyond purely ecological or aesthetic values, to include questions of access, livelihood, and environmental justice.