About Us

Marine Life of Mumbai (MLOM) is a citizen science community dedicated to documenting the coastal and intertidal biodiversity of Mumbai’s shores.

Mumbai is a city defined by the sea. Its coastline stretches across rocky shores, sandy beaches, and mudflats; each habitat teeming with life that most people walk past without a second glance.MLOM exists to change that. We believe that the first step toward protecting Mumbai’s marine environment is helping people see it, understand it, and fall in love with it.

Our work begins with making Mumbai’s marine world visible. Online, we share the stories of species and shores with a growing community on instagram. On the ground, we take people directly to the coast; organising walks on rocky shores, sandy beaches, through mangroves, and to fish landing centres, where the relationship between the city and the sea comes into sharp focus.

We also work closely with schools and colleges to build lasting connections between young people and the coast. Our educational engagements are designed for every age and context — from short introductory sessions and workshops to specially-designed longer-term engagements for CAS projects. However brief or extended the engagement, the goal is the same: to leave students with a genuine curiosity about the natural world around them.

Underpinning all of this is a commitment to rigorous, community-driven documentation. MLOM hosts an open-access database of intertidal biodiversity observations from across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region on iNaturalist, with over 14,000 observations of more than 700 species from the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. It is the longest running marine biodiversity monitoring project in the country.

At the heart of this effort is citizen science, the belief that conservation cannot happen without the people who call this coastline home. By involving Mumbai’s citizens directly in data collection, we make them active participants in understanding and protecting the marine environment on their doorstep.