Dwarka Forest: A respite through the cracks of the city's concrete

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

spontaneous woodland, novel ecosystems, urban planning, environmental justice Dates Published: 2026-02-19 18:19 License CC BY Attribution 4.0 International Additional Metadata Conflict of interest statement: None Data and Code Availability Statement: Not applicable Language: English