Wetlands in Crisis

Representatives of 158 nations have converged in Changwon, South Gyongsang province of South Korea for eight days, from October 27 to November 4, 2008 to discuss ways to save the world's wetlands.

Wetlands were regarded simply as useless areas when countries concentrated on land development. But they came to recognize the value of wetlands--the immensely important asset of mankind—and the Ramsar Convention was eventually created. The conference is held every three years on alternating continents. The international treaty was adopted in the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1971 to protect wetlands for water birds. South Korea joined the convention in 1997.

The Ramsar Convention is an intergovernmental treaty for the conservation and use of wetlands. Ramsar Convention refers to the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance.

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) serves as Depositary for the Convention, but the Ramsar Convention is not part of the United Nations and UNESCO system of environment conventions and agreements.

The 10th Meeting of the Convention that is underway is deliberating under a theme ‘Healthy Wetlands, Healthy People'.

Under the Ramsar Convention a wide variety of natural and human-made habitat types, ranging from rivers to coral reefs, can be classified as wetlands. Wetlands include swamps, marshes, billabongs, lakes, salt marshes, mudflats, mangroves, coral reefs, fens, peat bogs, or bodies of water - whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary. Water within these areas can be static or flowing; fresh, brackish or saline; and can include inland rivers and coastal or marine water to a depth of six meters at low tide. There are even underground wetlands.

Countries that joined the convention had agreed to protect the ecological character of listed sites, include wetland conservation within their national land-use planning and also establish nature reserves on wetlands and promote wetland training.

In India, wetlands are distributed in all the biogeographic regions and exhibit significant ecological diversity, primarily because of the variability in climate, geology, habitat and topography. Wetlands provide a multitude of services, including water purification and regulation of flows, fisheries, habitats for plants, animals and micro-organisms, opportunities for recreation and tourism, and so
forth

The Ramsar Convention came into force in 1975; there are 157 Contracting Parties. In all, 1,704 wetland sites have been designated as Ramsar sites, with a total area of 152 million hectares.

India became a Contracting Party to the Convention in October 1981, and designated the Chilika Lake (Orissa) and the Keoladeo National Park (Rajasthan) as its first two Ramsar sites. Four additional sites were designated in 1990: Sambhar Lake (Rajasthan), Loktak Lake (Manipur), Harike Lake (Punjab), and Wular Lake (Jammu & Kashmir). In 2000, the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, identified 13 new wetlands and designated them as Ramsar sites. The decision came in the wake of the announcement by the Government at the 7th Conference of the Parties to the Ramsar Convention (COP7) held at San Jose (Costa Rica) in May 1999. In 2005, six more sites were designated as Ramsar Sites. At present, 25 wetlands have been designated as Ramsar sites in India.

However, these 25 Ramsar sites do not represent even a fraction of the diversity of wetland habitats existing in the country. In India, the Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF) is the nodal agency for implementing the conservation programme on wetlands, mangroves and coral reefs.

Started in the 1980s, the programme is guided by a National Committee on Wetlands, Mangroves and Coral Reefs, constituted to advise the government on appropriate policies and programmes for the conservation of these ecosystems, to suggest specific sites for conservation action, and to identify research and training priorities. Several wetland sites in the country have been selected on a priority basis for conservation and management action, financial support for which is being extended by the Ministry.

Ten biogeographic zones have been identified in India: Trans-Himalaya, Himalaya, Semi-arid, Desert, Gangetic Plain, Deccan, Western Ghats, North-east, Coasts and Islands.

Among other palces, the Gangetic plain is one of the most fertile regions of the world, with a nearly 3,000 year history of human occupation. This region is famous for its flood plain wetlands — results of copious rainfall in the Gangetic Plain and also in the Himalaya from where most of the rivers originate. Large areas areannually flooded and when the flood recedes, it leaves low-lying areas under water. These wetlands are extremely productive in terms of vegetation biomass and avian diversity.

Some of the most important wetland Important Bird Areas (IBAs) and potential Ramsar Sites are found in this region with significant populations of waterfowl. Sultanpur in Gurgaon, Bhindawas in Rohtak, Patna jheel in Etah, Lakh-Bahosi in Farrukhabad, Saman in Mainpuri, Sandi in Hardoi, Kawar in Begusarai and Nawabganj in Unnao, are some of the more spectacular wetlands for migratory waterfowl in winter.

The marshes and wetlands of the Gangetic drainage system show a long history of stability in the geological sense.

The flood plains of the Brahmaputra and the marshes and swamps in the hills of north-east India and the Himalayan foothills are important for humans and biodiversity. The Brahmaputra Valley, with its high rainfall and numerous rivers provide wintering grounds to large congregations of waterbirds.

Most of these waterbirds are migratory while some are resident and breed in this region. The wetlands of this region support a number of threatened species; a number of IBAs and potential Ramsar Sites have been identified in this region.

The coastal areas of India perhaps form the most neglected biogeographic zone of India, mainly because they do not have charismatic species such as the Tiger and the Rhinoceros.

The existing Ramsar site list of 25 sites in India clearly proves that all the biogeographical regions of India are not properly represented, and some of the potential sites are missing, e.g. many important sites in the Gangetic Plain, North-east, Semi-Arid, Desert and Deccan.

Under the Important Bird Areas Programme of the BNHS and BirdLife International has prepared a list of additional 135 wetlands which are potential Ramsar Sites. It has identified potential Ramsar Sites mainly based on their biodiversity values, which was the original aim of the Ramsar Convention.

It is hoped that many of these potential sites will be considered by the Government of India under the Ramsar Convention.

Note:The above compilation is based on Ramsar Convention's website and an editorial of Journal of Bombay Natural History Society, 104(2), May-Aug 2007