World Wetlands Day on Tuesday: Did anyone celebrate?

The Times of India , Wednesday, February 03, 2016
Correspondent : Vijay Pinjarkar
Nagpur: Even as the country celebrated World Wetlands Day on February 2, there is a regulatory vacuum around wetlands. This includes Ramsar wetlands, wetlands of national importance as well as interstate wetlands.

The day is celebrated across the world to commemorate the Convention on Wetlands held in Ramsar (Iran) in 1971. It is an intergovernmental treaty which provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for wetlands' conservation.

"We have little to celebrate. When I talked to a member of the Maharashtra State Wetland Authority (MSWA), he had no idea about the status of this authority under the forest department. It has never met and there has been no communication from the government with the members of the authority about its status," said ParineetaDandekar, co-convener of South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRAP), Pune.

On August 22, 2012 TOI was first to report that Maharashtra has identified six wetlands including the ecologically sensitive Navegaon and Lonar lakes in Vidarbha to be listed under the National Wetland Conservation Programme (NWCP). However, nothing has been done in this direction.

On March 1, ministry of environment, forests and climate change (MoEFCC) had asked the state to send a list of wetlands for notification under new Wetland Regulatory Rules 2010.

Accordingly, state had decided to include six wetlands — Sewri Creek (Mumbai), Jaikwadi (Aurangabad), Ujni (Solapur), Navegaon Bandh (Gondia), NandurMadhmeshwar (Nashik), and Lonar (Buldhana) under Ramsar sites. However, these wetlands are facing regulatory vacuum and lack of protection.

PrafullaBhamburkar of Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) says, "Even as the country is losing its wetlands at an alarming rate of 38%, our wetlands are ungoverned and unprotected. We have not learnt lessons on importance of wetlands, which are flood regulators, even after Chennai and Kashmir deluge."

"After Wetlands Rules 2010 were notified with much fanfare under the Environment Protection Act 1986, it was hoped that there will be clarity and direction in protection of wetlands in the country. However, even 6 years after the notification of Wetlands Rules, there is no National Wetlands Authority," says Himanshu Thakkar, convener of SANDRAP.

Shockingly, Thakkar says the National Wetlands Authority, formed post Wetlands Rules 2010, has never met since April 2012. The term of the authority has ended and new authority has not been constituted.

"When we discussed the issue with MoEFCC, we were told that this is due to integration of National Lake Conservation Program (NLCP) and National Wetlands Conservation Program (NWCP) into a National Program on Conservation of Aquatic Ecosystems (NPCA). However, this integration was announced in 2013, and should have been notified promptly thereafter. New NPCA guidelines mean that the entire Wetland (Protection) Rules will be redrafted but the NPCA guidelines are still not formulated.

"There is no clear road map for wetlands in Vidarbha. We are gifted with so many big water bodies but all these wetlands are neglected. The government is spending crores of rupees on JAL Yukta Shivar scheme but has failed to rejuvenate existing wetlands," said SawanBahekar, honorary wildlife warden of Gondia, which has over 100 lakes.

"Our track record of wetlands protection is dismal. There is little effective regulation of wetlands in India. In a changing climate, wetlands play a critical role in achieving better adaptation, besides integral providing goods and services like drinking water supply, flood cushioning, fisheries, carbon sequestering, biodiversity habitat, coastal protection, groundwater recharge, cultural and aesthetic values," said Koustav Chatterjee of Green Vigil.

 
SOURCE : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/World-Wetlands-Day-on-Tuesday-Did-anyone-celebrate/articleshow/50827628.cms
 


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