In August 2021, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change announced the addition of 4 more wetlands from India, 2 each from Gujarat and Haryana in ‘The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance/ Ramsar Convention.
Key Points:
i.Ramsar sites that are included:
- Thol Lake Wildlife Sanctuary, Gujarat
- Wadhvana Wetland, Gujarat
- Sultanpur National Park, Gurgaon, Haryana
- Bhindawas Wildlife Sanctuary, Jhajjar, Haryana
ii.With this, the number of Ramsar sites in India became 46 and the surface area covered by the Ramsar sites became 1,083,322 hectares.
iii.Haryana got its 1st Ramsar sites and Gujarat’s total sites count reached 3 (along with Nalsarovar, which was declared in 2012).
About the Ramsar sites in brief:
a.Thol Lake Wildlife Sanctuary, Gujarat
i.It lies on the Central Asian Flyway and includes more than 320 bird species.
ii.It supports more than 30 threatened waterbird species, such as the critically endangered White-rumped Vulture and Sociable Lapwing , and the vulnerable Sarus Crane, Common Pochard, and Lesser White-fronted Goose.
iii.The two most prominent species of birds recorded in the sanctuary are flamingoes and sarus crane (Grus antigone).
b.Wadhvana Wetland, Gujarat
i.It provides wintering ground to migratory waterbirds, including over 80 species that migrate on the Central Asian Flyway.
ii.The species include some threatened or near-threatened species such as the endangered Pallas’s fish-Eagle, the vulnerable Common Pochard, and the near-threatened Dalmatian Pelican, Grey-headed Fish-eagle, and Ferruginous Duck.
c.Sultanpur National Park, Gurgaon, Haryana –
i.It ia national park that covers 353 acres of area and supports ~220 species of resident, winter migratory and local migratory waterbirds at critical stages of their life cycles.
ii.More than 10 of those species are globally threatened, including the critically endangered sociable lapwing, and the endangered Egyptian Vulture, Saker Falcon, Pallas’s Fish Eagle and Black-bellied Tern.
iii.The status of the park was upgraded to National Park under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 in July 1991.
d.Bhindawas Wildlife Sanctuary, Jhajjar, Haryana :
i.It is the largest human-made freshwater wetland in Haryana, it covers 1000 acres of areas and supports over 250 bird species throughout the year.
ii.It supported more than 10 globally threatened species such as the endangered Egyptian Vulture, Steppe Eagle, Pallas’s Fish Eagle, and Black-bellied Tern.
About Ramsar Convention:
i.The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands is an intergovernmental treaty that was recognised by the United Nations (UN) and registered with the UN. The Secretariat of the Ramsar Convention is hosted & administered by International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
ii.It provides framework for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources.
iii.Ramsar sites are the wetlands of international importance that have been designated under the criteria of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
iv.The Convention was adopted in the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1971 and came into force in 1975.
v.Criteria:
A site needs to meet one or more of the following criteria to get the Ramsar Site tag
- The site should contain a representative or rare example of wetland
- It should support vulnerable or endangered species
- Need to support species of important or biological diversity and species at a critical stage in their life cycle.
- Support 20,000 or more waterbirds, 1 percent population of one waterbird species,1 percent of wetland-dependent animal species, and indegenous fish species.
vi.Objective of Ramsar Convention: To develop and maintain an international network of wetlands which are important for the conservation of global biological diversity and for sustaining human life through the maintenance of their ecosystem components, processes and benefits.
Wetlands:
i.Ramsar convention’s definition of wetlands includes – lakes, rivers, underground aquifers, swamps & marshes, wet grasslands, peatlands, oases, estuaries, deltas & tidal flats, mangroves & other coastal areas, coral reefs.
ii.It also adds human-made sites such as fish ponds, rice paddies, reservoirs.
iii.World Wetlands Day will be celebrated on February 2nd every year . The theme of 2021 is “Wetland and Water”.
Recent Related News:
2 sites from India were added to the World Heritage List at the 44th Session of the World Heritage Committee (WHC) which was held in Fuzhou, China from July 16-31, 2021.
They are Kakatiya Rudreshwara (Ramappa) Temple, Telangana (Cultural Site) and Dholavira: a Harappan City, Gujarat (Cultural Site).
About Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change:
Union Minister – Bhupender Yadav (Constituency – Rajasthan)
Minister of State – Ashwini Kumar Choubey (Constituency – Buxar, Bihar)
