Wetland protection needs both Centre, states to act
The Wise Use framework has left a lot of ambiguity and allows a lot of latitude on wetland management
Given wetlands include village ponds, major lakes and everything in between, all of India’s 231,195 wetlands may not need protection. But just 102 of them being notified so far — the status creates a legal obligation to conserve these — underlines the scant attention paid to wetland preservation. Accounting for 4.8% of the country’s geographical area, wetlands are not just cornerstones of avian conservation but also render several ecosystem services depending on their location. High altitude wetlands play the role of conduits for glacial melt that feed rivers. Mangroves in coastal areas function as both important habitats and ingress buffers. Inland ones can be important drought and flood buffers. Beyond all this, they also directly support the livelihoods of 6% of the country’s population and act as important carbon sinks.
The Centre has pointed to the 2017 rules on wetland conservation to suggest that the ball is in the states’ court. The rules empower the latter to create the appropriate authority to notify wetlands and designate them as protected, even as wetlands of international importance under the Ramsar Convention are notified by the Centre. A certain lethargy evidently plagues the states, with even ground-truthing of the enumerated wetlands — ordered by the Supreme Court in December last year — happening at a glacial pace. Whether the lethargy is a symptom of a larger malaise of reluctance or mere administrative inertia needs to be ascertained. That notified wetland status will make alternative use of the area difficult could plausibly explain the states’ unwillingness.
That said, the Wetland Wise Use framework, released by the Centre last year, to facilitate implementation of the 2017 Rules has allowed significant latitude on wetland management. While it was intended to facilitate greater local say, the flipside is that it has injected enough ambiguity to allow states to ignore conservation needs. This must change.