The Union environment ministry on Wednesdayannounced that India has added 10 more wetlands, taking the total Ramsar sitesto 64.?
¡°Absolutely thrilled to inform that 10 more Indian wetlands have got Ramsar recognition as wetlands of international importance,¡± Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav said in a tweet.
The 10 new sites ¡ª six in Tamil Nadu and one each in Goa, Karnataka,Madhya Pradesh and Odisha ¡ª encompass an area of 1,51,842.41 hectares, bringingIndia¡¯s total wetland area to 1.2 million hectares.
The sites are?Koothankulam Bird Sanctuary?, Gulf of Mannar MarineBiosphere Reserve, Vembannur Wetland Complex, Vellode Bird Sanctuary,Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary and Udhayamarthandapuram Bird Sanctuary, all inTamil Nadu, Satkosia Gorge in Odisha, Nanda Lake in Goa, Ranganathittu BirdSanctuary in Karnataka, and Sirpur Wetland in Madhya Pradesh.
Until 2012, India had 26 Ramsar sites, with the last decade witnessing a meteoric rise.?On July 26, Mr. Yadav announced that India had added five Ramsarsites, The Hindu reported.
Ramsar wetlands now comprise around 10% of the total wetland area in the country.
Being designated one, however, doesn¡¯t necessarily invite extrainternational funds but that States ¡ªand the Centre ¡ª must ensure that thesetracts of land are conserved and spared from man-made encroachment. Acquiringthis label also helps with a locale¡¯s tourism potential and its internationalvisibility.
To be a Ramsar site, however, it must meet at least one of the ninecriteria as defined by the Ramsar Convention of 1971, such as supportingvulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered species or threatenedecological communities or, if it regularly supports 20,000 or more waterbirdsor, is an important source of food for fishes, spawning ground, nursery and/ormigration path on which fish stocks are dependent upon.
The National Wetland Inventory and Assessment compiled by the IndianSpace Research Organisation (ISRO), estimates India¡¯s wetlands to span around1,52,600 square kilometres, which is 4.63% of the total geographical area ofthe country.
A little over two-fifths are inland natural wetlands and about a quarterare coastal wetlands. India has 19 types of wetlands. Gujarat has the maximumarea followed by Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
Wetlands in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat serve as important spaces formigratory birds. Wetlands are also known to have among the highest soil-carbondensities and therefore play a major role in buffering carbon dioxideemissions.
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