“The most potent threat faced by the earth and human civilization as a whole which is confronted with, today, is environmental degradation and wildlife degeneration.” No, this is not a statement by Greta Thunberg, but a recent proclamation of the Supreme Court of India while quashing the clearance of a high-profile housing project near an urban wetland protected today as a Wildlife Sanctuary.

Judicial and administrative overreach with regard to wetlands is not particularly unique to India. Since wetlands are, by definition, fuzzy intermediaries between land and water, pulsating with the seasons, but providing a range of services necessary to support both human and wildlife, there are bound to be conflicts in their management, particularly in the urban context where land is real estate and wetland is often confused with wasteland.

Of the over 600 protected areas notified under the Wildlife Protection Act (1972, 1991) in India, nearly 70 are wetlands. Wetlands in India are protected through another over a dozen laws variously related to fisheries, forestry, biodiversity, etc. Presently, 27 wetlands are also designated by India as internationally important, under the Ramsar Convention. However, wetland conservation needs more than protecting a few well-known ecosystems like those at Chilika or Bharatpur. There is presently a roster of over 750,000 wetlands identified in India, including over 2 lakhs that can be studied through remote-sensing data. Generic rules are necessary, and some of these are now emerging.

In 1999, a public interest litigation (PIL) led the Rajasthan High Court to issue directives for the conservation of lakes in 2007. PILs were filed again in 2010 when Vardha Enterprises sought to construct a hotel on an island in the Udaisagar lake and a Division Bench of the High Court quashed the clearances given by the State Government. Vardha appealed to the Supreme Court which not only set aside the rulings of the High Court but ordered the Urban Improvement Trust to pay a fine to Vardha in 2014.

The Government of India notified the Wetland (Conservation and Management) Rules 2010 creating a Central Wetlands Regulatory Authority (CWRA). However, even before the CWRA could become functional, the rules were amended in 2016 delegating significant powers and responsibilities to the State Governments. Following directives by the apex court in 2017, governments have now constituted state wetland authorities, listed urban and rural wetlands and began collecting data on hydrology, ecology and rights and privileges of local communities in and around a few of the prioritized wetlands in each state.

Meanwhile, unprecedented levels of water extraction in rural areas and real estate development in urban areas have posed a major threat to the continued existence of many wetlands. While no proper estimate of wetland loss has been attempted so far, there is enough anecdotal and obvious evidence of shrinkage and loss of water bodies all over the country. The apex court itself has rued the vanishing wetlands in Chennai, Bhopal, Bengaluru and Kolkata, and suggested that these might have played a role in increasing incidences of floods. While the river Ganga is blamed for the recent Patna floods, the fact that the city sits on the river floodplain, with real estate development obliterating nearly all its waterbodies, is perhaps yet to be recognized.
#keepWetlands #keepWetlandsOrSink https://www.newdelhitimes.com/wetlands-can-boost-urban-real-estate/