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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Mr. Prime Minister: Save the Wetlands of India

Mr. Prime Minister: Save the Wetlands of India

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published Published on Jun 15, 2016   modified Modified on Jun 15, 2016
-International Rivers

With an enduring drought ravaging many parts of the country, last month the Prime Minister waxed eloquent on the need to safeguard water during his monthly radio monologue. He raised some valid points on cropping patterns, frugal water use, collection and storage traditions etc., but he was conspicuously silent on the need to protect wetlands.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence then that the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change recently published a draft Wetland Rules, 2016. The new rules, to put it bluntly, will give land sharks further occasion to confine, constrain and encroach upon these critical ecosystems. The draft dilutes critical provisions and seeks to supersede the Wetland Rules of 2010, which first attempted to curb the unchecked land grab of our wetlands.

More than 50 million hectares in India are covered by wetlands by some estimates. These areas are incredibly important to the water cycle and mitigate the intensity of both floods and droughts. During dry periods, they retain water and recharge the aquifers. In the wet season, wetlands act like a sponge, absorbing excess water and reducing the volume of floods. Concretising and change of land use has and will continue to diminish the ability to endure a drought. On the flip side, recent floods in Srinagar and Chennai were exacerbated given the unchecked urban encroachment of wetlands.

The 2010 rules, even with their limitations, were the first legally enforceable rules for protecting wetlands in India. The rules tasked state governments with preparing a document that identifies and classifies wetlands within their jurisdiction within one year. To this day, not a single state government has done so. While activists have taken the fight to the National Green Tribunal, the new draft is contented to leave it to the state government to notify wetlands, but now without any stipulated timeframe. Rather than strengthening and enforcing the targets, the Environment Ministry has sought to abdicate its responsibility. It is most peculiar that neither any explanation for revising the Rules is given, nor any mention of the process.

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International Rivers, 13 June, 2016, https://www.internationalrivers.org/blogs/328/mr-prime-minister-save-the-wetlands-of-india


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