States not responding, centre to protect important wetlands:Ramesh

Union minister of state for Environment and Forests(Independent charge) Shri Jairam Ramesh while delivering an address at Ahmedabad’s Space Application Centre(ISRO) on “National Wetland Inventory and Assessment Project” today said central government will designate important wetlands of the country with aim to protect them.

Ramesh said, “For the first time on 4 December, 2010, my ministry promulgated the wetland regulation framework under the Environment protection act and we set up a national wetland regulatory authority under the Chairmanship of Secretary, ministry of Environment and Forest.”

“While initially the regulation was limited to 25 of the most important wetlands of our country protected under the Ramsar convention, we knew there are more number of important wetlands, but we didn’t have database of wetlands in various states. We were dependent on state government for recognition of wetland. Six months back letters were sent to all state governments including the Gujarat government asking to recognize and designate the wetlands but none of the states has yet not replied, and that is because they don’t want to reply because wetlands are very easy area to lease out or to sell. State governments classify wetlands as waste land, and in state after state wetlands are under threat from real estate lobby, highway construction, cement factory and variety of other usage, because very often the states do not recognize the true value of wetland. We in the central government also do it. And I think for the first time thanks to ISRO particularly SAC we now have comprehensive data base on wetlands in India.,” Ramesh further said.

“It is now that we have the detail atlas of wetlands in every state, and with the help of this data the central govt can change action on its own to designate important wetland as protected bodies and this is what we want to do. I will use the authority of central govt to designate important wetlands based on the satellite imagery database so that we can protect them,” Jairam Ramesh added.

Ramesh said, “ISRO’s finding is very important that total area under wetland in this country is 10 million ha which is 3%(excluding rivers) of our total geographical area. This is not a small area and this large area must be protected and enriched. For the first time we now have categorization of wetlands into natural, man-made, coastal, Indian and total 19 different categories which is enormously valuable for my ministry and for the states who are entrusted the responsibility to protect it.”

Ramesh congratulated SAC-ISRO team for including high altitude wetlands for the first time in their survey as it is very important for ecological and strategic point of view.

He asked SAC-ISRO team to publish all their findings and reports on wetland study online so that they can be used not only for PhD and academic study but for the people at large. “You should put all data released here online before 2.00 pm. There should be free exchange of information. Not just studying, but it is publishing that would help our science to peak up.

Ramesh would like to see Gujarat’s Nal Sarovar getting Ramsar site status

Speaking at SAC-ISRO about wetlands, Jairam Ramesh said it was sad that Gujarat has no Ramsar site while there are total 25 sites in India, four in J&K, 3 in Kerala, Himachal each, and 2 in Orissa. Ramesh then said, “I was just talking to my collegue Dr. Nanda(Principal Secretary, Enviornment and Forest ministry, Gujarta) and he told me that Gujarat govt has sent an application for Nal Sarovar’s Ramsar status and I said I would certainly like to do that.”

It should be mentioned that the project “National Wetland Inventory and Assessment” formulated by Space Application Centre, ISRO, Ahmedabad, was approved and funded by central Environment and Forest ministry. All wetlands classified into 19 types were mapped at 1:50,000 scale using latest IRS LISS III images. The database were organized at district level(612 maps), and state/UT level. In addition maps of selected important wetlands(150 sites) like Ramsar sites were prepared with a 5 km buffer area.

According to the latest available data through this study, total wetland area in India is estimated 1,52,44,828 ha(15.245 Mha) which is around 4.64% of the total geographic area of the country. If we exclud the rivers, the total area estimated area comes to 10 Mha.

High Altitude Himalayan wetlands nestled in the rugged terrain of Himalayas at different elevation ranges have been mapped for the first time. Total 4703 lakes with 126249 ha area are reported that iye above 3000 m elevation. Chholhamu Lake(102.5 ha) in Sikkim, at 5,486 m elevation is the highest lake mapped. It is the origin of the river Teesta. Pangong Tso in Jammu and Kashmir with 29345 ha area at 4350 m is the largest high altitude lake.

Total 19 state level atlases, one national atlas and one brochure were today released by Jairam Ramesh. The atlases books were presented to representative of respected state during the function.