Union Minister for Environment Bhupender Yadav set the ball rolling for the ‘Save Wetlands’ campaign across the country via a function held in Goa on Saturday. The campaign aimed at a holistic approach towards drawing attention to and conserving wetlands.
The initiative is a welcome one, especially since its calls for involving all strata of society, and affirmative action for wetlands conservation that will include sensitizing people to the value of wetlands, increasing the coverage of wetland mitras and building citizen partnerships for wetlands conservation.
Wetlands form a crucial part of our ecosystems and while disproportionate attention was given towards saving ‘forests’, other ecosystems including wetlands, grasslands and coastal ecosystems have been neglected from a conservation point of view allowing them to be ravaged by human ‘development’ and leaving little space and almost no protection for the animals that live in these spaces.
The challenge before the government, and all of us, is to not look at these newly notified wetlands as the beginning and the end of our responsibilities towards these ecosystems. As highlighted by the Union Minister, while the wetlands themselves will have the necessary legal protections, the areas surrounding the wetlands often become areas of high-density urban development and growth owing to the tourist potential of the wetland.
Expansive industrial estates on Goa’s plateaus, real estate projects, infrastructure projects, the list goes on. We have moved from living in a world where humans were confined to small enclaves -- villages and accompanying agricultural land -- while the left of the earth was left to the ‘wild’ to living in a world where the ‘wild’ is constrained to narrow notified enclaves while humans occupy the rest of the world.
Even as Yadav was celebrating his government’s initiatives in protecting wetlands, Goa stood exposed because people have been fighting to protect as unscrupulous elements are filling up spaces with impunity and constructions mushrooming right in the khazans in every nook and corner of the State.
A wetland isn’t just for birds and water-dwelling creatures but is also sometimes the only source of water and a valuable hunting ground for other predators who like to hang in the vicinity of a source of water where food is abundantly available.
For long the Goa government and the society at large, have convinced themselves that it is taking care of biodiversity and wildlife pointing to the number of wildlife sanctuaries and green areas Goa has and the area they occupy while simultaneously encroaching more and more spaces traditionally left for the animals.
According to the World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet 2022 report, monitored populations of vertebrates (mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish) have seen a devastating 69% drop on average since 1970. Habitat loss has been the biggest driver of the steep fall in wildlife populations.
It would be helpful if the government declares a buffer zone around notified wetlands to help them become healthy ecosystems and not just wildlife enclaves that society can use to convince itself that we are indeed taking care of the environment.
