Wetlands and Ramsar sites

Wetlands are areas where water covers the soil, or is near the surface, for at least part of the year: lakes, marshes, mangroves, floodplains, estuaries and even some paddy fields. They are among the most productive ecosystems on earth, and the most undervalued. They store floodwater, recharge groundwater, filter pollutants, support fisheries, and provide habitat for migratory birds and other wildlife. When a wetland is drained for building or farming, a city loses a free flood defence and a water filter at the same time.

The Ramsar Convention, signed in 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar, is the international treaty for wetland conservation. Countries designate wetlands of international importance as Ramsar sites and commit to their wise use, a term that means use that maintains the wetland's ecological character. India became a party to the Convention in the early 1980s, and its first Ramsar sites date to that period. Since then the list has grown to dozens of sites across the country, from high-altitude lakes in Ladakh to coastal lagoons and inland tanks.

Domestic protection comes from the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules of 2017, which require states to identify wetlands, prepare management plans, and regulate activities such as draining, dumping and construction within them. Enforcement is uneven, because wetlands sit at the junction of revenue land, forest land, fisheries and urban development, and different departments often claim different parts of the same wetland. Encroachment for housing, roads and agriculture remains the main threat, alongside pollution from sewage and industrial effluent.

Two well-known examples show both value and vulnerability. Chilika Lake in Odisha, a brackish lagoon, supports a large fishery and migratory birds, and its management has involved opening a new sea mouth to restore salinity and fish stocks, an intervention that worked but also showed how engineering a wetland changes its ecology. Keoladeo National Park in Rajasthan, a managed wetland, depends on water releases for its birds, showing that some wetlands need active human management, not simply protection from people.

For civil studies, wetlands are a reminder that conservation is not only about forests and tigers. A small urban lake or a village tank can matter more for flood safety, groundwater and livelihoods than a distant reserve, and its loss is often irreversible once it is built over.