Save northeast wetlands for human well being

Dr Debapriya Mukherjee *

Phumdis in Loktak lake :: Pix - Thingom Premarani

Maintaining healthy ecosystems is cost effective whereas restoration of contaminated ecosystems is cost prohibitive. To what extent do concerned authorities in India have high values and regards for the environment, especially wetlands considering its value in human life? Are they doing it right?

The wetlands are the most productive ecosystem in the world that provides food, agricultural production, ûsheries, water quality maintenance and recreation and also one of the key life support systems on Earth, acting to purify water, control ûoods, replenish groundwater and recycle nutrients. All these beneûts or services that wetland ecosystems provide are essential for people's livelihoods – particularly in developing countries like India.

Despite these benefits, wetlands are consistently being destroyed, devastated, contaminated and converted to other land uses at a rate more rapid than any other ecosystem. In this context, it is pertinent to mention that ecosystem services provided by the wetlands are not being fully captured in commercial markets and as a result not adequately valued during development decisions in India.

India has about 757.06 thousand wetlands with a total wetland area of 15.3 m ha, accounting for nearly 4.7% of the total geographical area of the country . Out of this, area under inland wetlands accounts for 69%, coastal wetlands 27%, and other wetlands (smaller than 2.25 ha) 4%. Among them, 26 sites have been designated as Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar Sites), with a surface area of 689,131 hectares covering the many states in India. The Northeast covering seven states has a vast network (7731 medium to large and 11736 small) of wetlands constituted by ponds, marshes, rivers, lake, water-logged area, ox-bow lakes and reservoirs covering an area of 1.66 million hectares that is around 4.17% of total geographical area of NE.

All these wetlands are distributed among the seven states ( Assam- 3513 including Deepar beel, Island Majuli and others; Arunachal Pradesh -43; Nagaland-267 including Doyang lake, chte reservoir; Manipur-167 including Loktak lake, Mizoram -88, Tripura-432 including Kuda sagar, Gomti reservoir, Sipahijala reservoir and others, Meghalaya- 135 including Barapani lake, Sikkim-160 wetlands greater than 2.25 ha including Gurudokmar Tso and Lashar Marsh Land ).

The NE forms a complex geomorphology with vast flood plains, valleys, hills and ridges of varying elevations and shares a common migration route for many of the avifauna that flies over Bhutan, Tibet, China, Myanmar and Bangladesh. The rural landscape of the state is endowed with wetlands of various types identifiable on the basis of their micro-geomorphic characteristics and associated human response and perception.

The pattern of their utility also varies according to the social background, tradition and economic condition of the people around the rural lives in NE are intrinsically linked mainly with the subsistence mode of farming, livestock rearing and traditional fishing closely connected with the wetlands. However, with the modernization of society, particularly during the last few decades, the traditional use of wetlands has experienced remarkable changes.

The overexploitation of wetland resources, irrational mode of fishing, invasion by weeds, siltation, proliferation of invasive species, change of land use patterns and developmental activities and pollution caused have posed serious threats to the wetland ecosystems leading to partial or complete loss of the wetland habitats. Many birds and other species are reported to be absented themselves from these areas due to loss, fragmentation and degradation of their habitat. Our study clearly reveled that increment of pollutant load in wetlands far exceed their capacity to retain pollutants and remove them through nitriûcation, sedimentation, adsorption, and uptake by aquatic plants.

This adversely affects the wetland water quality; contamination of vegetables and crops; the cradles of biodiversity and key constituents of our environment. In addition, the continued poverty among the villagers, their ignorance and indifferent attitude towards the wetlands and unsustainable ownership pattern have also adversely affected the wetland ecosystems.

Moreover, lack of proper attention to the rural situations; defective development policy instruments particularly those based on macro-regional considerations; social inequalities and poor planning amplifying the environmental pressures of economic expansion and profit-maximization approaches by the exponential growth of real-estate markets have significantly impaired the wetlands. The concerned authorities do not realize the importance of holistically analysing the complex eco-social systems of these wetland as per the guidelines of Ramsar convention and role of the local community who gained it as Ramsar site to explore the different strands of urban ecology ecosystem.

The continued spree of loss and degradation of these wetlands in different parts of the NE has over a period of time brought the ever-deepening ecological crisis to the fore. The status of three wetlands in the northeast – Deepor Beel in Assam, Loktak Lake in Manipur and Rudrasagar Lake in Tripura- recognized as Ramsar sites is the clear evident of poor environment governance as discussed below .

Deepor Beel

The Deepor Beel wetland area of 4000 ha housing 219 species of birds including more than 70 migratory species; and wild asian elephants, leopard, jungle cat and the protected barking deer, Chinese porcupine and sambar and providing natural resources for the livelihood of 14 indigenous villages has reduced to 405 ha due to continuous encroachment and waste dumping. In January 2006, nine storks were found dead due to severe environmental pollution originating from domestic and industrial sources. Construction of a broad gauge railway line has badly blocked the centuries-old elephant corridor.

Loktak Lake

Loktak Lake in Manipur is well known for the phumdis (heterogeneous mass of vegetation) floating over it and the Keibul Lamjao National Park located on this phumdi is the only floating national park in the world, and home to the endangered Sangai and Manipur brown-antlered deer. The lake's rich biological diversity comprises 233 species of aquatic macrophytes of emergent, sub-emergent, free-floating and rooted floating leaf types and 57 species of water bird. Development activities such as hydropower generation, irrigation and drinking water supply for economic expansion are the major stress factors and cause rapid conversion to other uses and their function in a wider economic sense.

Rudrasagar Lake

Rudrasagar Lake, a unique natural sedimentation reservoir, receives water from three perennial streams and removes the sediment from the water and discharges into the river Gumati through a connective channel — Kachigang. Among the rarer species recorded are the endangared Baer's Pochard and near-threatened Ferruginous Duck. Uncontrolled Growth of invasive aquatic weeds like water hyacinth has created anoxic conditions in the lake, thus raising toxicity and disease levels leading to loss of aquatic biodiversity mainly due to dumping of garbage, deposition of solid waste and storage of construction materials along the shoreline . In addition to these, large-scale use of pesticides and fertilizers in the area adjacent to the lake is posing threat to the unique lake ecosystem.

In view of the existing status of these three important wetland, it is pertinent to mention that wetland authority responsible for boundary demarcation, wetland character detection, pollution measures, awareness programs, and biodiversity conservation in accordance with Ramsar convention has miserably failed to protect continuously shrinking of the wetland.

Based on Wetland (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2010 issued by the Government of India (under the Environment protection Act, 1986), the concerned authorities have identiûed several major threats to the wetland but they have failed to strengthen urban wetland governance to prevent ecological transformation and loss of wetland. In developing countries, wetlands are still considered as wasteland due to the unconsciousness of the people about wetland potentials and deûciency of the techniques of wetland uses.

Technically in addition to Wetland Authority for conservation and management , the wetland comes under several legal institutions including the Municipal Corporation, Public health authority, Forest department, the Housing and Infrastructure Development Corporation that is concerned with urban development, the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) that is concerned with cleanliness of environment, and Department of Fisheries of respective states. Strategically Wetland Authority framed cross-sectoral policy integration , conservation , community participation etc but another authority- Munical Corporation in all the states with the political support of the Ministry of Urban Development and financial support of state, central and corporate can supersede the decision taken by Wetlands Authority. Thereby Wetland Authority is not in position in policy advocacy in other sectors.

In meetings, top level officers strongly advocate the necessity of these developmental activities for public interest and also assure to create eco-park, water park, tourist hut, attractive commercial shopping mall for the tourist etc without addressing optimization of ecosystem service delivery, development of sustainable urban and wetland management, "wise use " of wetland, community participation to guarantee social equity in environmental governance. Then what "public interest" and for whom! Practically this "public interest" is meant for the corporate who are interested only to develop infrastructure by reducing the wetland thereby depriving the local community in expectation of their livelihood and threatening the ecosystem services delivery. If shrinkage and contamination is going on due to poor environment governance, ecosystem services will be severely hampered due to declining crop and fish yield and high land price.

Declining the profitability will open the door to capture the wetlands for real-estate market and urban development in name of public interest. Recently the Ramsar Convention has undergone signiûcant conceptual transformations to adopt the principles of 'wise use' for wetland conservation; wetland restoration and creation; understanding the value of wetlands; community participation and integrated planning.

The "wise use" based on these practical guidelines have a crucial and positive impact on wetland management theory and practice. In this view it is pertinent to mention that in NE, wetland degradation and loss of wetlands through rapid conversion is one of the emerging challenges against sustaining such worthy environmental capital having plenty of goods and services. Many researchers all over world strongly advocate the uniqueness and opportunities of the wetland ecosystem by calculating its economic value adding to the economy of the local community and demonstrate its potential of biodiversity particularly avifauna and other animals and ecosystem services.

The wastewater if discharged in controlled way can be used as nutrient source for pisciculture and agriculture by the local communities. These wetlands can play, if protected by the concerned authorities, a strategic role in the process of economic development of a country particularly in NE. It has already made a significant contribution to the economic prosperity of advanced countries and its role in the economic development of less developed countries is of vital importance.

The central government, in place of giving thought to the economic expansion without addressing the environment and society, must encourage the state governments to tackle it where these valuable ecosystem is in the verge of disappearing. Then these wetlands will be a unique example of sustainable socio-economic development pertaining to resource recovery wetlands in the present scenario of economic recession and pollution problems.

Now the protection of cultural values and community use of wetlands as well as conservation and restoration of wetland are the emergent needs. According to Ramsar Convention, the policy integration and integrated planning by institutional arrangement must be encouraged. In addition to these arrangement, local community and NGO who are trying their best to protect the degradation of ecological features in an urbanized landscape, must be included with formal institutions for technical support that would be a key strategy in urban wetlands governance.