Critically endangered: The state of India's wetlands

There are natural disasters, and there are those that are man-made. The ones usuallly most catastrophic are natural disasters that are compounded and accentuated by man-made factors.

When Mumbai was ravaged by just 900mm of rain over a 24-hour period leading to almost 450 fatal casualties, one might have thought that planners and policymakers would have sat upright and taken note of the ecological degradation in their own backyards: that of the wetlands both within the city limits as well as those on the fringes.

Recent experience suggests otherwise. The Srinagar floods of September 2014 and the Chennai deluge of December 2015, taken together with the frothing over of two big lakes in Bangalore last year, are enough indicators of the fact that neither short-sighted planners nor environmentally-blind policymakers still don't understand the importance of urban wetlands. There is something grossly wrong with a revalent mindset that, for instance, perceives ecologically-sensitive grasslands as wasteland, and urban wetlands as pools in urgent need of being filled up.

Urbanisation is inevitable, though not entirely desirable. But the fallout of urbanisation, especially when unplanned and done callously, can be catastrophic. And that -- is neither desirable and nor should be seen as inevitable. Just like communal riots masterminded and orchestrated by devious minds take their biggest toll on ordinary people, so do instances of environmental corruption and mal-governance. The flood victims of Srinagar and Chennai bear testimony to such an allegation.

Up north, the Srinagar floods were waiting to happen. More than half the waterbodies in and around Srinagar have disappeared in the past century; between 1911 and 2014, this disappearance was estimated to be over 9,000 hectares. The iconic Dal lake that was spread over 2,547 hectares in 1971, had been reduced to barely 1,620 hectares in 2008. The drainage system that connected this lake to other waterbodies are clogged, and the lakes and swamps that once drew in excess water during the rains failed to do so in 2014. Most had either disappeared/degraded, or simply cut off.

Down south, Chennai had been asking for trouble too. For a city that once included over 650 waterbodies, it now has only a fraction of that number. Like most urban hubs, Chennai traditionally depended on waterbodies, canals and rivers to drain water runoff during rains. During the last floods however, the choked ecosystem failed to deliver. The Pallikaranai marshlands, which was once spread over 50 sq km and served as a natural reservoir for a 250 sq km catchment area, is today 4.3 sq km in size; and the natural drainage system of the city is clogged beyond repair.

There are countless other cities and towns spread across India that may unfortunately have the same story to tell in the days to come. Each is a disaster in the making, and most have one thing in common: they have ravenously, and insatiably so, gobbled up their own wetlands.

Urban wetlands and cities

No, this is not a litany of woes about urban floods, but about the need to conserve wetlands. Urban floods can be caused by a number of contributing factors, with the degradation of wetlands being one of them. What is imperative is not to look at urban sprawls as mere concrete jungles, but as ecosystems, degraded albeit. Unless and until one begins to understand a city or a town as an ecosystem that breathes and lives, it cannot be possible to comprehend the import of wetlands.

The most crucial role that wetlands play is obviously that of flood control. From lakes to peatlands to marshes to swamps alongside rivers, all these act as natural sponges that soak in excess water. When these wetlands disappear or are throttled, they lose the roles they play in nature.

This argument is well summed by ecologist TV Ramachandra of the Energy & Wetlands Research Group, Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science. He looked at the case of Bangalore, and remarked in a paper (Conservation of wetlands to mitigate urban floods): “The study reveals that frequent flooding (since 2000, even during normal rainfall) in Bangalore is a consequence of the increase in impervious area with the high-density urban development in the catchment and loss of wetlands and vegetation. This is coupled with lack of drainage upgrade works with the changes in enhanced run-offs, the encroachment and filling in the floodplain on the waterways, obstruction by the sewer pipes and manholes and relevant structures, deposits of building materials and solid wastes with subsequent blockage of the system and also flow restrictions from under capacity road crossings (bridge and culverts). The lack of planning and enforcement has resulted in significant narrowing of the waterways and filling in of the floodplain by illegal developments.” What he said of Bangalore could well be true of many other Indian cities.

The second role that wetlands serve is that of water supply. At a time when most urban centres suffer from water shortages that range from marginal to acute, it should be a no-brainer to look at wetlands. These serve as natural rainwater harvesting systems: they take in the water during the rains, and return it to you for drinking purposes. How can anyone possibly fail to understand this?

New York city understood this well in the mid-1990s. The city's Department of Environmental Protection contracted the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to map the wetlands and deepwater habitats in what is called the New York City Watershed, a 2,000 square-mile area located both East and West of the Hudson river. This watershed supplies high quality drinking water to almost half the population of New York state, including 8 million residents of New York city and 1 million residents of four counties, besides millions of commuters and tourists.

Wetlands also provide livelihoods to fishing communities, which in turn should be seen as sources of food supply. Wetlands play a significant role in in fish production in India, with the majority coming from inland waterbodies (61 per cent of total production), i.e. rivers; canals; reservoirs; tanks; ponds; and lakes. Moreover, it is estimated that freshwater wetlands hold more than 40 per cent of all the world’s species, and 12 per cent of all animal species. These also are a winter home to migratory birds. In an urban nightmare like Delhi alone, more than 450 species of birds are sighted every year – it has the largest number of birds that can be seen in a capital city after Nairobi. Simply put, wetlands are habitats – for species as well as communities. They need to be seen as so.

How did it come to this?

But before one jumps to the seemingly-inevitable conclusion about the need for tighter laws and stringent regulations, it would be prudent to see what's wrong with the existing system.

The legal framework for wetlands is provided by the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2010; there's no separate Act to save wetlands from devastation. In fact, wetlands made it into the policy discourse much late. When the National Wetland Conservation Programme was launched in 1987, it remained restricted itself to the notified Ramsar Wetlands. Over 20 years later, in 2008, the Ministry of Environment and Forests issued a Draft Regulatory Framework for Wetlands Conservation under the provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act (EPA), 1986. These morphed into Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2010.

The rules were flawed from the beginning. For one, they did not take into account the livelihoods of communities and the adverse effect of degradation of wetland ecosystem services on poverty and vulnerability. This would seem a cruel today since the theme for the 2016 World Wetlands Day is 'Wetlands for our Future: Sustainable Livelihoods'. That's how anachronistic the situation is. The limitation also goes against the very grain of recommendation 6.3 of the 1996 Conference of Parties which had called for active and informed participation of local and indigenous people at Ramsar listed sites and other wetlands and their catchments. The question of delegation of responsibilities too were ignored, with 2010 Rules discarding the suggestions about district-level regulatory authorities and appraisal committees that had been been made in the Draft Regulatory Framework of 2008 as well as the Draft Rules of 2009. Excluding rural bodies had been a blunder.

The biggest drawback, however, was that the Rules sought to regulate only select wetlands: (i) wetlands selected under Ramsar Convention; (ii) wetlands in ecologically sensitive and important areas; (iii) wetlands recognised as UNESCO World Heritage sites; (iv) high altitude wetlands (at or above an elevation of 2500 metres with an area equal to or greater than five hectares); (v) wetland complexes below an elevation of 2500 metres with an area equal to or greater than 500 hectares; and (6) any other wetland identified by the Central Wetlands Regulatory Authority (CWRA). Therefore, in trying to see only the big wetlands, the ministry lost sight of the bigger picture. This also opened the floodgates for urbanisation to take over, and the floods to seep in later.

There is little doubt that urgent measures are required – at the policy, legal and implementation levels – to first arrest the decline, and then work for the restoration of wetlands.

There would be little point crying after the wetlands are long gone.