Need to protect wetlands and rejuvenate them: Jairam Ramesh

Congress MP and former environment minister Jairam Ramesh on Monday raised in Rajya Sabha the issue of damage to wetlands and asked the government to take steps to rejuvenate them.

According to Ramesh, wetlands which also protect against flooding in coastal areas are facing systematic and rapid loss in the country due to various man made factors.

"I urge the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change to pay urgent attention to the the protection and rejuvenation of wetlands and stay firm against proposals damaging them," he said during special mention in Rajya Sabha.

Ramesh, who was Environment, Forest and Climate Changes in previous UPA government, said although 27 different Indian wetland have been designated as internationally important, but most of them have no management plans and are in different state of degradation.

"There is loss of wetland across the country due to various man made factors like excessive hydrological alterations, unregulated construction and haphazard urbanisation are major cause of underground water depletion,," he said adding "despite judicial intervention, wetlands has received no due protection."
"India wetland need to be systematically delineated and mapped based on their revenue records and their hydrological features needs to be listed and notified," he said adding "buffer area needs to be demarcated and certain activities needs to be prohibited."