• India
  • Feb 01
  • Sreesha V.M

India adds four more Ramsar Sites

• Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav announced the addition of four new Ramsar Sites in India, taking the tally to 89 ahead of World Wetlands Day on February 1.

The four new Ramsar Sites are:

i) Sakkarakottai Bird Sanctuary in Tamil Nadu

ii) Therthangal Bird Sanctuary in Tamil Nadu

iii) Khecheopalri Wetland in Sikkim 

iv) Udhwa Lake in Jharkhand. 

• Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav shared that India still stands as the country with the highest number of Ramsar sites in Asia and third in the world. 

• Tamil Nadu is the state with the maximum number of Ramsar sites, with a tally of 20. 

• Sikkim and Jharkhand have added their first Ramsar Sites.

What is the Ramsar Convention?

• The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty signed by 172 countries to protect wetlands. 

• It is named after the city in Iran where it was signed, and it began with 18 countries in 1971.

• The convention is one of the oldest inter-governmental accords for preserving the ecological character of wetlands. Also known as the Convention on Wetlands, it aims to develop a global network of wetlands for the conservation of biological diversity and for sustaining human life.

• It is one of the largest international agreements, after the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, 196 countries) and the UN climate agreement (UNFCCC, 197 countries).

• The Ramsar List is the world’s largest network of protected areas. 

• There are over 2,400 Ramsar Sites around the world. The first Site was the Cobourg Peninsula in Australia, designated in 1974. The largest Sites are Rio Negro in Brazil (120,000 sq km), and Ngiri-Tumba-Maindombe in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Queen Maud Gulf in Canada. These Sites each cover over 60,000 sq km.

• The countries with the most Sites are the United Kingdom with 176 and Mexico with 144.

• The signatory countries promise to make inventories of their Ramsar Sites and to develop management plans. These management plans include the sustainable use of the many other functions of wetlands, such as food production, water storage and recreation.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)

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