Recently, 2 Human-made wetlands from Bihar, The Nagi and Nakti Bird Sanctuaries, have been recognised as wetlands of international importance under the Ramsar Convention.
Two bird sanctuaries of Bihar added to Ramsar list
- The sites were declared on the World Environment Day (5 June 2024)
- India now hosts 82 Ramsar wetland sites with this inclusion.
- Currently, the highest number of such sites is in the UK (175), followed by Mexico (144)
- Kanwar Lake in Begusarai district was designated Bihar’s first Ramsar Site in 2020.
- Tentative sites for Inclusion from Bihar: Kusheshwar Asthan in Darbhanga, Tal Baraila in Vaishali, Gogabeel in Katihar, Nagi and Nakati dams in Jamui.
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About Nagi and Nakti Bird Sanctuaries
The wetland was designated as a Bird Sanctuary in 1984.
- Location: The wetlands are deemed protected areas in the Jhajha forest range of Bihar’s Jamui district.
- Size: They are spread across 791 and 333 hectares, respectively.
- Human-made: The Nagi and Nakti bird sanctuaries are human-made wetlands that were developed primarily for irrigation purposes through the construction of the Nakti Dam.
- Wildlife support: The sanctuary supports globally threatened species, including the endangered Indian elephant (Elephas maximus indicus) and a vulnerable native catfish (Wallago attu).
- The catchment area: It is a largely dry deciduous forest surrounded by hills.
- Wintering Habitat for Migratory Birds: Over 20,000 birds congregate during the winter months, including one of the largest congregations of red-crested pochards (Netta rufina) on the Indo-Gangetic plain.
- As per Asiatic Waterbird Census(AWC) 2023: The Nakti bird sanctuary is the wetland with the highest number of birds reported with a count of 7,844 birds, followed by Nagi bird sanctuary with 6,938 birds.
About Ramsar Convention
- Establishment: A Ramsar site is a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention (also known as the ‘Convention on Wetlands’), an intergovernmental environmental treaty established by UNESCO in 1971 and named after the city of Ramsar in Iran, where the convention was signed that year.
- Identification: Ramsar recognition is the identification of wetlands that are of international importance, especially if they provide habitat to waterfowl (about 180 species of birds).
- First Ramsar Site in India: Chilika Lake in Orissa and Keoladeo National Park in Rajasthan
- Largest Ramsar Site in India: Sundarbans in West Bengal
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About Wetlands
- A Saturated Ecosystem: A wetland is where the land is covered by water (salt, fresh, or somewhere in between) seasonally or permanently. It functions as its own distinct ecosystem.
- Consists Of: They include mangroves, marshes, rivers, lakes, deltas, floodplains and flooded forests, rice fields, coral reefs, marine areas no deeper than 6 meters at low tide, as well as human-made wetlands such as waste-water treatment ponds and reservoirs.
- Contribution: They cover only around 6% of the Earth’s land surface, but about 40% of all plant and animal species live or breed in wetlands.
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June 8, 2024