Call to conserve wetlands to combat climate change

World Wetlands Day event conducted at Mangalavanam

KOCHI: Awareness programmes, discussions and lectures on the role played by wetlands in supporting life and environment marked World Wetland Day celebrations in the city.

The key event of the day was the one organised by the Social Forestry Division of the Kerala Forest Department at Mangalavanam bird sanctuary.

P.S. Shaila, president of the Ernakulam District Panchayat, who inaugurated the meeting, stressed the need for conserving wetlands for mitigating the ill effects of climate change.

It was for the first time that the Forest Department organised a campaign for protecting wetlands.

The division had adopted “wetlands, biodiversity and climate change” as the theme of the campaign.

Wetlands, as defined by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands held in Iran in 1971, include “areas of marsh, fen, peatland or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is stable or flowing, fresh, brackish or salty, including areas of marine water, the depth of which at low tide do not exceed six metres.”

Besides the definition of wetlands, the division had also listed the 25 Ramsar sites of international importance in India including Ashtamudi wetland, Sasthamkotta Lake and Vembanad-Kol wetland in Kerala in the campaign material that was distributed to the students.

E.M. Sunilkumar, chairman of the Town Planning Standing Committee of the Kochi Corporation; U.K. Gopalan and S. Seetharaman, environmentalists; were among those who led the discussion.

Students from Maharaja’s College, Sacred Heart College, Thevara and St. Albert’s College attended the day-long deliberations.

The Hindu