Thane creek shortly to be Maharashtra’s initial urban Ramsar site
As Maharashtra inches toward getting its initial city Ramsar website at the Thane creek, north of Mumbai, not numerous know that the method to reach this was initiated about 15 years back. Together with a few other non-governmental organisations, the Bombay Ecosystem Motion Group (BEAG) and Bombay Normal Historical past Modern society (BNHS) had been hoping to really encourage ecotourism in the Thane creek at the time. Debi Goenka, who was then with BEAG and is presently with the Conservation Action Belief, states they experienced hoped that area fishermen could insert to their earnings by taking birdwatchers out in their boats throughout the migration year. It was imagined that this would get the Thane creek on the international birdwatching network and as a result a Ramsar position could be used for.
The concept discovered favour with the Condition Ecosystem and Forest Departments, and a proposal was sent to the Union Ministry of Setting, Forest and Local weather Adjust (MoEFCC). They, much too, reacted favourably, and despatched it on to the Ramsar Secretariat, who had been agreeable but requested for a map displaying the borders of the web site. This fair ask for threw a spanner in the is effective considering that only the Mumbai Metropolitan Location Progress Authority (MMRDA) could put together it. The MMRDA demanded an formal request from the Centre. This never ever arrived and the approach languished till it was revived lately by the governing administration of Maharashtra.
Ramsar website
A Ramsar web page is a wetland space that is selected as internationally vital underneath the Ramsar Conference, which is an intergovernmental atmosphere treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands. It is also recognized as the Convention on Wetlands. The Conference was held in 1971 in the metropolis of Ramsar in Iran. By definition, a wetland is any landscape that is regularly fed by h2o, or is underneath drinking water these types of as swamps, marshes and peat bogs. India signed the Ramsar Arrangement in 1982 and took techniques for the conservation of its wetlands. There are 2,424 Ramsar web-sites across the environment and 49 in India.
The Thane creek, which has 12 true mangrove species and 39 affiliate mangrove species, is an great applicant for a Ramsar web page. It is viewed as 1 of the area’s important chook habitats, drawing around 167 species of birds. It also supports 45 species of fishes, 59 species of butterflies and 67 insect species. Amongst the more flamboyant people to the place are the flamingos, which appear listed here for their wintertime breeding. The winter season avian visitors, which quantity above a lakh, include the greater and the lesser flamingo, the golden plover, the fantastic spotted eagle, the pied avocet and the ruddy turnstone.
The Thane creek had a thriving ecosystem until finally the early 1980s, but reckless urbanisation and human pressures these as the reclamation of the sea, the filling up of swampy places, the reducing of mangroves, the blocking of the natural movement of seawater, the dumping of waste and debris on the creek’s shores, and rubbish landfills have posed threats to the great ecological equilibrium of the wetlands.
Flamingo sanctuary
The State federal government declared 1,690.5 hectares of the creek the Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary in 2015, thereby officially recognising it as an Vital Chook and Biodiversity Region. Of the 1,690.5 ha, 896 ha ended up mangrove forests and 794 ha had been drinking water. It is Maharashtra’s 2nd maritime sanctuary soon after Malvan on the Konkan coast.
Declaring the place a sanctuary was the initial action to holistic conservation of the area’s wetlands. The next step arrived in July 2021, when the Point out govt announced its intention of declaring the Thane Creek a Ramsar internet site. This will be Maharashtra’s third Ramsar web-site, just after Nandur Madhameshwar in Nasik and Lonar lake in Buldhana district. The Thane creek will be the very first Ramsar wetland in the Mumbai Metropolitan area, and the to start with city Ramsar web site in the State.
Clearance for the declaration moved at an encouraging speed. On December 9, 2021, Condition Setting Minister Aaditya Thackeray cleared the proposal for last acceptance from Main Minister Uddhav Thackeray. On February 17, 2022, Chief Minister Thackeray cleared the proposal, which in flip has been sent to the MoEFCC, to designate the flamingo sanctuary as a Ramsar site.
On February 17, the Secretariat issued a note that browse: “Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has accredited the proposal submitted by the State’s Mangrove Mobile for granting ‘Ramsar’ position to Thane creek area and the proposal is currently being despatched to the Central Govt for more approval. Achieving Ramsar position will appeal to visitors from household and abroad for birdwatching and will also deliver employment to the locals by boosting the environment and tourism. Main Minister Uddhav Thackeray has mentioned that as the relevance of wetlands reaches the people and their conservation receives extra momentum, it will also be recorded on the earth tourism map. It was authorised at the fourth meeting of the Condition Watershed Authority held on December 9, 2021, underneath the chairmanship of Setting Minister Aditya Thackeray. The proposal was then submitted to the Chief Minister for approval.”
It more famous: “Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary is distribute about an space of 16.905 sq. km. Regions of global importance are acknowledged as Ramsar location. The Thane Bay spot is property to some other chook species, which includes flamingos, which migrate to India from overseas. For that reason, this wetland is of distinctive global value. An region of somewhere around 65 sq. km of Thane creek is proposed as Ramsar web-site, with an area of sanctuary covering 17 sq. km. The remaining 48 sq. km was notified in October 2021 as an environmentally delicate spot. As a result, conservation of biodiversity in this spot will be less complicated.”
Ironically, despite the fact that the Point out Mangrove Mobile proposed the Thane creek as a Ramsar site, the Mobile alone has been pushing to cut mangroves in the Thane creek. Their argument is that the mudflats are increasing and mangroves are spreading owing to siltation, and that waders have no area to feed as a result. On the one particular hand, the Mangrove Mobile is associated in compensatory afforestation of mangroves, a difficult issue to do, and on the other, it needs to decimate mangroves that are increasing obviously in abundance.
The CIDCO angle
Although the proposal to designate the Thane creek as a Ramsar internet site has the backing of the Condition government, there is a sticky issue in the sort of the Metropolis and Industrial Progress Company (CIDCO), which has been mostly accountable for the urbanisation of Thane and Navi Mumbai. Along with the declaration of the creek a Ramsar website, the neighbouring wetlands in Uran and Navi Mumbai also need an umbrella of stability so that ecological balance is managed. When the flamingo sanctuary was notified, a 10-yr administration approach experienced been tabled by the Forest Section. There are six vital satellite wetlands which want to be declared as conservation reserves. They full about 205 ha, and will serve as feeding grounds as well as roosting grounds for birds during large tides. There are ecological linkages involving wetlands that are not clear on the surface area but lengthen to a radius of about 50 km.
In July previous calendar year, the Forest Division experienced written to CIDCO, which owns most of this land, inquiring for its opinions on turning the land into conservation reserves. CIDCO’s response was a categorical no. It claimed the location was developable and hence did not qualify as wetlands. In quick, this suggests CIDCO is on the lookout to dump particles and damage the wetlands and generate land for building.
CIDCO is by now in the Bombay High Court, preventing to get yet another wetland in the Navi Mumbai location which it wants to transform into a golfing training course. Nearby residents say that in spite of the make any difference staying in courtroom, earth movers and other major machinery are previously operating at the web site.
Safety for other wetland regions has also been pending. In December 2015, four months immediately after the declaration of the flamingo sanctuary, 1,600 acres of wetland in Mumbai, Thane and Raigad districts experienced been declared wetlands that essential security. This included Navi Mumbai’s Panje wetlands and the Sewri-Mahul wetlands on Mumbai’s japanese shore, wherever flamingos acquire just about every year. But whilst gigantic projects such as the Trans-Harbour Connection have proceeded at a speedy speed, the defense of wetlands has stagnated. In early February, Panje was formally recognised as a wetland by ISRO’s Room Application Centre that lists all wetlands in the National Wetland Stock and Assessment Atlas. Debi Goenka tweeted: “Happy to notify you that Panje has been determined as a wetland with mangroves, salt pans and mudflats in the most current atlas prepared by the House Software Centre for the MoEF&CC.”
It is now hoped that a modern get of the Nationwide Inexperienced Tribunal (NGT) will get issues relocating. On February 22, Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel, who heads the Western Zonal Bench of the NGT, mentioned the Panje wetlands will need safety. This, taken alongside with the Supreme Court’s situation on wetlands, which is to say that all wetlands shown in the Wetland Atlas (and not only all those that are notified) really should be protected, implies that there is some hope for the 6 satellite wetland internet sites all around the proposed Ramsar web-site and, hence, for the proposed site alone.
As Maharashtra inches toward getting its initial city Ramsar website at the Thane creek, north of Mumbai, not numerous know that the method to reach this was initiated about 15 years back. Together with a few other non-governmental organisations, the Bombay Ecosystem Motion Group (BEAG) and Bombay Normal Historical past Modern society (BNHS) had been hoping to really encourage ecotourism in the Thane creek at the time. Debi Goenka, who was then with BEAG and is presently with the Conservation Action Belief, states they experienced hoped that area fishermen could insert to their earnings by taking birdwatchers out in their boats throughout the migration year. It was imagined that this would get the Thane creek on the international birdwatching network and as a result a Ramsar position could be used for.
The concept discovered favour with the Condition Ecosystem and Forest Departments, and a proposal was sent to the Union Ministry of Setting, Forest and Local weather Adjust (MoEFCC). They, much too, reacted favourably, and despatched it on to the Ramsar Secretariat, who had been agreeable but requested for a map displaying the borders of the web site. This fair ask for threw a spanner in the is effective considering that only the Mumbai Metropolitan Location Progress Authority (MMRDA) could put together it. The MMRDA demanded an formal request from the Centre. This never ever arrived and the approach languished till it was revived lately by the governing administration of Maharashtra.
Ramsar website
A Ramsar web page is a wetland space that is selected as internationally vital underneath the Ramsar Conference, which is an intergovernmental atmosphere treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands. It is also recognized as the Convention on Wetlands. The Conference was held in 1971 in the metropolis of Ramsar in Iran. By definition, a wetland is any landscape that is regularly fed by h2o, or is underneath drinking water these types of as swamps, marshes and peat bogs. India signed the Ramsar Arrangement in 1982 and took techniques for the conservation of its wetlands. There are 2,424 Ramsar web-sites across the environment and 49 in India.
The Thane creek, which has 12 true mangrove species and 39 affiliate mangrove species, is an great applicant for a Ramsar web page. It is viewed as 1 of the area’s important chook habitats, drawing around 167 species of birds. It also supports 45 species of fishes, 59 species of butterflies and 67 insect species. Amongst the more flamboyant people to the place are the flamingos, which appear listed here for their wintertime breeding. The winter season avian visitors, which quantity above a lakh, include the greater and the lesser flamingo, the golden plover, the fantastic spotted eagle, the pied avocet and the ruddy turnstone.
The Thane creek had a thriving ecosystem until finally the early 1980s, but reckless urbanisation and human pressures these as the reclamation of the sea, the filling up of swampy places, the reducing of mangroves, the blocking of the natural movement of seawater, the dumping of waste and debris on the creek’s shores, and rubbish landfills have posed threats to the great ecological equilibrium of the wetlands.
Flamingo sanctuary
The State federal government declared 1,690.5 hectares of the creek the Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary in 2015, thereby officially recognising it as an Vital Chook and Biodiversity Region. Of the 1,690.5 ha, 896 ha ended up mangrove forests and 794 ha had been drinking water. It is Maharashtra’s 2nd maritime sanctuary soon after Malvan on the Konkan coast.
Declaring the place a sanctuary was the initial action to holistic conservation of the area’s wetlands. The next step arrived in July 2021, when the Point out govt announced its intention of declaring the Thane Creek a Ramsar internet site. This will be Maharashtra’s third Ramsar web-site, just after Nandur Madhameshwar in Nasik and Lonar lake in Buldhana district. The Thane creek will be the very first Ramsar wetland in the Mumbai Metropolitan area, and the to start with city Ramsar web site in the State.
Clearance for the declaration moved at an encouraging speed. On December 9, 2021, Condition Setting Minister Aaditya Thackeray cleared the proposal for last acceptance from Main Minister Uddhav Thackeray. On February 17, 2022, Chief Minister Thackeray cleared the proposal, which in flip has been sent to the MoEFCC, to designate the flamingo sanctuary as a Ramsar site.
On February 17, the Secretariat issued a note that browse: “Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has accredited the proposal submitted by the State’s Mangrove Mobile for granting ‘Ramsar’ position to Thane creek area and the proposal is currently being despatched to the Central Govt for more approval. Achieving Ramsar position will appeal to visitors from household and abroad for birdwatching and will also deliver employment to the locals by boosting the environment and tourism. Main Minister Uddhav Thackeray has mentioned that as the relevance of wetlands reaches the people and their conservation receives extra momentum, it will also be recorded on the earth tourism map. It was authorised at the fourth meeting of the Condition Watershed Authority held on December 9, 2021, underneath the chairmanship of Setting Minister Aditya Thackeray. The proposal was then submitted to the Chief Minister for approval.”
It more famous: “Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary is distribute about an space of 16.905 sq. km. Regions of global importance are acknowledged as Ramsar location. The Thane Bay spot is property to some other chook species, which includes flamingos, which migrate to India from overseas. For that reason, this wetland is of distinctive global value. An region of somewhere around 65 sq. km of Thane creek is proposed as Ramsar web-site, with an area of sanctuary covering 17 sq. km. The remaining 48 sq. km was notified in October 2021 as an environmentally delicate spot. As a result, conservation of biodiversity in this spot will be less complicated.”
Ironically, despite the fact that the Point out Mangrove Mobile proposed the Thane creek as a Ramsar site, the Mobile alone has been pushing to cut mangroves in the Thane creek. Their argument is that the mudflats are increasing and mangroves are spreading owing to siltation, and that waders have no area to feed as a result. On the one particular hand, the Mangrove Mobile is associated in compensatory afforestation of mangroves, a difficult issue to do, and on the other, it needs to decimate mangroves that are increasing obviously in abundance.
The CIDCO angle
Although the proposal to designate the Thane creek as a Ramsar internet site has the backing of the Condition government, there is a sticky issue in the sort of the Metropolis and Industrial Progress Company (CIDCO), which has been mostly accountable for the urbanisation of Thane and Navi Mumbai. Along with the declaration of the creek a Ramsar website, the neighbouring wetlands in Uran and Navi Mumbai also need an umbrella of stability so that ecological balance is managed. When the flamingo sanctuary was notified, a 10-yr administration approach experienced been tabled by the Forest Section. There are six vital satellite wetlands which want to be declared as conservation reserves. They full about 205 ha, and will serve as feeding grounds as well as roosting grounds for birds during large tides. There are ecological linkages involving wetlands that are not clear on the surface area but lengthen to a radius of about 50 km.
In July previous calendar year, the Forest Division experienced written to CIDCO, which owns most of this land, inquiring for its opinions on turning the land into conservation reserves. CIDCO’s response was a categorical no. It claimed the location was developable and hence did not qualify as wetlands. In quick, this suggests CIDCO is on the lookout to dump particles and damage the wetlands and generate land for building.
CIDCO is by now in the Bombay High Court, preventing to get yet another wetland in the Navi Mumbai location which it wants to transform into a golfing training course. Nearby residents say that in spite of the make any difference staying in courtroom, earth movers and other major machinery are previously operating at the web site.
Safety for other wetland regions has also been pending. In December 2015, four months immediately after the declaration of the flamingo sanctuary, 1,600 acres of wetland in Mumbai, Thane and Raigad districts experienced been declared wetlands that essential security. This included Navi Mumbai’s Panje wetlands and the Sewri-Mahul wetlands on Mumbai’s japanese shore, wherever flamingos acquire just about every year. But whilst gigantic projects such as the Trans-Harbour Connection have proceeded at a speedy speed, the defense of wetlands has stagnated. In early February, Panje was formally recognised as a wetland by ISRO’s Room Application Centre that lists all wetlands in the National Wetland Stock and Assessment Atlas. Debi Goenka tweeted: “Happy to notify you that Panje has been determined as a wetland with mangroves, salt pans and mudflats in the most current atlas prepared by the House Software Centre for the MoEF&CC.”
It is now hoped that a modern get of the Nationwide Inexperienced Tribunal (NGT) will get issues relocating. On February 22, Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel, who heads the Western Zonal Bench of the NGT, mentioned the Panje wetlands will need safety. This, taken alongside with the Supreme Court’s situation on wetlands, which is to say that all wetlands shown in the Wetland Atlas (and not only all those that are notified) really should be protected, implies that there is some hope for the 6 satellite wetland internet sites all around the proposed Ramsar web-site and, hence, for the proposed site alone.