68k small wetlands revived in a year: Haryana at Ramsar COP15
Officials said the state's model to revive these small-scale wetlands, most of them less than 1-hectare area, drew international attention for the projects' speed and replicability.
Key to this initiative, officials said, was the govt's 'all of society' approach, which involved gram panchayats, local communities, schoolchildren and NGOs. They were asked to identify, restore and maintain these water bodies.
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Instead of prioritising only large lakes or Ramsar sites, the state targeted small wetlands — ponds, johads and other traditional water bodies that had either dried up, vanished, or became waste-dumping sites, they said.
"We focused on the wetlands closest to people because that's where the fastest ecological and social turnaround can happen," said Dr Vivek Saxena, Haryana's principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife), who also holds charge as the chief wildlife warden.
Saxena presented the govt's achievement at the Zimbabwe event on Saturday. He also represented India at another event – National Wetland Inventories: Tools, Challenges and Opportunities Across the Globe – held on the sidelines of COP15.
Reviving these small waterbodies largely involves interventions such as desilting, garbage removal, fencing, planting vegetation along the banks and putting up signboards.
These steps can help revive basic functions of waterbodies, especially in rural or semi-urban areas, but they don't necessarily restore ecological balance or biodiversity of the area. Those outcomes typically require longer-term planning, catchment-level interventions and sustained monitoring.
According to the state govt, Panchkula – 2.9% -- has the highest geographical area covered by waterbodies. It is followed by Yamunanagar (2.2%) and Faridabad (1.7%). Gurgaon cover is at 0.6% approximately, and Mahendergarh (0.16% and Kurukshetra (0.08%) have the smallest shares.
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