World Wetlands Day

World Wetlands Day  is celebrated on 2nd February each year in order to raise public attention on the vital role wetlands play in reducing flooding, absorbing excess water, supporting life organisms, improving the water quality, etc. 

Unaware and indifferent to this, wetlands especially in urban areas are considered as waste land that can be built upon. The theme for this year is 'Wetlands for a sustainable urban future."

We look back at the wetland in our lake. Given that the water area is only 10 acres, the wetland is less than an acre. It is separated from the main body with a line of boulders about 7 ft high. Four rainwater  inlets and an STP line are located in the wetland. 

For several years we tried to avoid looking at the wetland simply because we didn't know how to maintain it. It was overgrown, littered with all sorts of stuff, some of which entered with rain water and the rest thrown in by an indifferent public. But closing one's eyes or ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away, does it? Towards the end of 2016, we decided to revamp the wetland. You can read about our project here.

The photographs show the evolution of the wetland in our Puttenahalli Lake from 2010. 

Creating the wetland, June 2010

The wetland in August 2015

The wetland in May 2016

The wetland in Jan 2018

No marks for guessing which is now our favourite spot at the lake!

Spare a thought to water, to wetlands!

Best

Usha

Clay and fun at Eco-Art Workshop

At the Puttenahalli Lake on Sunday, 31st January 2016, twenty children aged between 7 and 12, got their hands dirty and their parents said not a word. Instead, they watched with pride as the kids unleashed their creative potential through the medium of clay. The occasion was an Eco-Art workshop conducted by Vicky Smith, a therapist from the UK to celebrate World Wetlands day on Feb. 2nd. Passionate about social and environmental justice, this nature lover is on a mission to promote awareness of the threat to the environment and climate change through such workshops for children. 

Vicky wove a beautiful story around the miracles of the lake, the Banyan tree and a boy named Bhuvan who loves the Puttenahalli lake in his green city of Bangalore. Bhuvan once wakes up with a deep fear that his beloved lake is drying up and the fish are dying but people with scary faces are laughing and cheering at the plight of lake.  Integrating the narrative with clay modelling, she distributed the clay among the children and helped them to make their own Ganesha idol, the saviour of the lake. This was followed by getting the kids to make a Scary face with clay. The excited children came up with a variety of interesting poses and designs. 

After this, they tumbled out of the Gazebo, divided themselves into two groups and made two  "lakes" and decorated them with miniature flora and fauna.  One group even made an island in the middle of their lake and put a palm tree on it, a neat copy of the original! 

At the end of the two hours, the children left for home carefully holding the precious Ganesha idol and scary face they had made themselves. What better way to celebrate a Sunday evening than by connecting with nature? By learning through fun to love lakes and take care of them?

Divya Shetty

PNLIT Associate

World Wetlands Day

February 2nd is World Wetlands Day.

Every year, this day marks the signing of the Ramsar Convention, an “intergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources”, in 1971 at Ramsar, Iran.  

What is a wetland? A wetland is an area that holds water either permanently or seasonally. The Convention uses a broad definition of the types of wetlands covered in its mission, including lakes and rivers, swamps and marshes, wet grasslands and peatlands, oases, estuaries, deltas and tidal flats, near-shore marine areas, mangroves and coral reefs, and human-made sites such as fish ponds, rice paddies, reservoirs, and salt pans.

For India, the Convention on Wetlands came into force on Feb 1, 1982. Currently 26 sites in India (with a surface area of 689,131 hectares) are designated as Wetlands of International Importance, with 5 located in the south 
- Kolleru Lake, Andhra Pradesh
- Ashtamudi Wetland, Sasthamkotta Lake, Vembanad-Kol Wetland, Kerala 
- Point Calimere Wildlife and Bird Sanctuary, Tamil Nadu.
(Source: The Annotated Ramsar List, Sep 2012)

2014 is the UN International Year of Family Farming – so the Ramsar Convention has chosen “Wetlands & Agriculture” as the World Wetlands Day theme for 2014. This comic strip suggests the way forward when wetlands come under threat.

Click the pic to enlarge

Free download courtesy: www.ramsar.org

In Bangalore, wetlands occupy about 5% of the city’s area. (Source: Conservation And Management Of Wetland Ecosystems In Karnataka, IISc paper).  If you would like to know more about wetlands, please visit the Ramsar Convention website here.

World Wetlands Day

Not many of us would know that today, 2nd February is observed as World Wetlands Day. On this day in 1971, the Ramsar Convention (Convention on Wetlands of International Importance) was signed in Ramsar, Iran and the day has been officially celebrated since 1997.

The DNA, Bangalore today devoted an entire page of its newspaper to Bangalore's wetlands. Among other things, it makes mention of the efforts at Puttenahalli Lake and carries an interview with PNLIT's Usha Rajagopalan.

From the DNA article "Let's save our lakes"  

One of the biggest success stories of community-driven action was the rejuvenation of the Puttenahalli lake. Usha Rajagopalan, chairperson of the Puttenahalli Neighbourhood Lake Improvement Trust, made it possible with a core group of five persons. As Rajagopalan avers, "With a group of 20-30, you can save the world." The Puttenahalli story went on to enjoy a sort of cult status....

Read the DNA newspaper article here

Read the interview with Usha here

The Ramsar Convention is based on the following premises:

* RECOGNIZING the interdependence of Man and his environment;

* CONSIDERING the fundamental ecological functions of wetlands as regulators of water regimes and as habitats supporting a characteristic flora and fauna, especially waterfowl;

* BEING CONVINCED that wetlands constitute a resource of great economic, cultural, scientific, and recreational value, the loss of which would be irreparable;

* DESIRING to stem the progressive encroachment on and loss of wetlands now and in the future;

* RECOGNIZING that waterfowl in their seasonal migrations may transcend frontiers and so should be regarded as an international resource;

* BEING CONFIDENT that the conservation of wetlands and their flora and fauna can be ensured by combining far-sighted national policies with co-ordinated international action;

More related information can be found the on site of The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.