Wetlands need to be prudently managed and conserved so that the next generation gets adequate and quality water.
Addressing the occasion of World Wetlands Day, many environmental experts have stressed the role that wetlands play in sustaining biodiversity, Indian Express reported.
Dr TV Ramachandra from the Centre for Ecological Science at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) addressed the issue by stating that the Wetlands support the livelihoods of people and are the need of the hour. Wetlands need to be prudently managed and conserved so that the next generation gets adequate and quality water. The government too has embarked on the ambitious Jal-nal programme aids in providing water to the entire country.
Wetlands play a very important role in absorbing carbon dioxide from the air and locking it away in the soil, plants and root systems, said Ram Prasad, the co-founder of Friends of Lakes. He also mentioned how the wetlands also help in sustaining a large number of fishes, birds and other small creatures. For general people, water merely flows from the tap and barely reflect beyond this point of contact and consumption, where we lose a sense of respect for how the wetland works and intricates the web of life.
The president of Wetlands International South Asia, Dr Sidharth Kaul said that conserving wetlands demands affirmative actions from the entire society and can be done by raising universal awareness of the important contributions wetlands make to climate mitigation, biodiversity, freshwater availability, adaptation as well as world economies and thereby, to well-being, prosperity and existence in societies.
For a full range of functioning of these wetlands, proper investments, developmental plans, and programmes need to be implemented at all levels and sectors. Conserving the wetlands would aid in lowering the impacts of tropical tsunamis and cyclones. Wetlands also help in sequestering carbon at rates higher compared to tropical forests and can also make cities liveable by regulating microclimate, buffer floods, droughts and water.
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