WWF help sought to get Dhanauri on Ramsar map

Noida: Ahead of World Environment Day, the Gautam Budh Nagar forest department has initiated steps to protect the water body and its peripheral Sarus habitat at Dhanauri wetland. The forest office has also got the Union environment and forests ministry to bring in global NGO World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-India to map the Dhanauri wetland and get it listed under the Ramsar Convention.
While the district forest department is processing documents to get the core waterbody at Dhanauri listed under the Wetland (Conservation and Management) Act, 2017, WWF-India is engaged in the documentation work for the Ramsar tag. WWF is the Indian government’s focal NGO for the Ramsar Convention.
“We have already collated a lot of data on Dhanauri. To get the wetland recognised as a Ramsar site, one needs to fill a very detailed data sheet comprising the area of the place, proper mapping and visual documentation. We have made significant progress and will now start the mapping work,” said Suresh Babu, the director of rivers and wetlands at WWF-India.
“Our findings will be submitted to the district forest office, which will forward it to the state government of Uttar Pradesh and the latter will forward it to the Union environment and forests ministry. The ministry will then put it up for the Ramsar stamp,” he added.
At a distance of 48km from Noida, Dhanauri wetlands, a 101-hectare marshland in Greater Noida, missed the Ramsar nomination in January 2020 for inadequate documentation. Dhanauri is located at a 26-km distance from Jewar, the destination for the upcoming airport. In a census concluded by the forest department in September 2020, it was revealed that the wetland had 84 Sarus cranes, including 16 chicks.
“The waterbody will get official recognition as a wetland and once all documentation is completed, the data sheet for Ramsar listing will be processed as well,” said PK Srivastava, district forest officer. India currently has 42 wetlands recognised as Ramsar sites. The Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017, has specific guidelines for ‘wise use’ of wetlands and recognised wetlands are monitored for rule-infringements.