Environment › Protected areas and habitats › Ramsar and wetlands
Wetland conservation and Ramsar
India now has 101 Ramsar sites, the newest being Glaw Lake in Arunachal Pradesh. Listing is the visible half of wetland policy; the harder half is what may happen next to a wetland. The Supreme Court has extended a 10 km mining buffer to every wetland conservation reserve and community reserve in the country. In the cities, the argument is that a lake is climate infrastructure.
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2023: what follows once an area is notified a Community Reserve
- Prelims 2022: matching named wetlands with their States
- Prelims 2022: the wetland function that makes wetlands the kidneys of the Earth
- Prelims 2019: the Ramsar Convention and the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2010
- Prelims 2014: what the Montreux Record implies
How a wetland is protected in India
- A Ramsar listing commits a country to the wise use of the site, and is not by itself a protection order under Indian law.
- Domestic protection comes from the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules and from whatever protected area category the wetland happens to fall inside.
- Unlike a national park or a sanctuary, a conservation reserve or community reserve carries no statutory buffer zone of its own.
- Activity that needs clearing near such an area goes to the Standing Committee of the National Board for Wildlife, the Environment Ministry, or both.
What has happened
1 Sep 2026
India and Germany signed a Joint Declaration of Intent on the conservation and wise use of Wetlands of International Importance.
- It covers shared wetland science, restoration and community participation.
- It was signed at the 4th Indo-German Environment Forum, held since 2008 and the highest level bilateral forum between the two countries on environmental policy.
27 Aug 2026
Urban lakes were argued to be climate infrastructure, sponge systems against heat islands and flooding, rather than sites for beautification.
- Unplanned growth, land prices, sewage and solid waste drive the loss, and eutrophication follows.
- The Comptroller and Auditor General has flagged over 500 lakes lost in Jammu and Kashmir since 1967.
- Hyderabad has lost roughly 61 per cent of its lake area since 1979.
The Hindu, 27 Aug 2026: Urban lakes need restoration, not quick fixes (opens in a new tab)
4 Aug 2026
The Supreme Court clarified orally that its 2024 order on the Asan Wetland Conservation Reserve was never about Asan alone.
- Mining within 10 km of any wetland conservation reserve or community reserve in the country now needs prior approval before it can begin.
- Asan, where the Asan meets the Yamuna in Uttarakhand, has been a Ramsar site since 2020.
3 Aug 2026
Glaw Lake was designated India's 101st Ramsar site, and Arunachal Pradesh's first.
- It lies inside the Kamlang Tiger Reserve and Wildlife Sanctuary in the Eastern Himalaya, fed by perennial mountain streams.
- More than 150 tree species and 49 orchid species are recorded at the site and in its catchment.
PIB, 3 Aug 2026: Glaw Lake becomes India's 101st Ramsar site (opens in a new tab)