Environment › Protected areas and habitats
Wetlands and Ramsar sites
Wetlands and lakes as places and as a category of law: Ramsar sites and the wise use a listing commits India to, the rules that protect a wetland at home, and the encroachment and floodplains that decide its fate. Prelims has matched wetlands to their States and asked what the Montreux Record implies.
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2022: matching named wetlands with their States
- Prelims 2022: the wetland function that makes wetlands the kidneys of the Earth
- Prelims 2014: what the Montreux Record implies
All 3 subjects shown; the 1 that changed from 16 to 31 August 2026 are marked.Show only these
India's Ramsar sites
Copy link to India's Ramsar sitesPrelims and Mains
A Ramsar listing is a promise about how a wetland will be used rather than a fence around it, so what it changes on the ground depends entirely on Indian law.
- A Ramsar site 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.
- 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.
What changed
3 Aug 2026
PIB, 3 Aug 2026: Glaw Lake becomes India's 101st Ramsar site (opens in a new tab)
1 Jul 2026Update
- The official count of India's Ramsar sites is now cited as 100, against 24 in 2014. (Single source; the check against the Ramsar list is in the filing brief.)
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2019: the Ramsar Convention and the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2010
Mining buffers around wetland reserves
Copy link to Mining buffers around wetland reservesPrelims and Mains
A national park carries a regulated belt around it; a conservation reserve carries none, and that is the gap the Supreme Court has been closing one order at a time.
- 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.
- 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.
What changed
Urban lakes
Copy link to Urban lakesPrelims and Mains
A city lake takes the stormwater a drain cannot, cools the air above it and recharges the water under it, so losing one costs a city more than a view.
- 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.
What changed
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