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World Wetlands Day fell on Feb. 02:

Iillegal fillings swamp nature

by Shanika Sriyananda

A few minutes shower is enough to form pools in Colombo, a modern city dotted with sky rising buildings. Floods which was a seasonal or an occasional phenomena in the yesteryears, has become a regular feature nowadays.

While it is a hassle for people, who had to be ready to face each and every shower, the frequency indicates the darker side of the mismanagement of natural water retention capabilities of the city soil. The importance of inland wetlands is forgotten in the name of development.

The country is blessed with inland wetlands - marshes, rice fields, tanks, mangroves and coral reefs, which controlled flood, retain sediments and purify water thus removing toxic materials, protect the country from storms and coastal erosion. About 15% of the land area in the country comprises both natural and man-made wetlands.

The smooth co-relation between the nature and development dates back to centuries.

Rivers and flood plains and man-made wetlands like the ancient irrigation tanks and rice fields played a keyrole in preventing most of the natural hazards, decades ago.

People during the ancient period were not tied by laws, - not to fill the wetlands - but were bound to with ancient engineering practices and the importance of protecting wetlands came down from generation to generation, and never touched marshes or even abandoned paddy lands. Whether it is an important wetland, even in the heart of the city, with stringent laws and regulations, to explore the possibility, the man makes his own 'property' with utter disregard to the dreadful effects.

The sad part of this story, is the marshes in the vicinity of the Central Environmental Authority (CEA), the institute mandatory to protect the environment have been filled already haphazardly to put up government and private buildings, while the CEA is powerless to nab the culprits.

The CEA, which played a keyrole in implementing the National Wetland Policy, the most commendable step towards conserving wetlands, is well aware about the on-going illegal fillings but is compelled to wait and tolerate till a high powered legal arm comes up under the National Environment Act.

"Interior areas surrounding Kotte, especially the Diyawanna Oya area, were being filled", a CEA official said.

According to him, marshes in Wattala, Ja-Ela and Kandana, close to the Muthurajawela marsh, which is the largest peat bog in Sri Lanka are very vulnerable to unauthorised filling. The areas around the marsh are now more prone to floods due to encroachment.

Muthurajawela has been already gazetted as a protected area while Waturana wetland in Kaduwela and Talangama Tank area have been identified as protected areas under the National Wetland Policy (NWP).

Recognising the invaluable role of wetlands in flood retention and also to protect the eco-systems in wetland areas the Cabinet approval was granted in 2004 for the NWP, to implement plans to conserve wetlands in the country.

On the other hand, the loss of wetlands results in harmful consequences on people who depend on them as well as the extinction of species that are ecologically dependent on wetlands.

Among the total inland vertebrate species, including 60 species (25 endemic) of primary freshwater fishes in Sri Lanka, about 30 per cent are ecologically dependent on inland wetlands.

The inland wetlands are also inhabited by several species of inland invertebrates, including more than 40 species (all endemic) of freshwater crabs.

About a third of the bird species in the country are dependant on freshwater wetlands and the future survival of nearly 32 per cent of the nationally threatened vertebrate faunal species is dependent on inland freshwater wetland ecosystems of the island.

Among the aquatic plants in Sri Lanka, 21 species (18 endemic) are nationally threatened (IUCN Sri Lanka, 2000). However, over exploitation of wetland plants and their dependant animals, several species are on the brink of extinction.

Coordinator of Asia Region Species Program of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), Dr. Channa N. B. Bambaradeniya says that most of the urban marshes are disappearing soon due to unplanned and unauthorised filling.

According to Dr. Bambaradeniya, several inland freshwater wetlands - Muthurajawela Sanctuary and the Bellanwila-Attidiya Sanctuary, irrigation tanks such as Annaiwilundawa, Minneriya and the giant tanks, have been declared protected areas.

"The Annaiwilundawa ancient irrigation tank system was declared as Sri Lanka's second Ramsar wetland site in 2001", he points out. "Muthurajawela, Attidiya and Sri Jayawardenapura marshes and their eco-systems are severely threatened and are in need of urgent mitigatory measures", he adds.

Dr. Bambaradeniya says that the country lacks wetlands to absorb rain water that has less than 10,000 hectares of land. "The aquatic bio-diversity is at stake and land area is shrinking due to shrimp farming mainly in the east western parts of the country.

Commending the State initiatives to implement the NWP, he warns that the present development activities have been planned to raise the economy but will put further pressure on existing wetlands, especially on marshes in low-lying urban and sub-urban areas. "Balancing the land and the needs of people in a growing population is a future challenge that needs to be addressed carefully", he says.

However, Dr. Bambaradeniya says that the joint efforts of conservation biologists and environmentalists in association with development planners and policymakers is vital in search of viable solutions to meet these challenges, which leads to a sound conservation of the country's inland freshwater in future.

However, it appears that the need of the hour is to make the NWP more effective by giving the legal authority to bring those who fill these most important wetlands before the law. Unless the government takes speedy actions, most important wetlands, which give refuge to rare species of fauna, can be read only in text books in the future.

***

What is a wetland ?

The freshwater wetlands of Sri Lanka that fit into the definition given by the RAMSAR Convention could be divided into two broad categories; inland natural fresh water wetlands (eg. rivers, streams, waterfalls, marshes, swamp forests, freshwater springs, montane bogs/swamps, and "Villus") and man-made freshwater wetlands (eg. tanks, reservoirs, rice fields, irrigation canals, aquaculture ponds). 'National Wetland Policy'

Six main objectives in the 'National Wetland Policy'

* To protect and conserve wetland ecosystems

* To prevent illegal utilization of wetlands

* To restore and maintain the biological diversity and productivity of wetlands

* To enhance ecosystem services from wetlands habitats

* To assure sustainable use of wetlands and traditional practices by local communities.

* To meet national commitments as a signatory to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands

Four policy directions to achieve the above six objectives

* Wetland management

* Institutional arrangements

* Inter-sectoral linkages

* Research & development and education.

Rain gardens 'cut city pollution'

by Mark Kinver, BBC News science and nature reporter

"Rain gardens" can dramatically cut the amount of pollution in urban storm water, according to a study by US researchers. Most of the rain that falls on cities lands on impervious surfaces, such as roads, where it absorbs pollutants before it finally drains away.

The team says a shallow depression in a garden containing bark mulch and shrubs can remove up to 99% of toxins. The findings appear in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. Researchers from the University of Connecticut found that the gardens significantly reduced the concentration of fertilisers, oil and particulates reaching storm drains.

Rain gardens, the researchers say, can also help reduce localised flooding by absorbing rain water from heavy downpours, reducing the risk of drains becoming overloaded.

For the study, two rain gardens were planted and frequently monitored over a two-year period to see how effectively they absorbed a range of pollutants. One of the authors of the study, Michael Dietz, explained why they carried out the research. "The concept of rain gardens has been around for 10 or 15 years but there has not been a lot of research".

"A lot of places are hesitant to use something that has not been verified, so we felt it was an important step to bridge that gap," he told the BBC News website.

Any tool we have that can help reduce the impacts of urbanisation is beneficial for everyone. The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that built-up urban areas generate nine times the amount of runoff water than woodlands of a similar size.

As the percentage of the world's population living in cities continues to grow, the problems of flooding and pollution are set to increase.

Dr. Dietz hopes their findings will encourage town planners across the globe to consider using rain gardens. "This is one tool that can used to mitigate the impact of runoff water in urban areas.

It definitely has worldwide benefits because it is not a local phenomenon; it is going on all over the world," he said.

"Any tool we have that can help reduce the impacts of urbanisation is beneficial for everyone."

Minister flexes muscle

Minister of Environment, Maithripala Sirisena attributing vehicle emission as the main cause for the bad air condition in the country, assured to take action to control air pollution. He said that polluted air in the country were the results of some projects commenced some years back.

"Bad transportation system, oil powered power stations, industries and tyre burning have caused bad air", he pointed out.

Citing several programs and initiatives taken by the government to tackle air pollution he said that under 'Mahinda Chinthanaya' new programs will be implemented to improve the air quality.

" We have given priority to cut down vehicle emission and several programs have been launched to educate vehicle owners on the present situation and their responsibilities", Minister Sirisena said.

He said that according to Gazette extraordinary No. 1295/11 issued on June 23, 2003, the annual licences would be issued if the vehicles followed the Vehicle Emission Standards. Programs to educate the school children about air quality have already been launched by the Ministry.

Groundbreaking Study identifies 595 places where extinctions are imminent

Philautus ocularis, an endangered frog endemic to Sri Lanka, is one of nearly 800 highly threatened species confined to a single site. Scientists have for the first time pinpointed those places on Earth where extinctions of species are certain to occur unless immediate conservation action is taken.

The findings of the study, published in December in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), identifies 794 species threatened with imminent extinction, each of which is dependent for its survival on a single remaining site on Earth.

The study's authors represent the Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE), an unprecedented partnership of more than 50 international, national and regional biodiversity conservation organizations (including Conservation International), dedicated to averting this scenario.

Among five taxonomic groups investigated, the study identified 794 highly threatened species confined to single sites: this is more than three times larger than the number of species known to have gone extinct in the past 500 years!

While extinction is a natural process, current human-caused rates of species loss are 100-1,000 times greater than natural rates, and a further ten-fold increase is predicted in coming decades. In recent history, most species extinctions have occurred on isolated marine islands following the introduction of invasive predators such as cats and rats. The current study shows that the extinction crisis has now become a full-blown assault on Earth's major land masses, with the majority of at-risk sites and species now found in continental mountain and lowland areas.

"This study confirms that the face of extinction is changing," says Michael Parr, secretary of the AZE. "Whereas most recent extinctions have been of species that were ecologically fragile or in some way targeted by humans, particularly island species, a much broader range of species is now on the brink. The main threat is habitat loss in regions that are the storehouses of biodiversity."

The majority of AZE sites identified to date are in developing countries, with Mexico topping the list with more than 60 sites. But the United States and Australia (with 18 sites each) also appear among the top ten countries, as ranked by number of sites; Japan (with 9 sites) is the only other developed nation to appear among the top twenty countries.

The sites in the United States are primarily in Hawaii, where many extinctions, particularly avian, have already occurred since human settlement. Sadly, it may already be too late for at least one AZE species: the Po'o-uli Melamprosops phaeosoma.

It is believed that the last known individual may have died in captivity at the end of 2004. The study found that more than two-thirds of all AZE sites have no known legal protection, and most are surrounded by intense development.

As such, the AZE member organizations have formed an unprecedented alliance to avert imminent species extinctions, using the results of this study as a guide to where limited resources should most immediately be applied. Most AZE sites, for example, are concentrated in biodiversity hotspots, with the largest concentrations found in the Tropical Andes, the Caribbean Islands, Brazil's Atlantic Forest, Madagascar, Western Ghats and Sri Lanka, and Sundaland; the new data helps conservationists pinpoint exactly where within those regions they should target their efforts.

A number of AZE-prompted projects are already under way. Just recently, the American Bird Conservancy and Conservation International jointly committed some US$35,000 towards on-the-ground conservation projects in the Americas, including work on the Juan Fern ndez Firecrown Sepphanoides fernandensis and the Sapphire-bellied Hummingbird Lepidopyga lilliae - both Critically Endangered - and a monitoring project for threatened birds on Socorro Island.

The Alliance is quick to point out that these are not the only places requiring urgent conservation attention, but that they are known places where species' extinctions are imminent. "Working together, we can take more effective action now to prevent these extinctions," said Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International. "Clearly, if human activity can push these species to the very edge, human activity can also save them. And now we have no excuse." Learn more about the Alliance for Zero Extinction.

Source: Biodiversity Hot Spots

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