How 1200 People Came Together to Protect India’s Wetlands

Gurpreet Singh, a 41-year-old boatman residing in Karmuwala village, Tarn Taran district, Punjab, has been familiar with dolphins since childhood, when he knew them simply as big fish. In 2018, he attended a WWF-India workshop; the training programmes acquainted him with dolphin identification, following which he actively started participating in the conservation efforts of the endangered Indus river dolphin common to the Beas-Harike ecosystem.

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Gurpreet was handed a chart with the animal’s picture emblazoned on it. Every time he spotted the beaked creature, he was asked to add a tick next to the picture, along with other important information such as frequency and habitat. 

“This made it simple. I was able to record how many times I saw the dolphin, and the frequency at which it appeared,” Gurpreet shares. In time, he transformed from an observer to an advocate of the creature. Dr Amit Dubey, Head–Wetlands, WWF-India, shares that Gurpreet’s sustained efforts are contributing valuable day-to-day information on dolphin presence and habitat conditions, which supports ongoing conservation and management actions. 

Through interactions with farmers, boatmen, fishermen, students, and other stakeholders on his ferry on a daily basis, he is helping to build a sense of stewardship and shared responsibility for dolphins and river conservation.

Gurpreet explains, “In 2018, I joined hands with WWF-India and stepped into my role as a wetland mitra (friend of the wetland), where I work closely with local communities on the ground to spread awareness and share practical lessons that help protect the Beas–Harike wetland.” 

In 2019, when the Beas River was declared a Ramsar site under the 1971 Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, the sixth in Punjab, Gurpreet and his wetland mitraswere thrilled. 

Now, everyone would become cognisant of the uniqueness of this site, which, in 2018, saw the reintroduction of the gharial after it had become locally extinct for over 40 years. 

Creating a cadre of people to protect the wetlands of India

“‘Custodians of the wetland’—that’s how we see the wetland mitras,” Amit explains. “The initiative works in close coordination with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, the Department of Forest and Wildlife Preservation, Government of Punjab, the State Wetland Authority, and other government departments, including State Forest Departments.”

He adds, “The wetlands of India are shared resources; they don’t have a single stakeholder.” 

He urges thinking of the relationship between the wetland mitrasand the wetlands as reciprocal. “Wetland mitrasare not only people who are directly dependent on wetlands for their livelihoods, but also those who deeply care for these ecosystems and are committed to their conservation. These are people whose lives and livelihoods are closely linked to the health of the wetlands. We engage with these stakeholders to carry out different types of work, ensuring sustainability and conservation,” Amit shares. With over 1,200 wetland mitrasenrolled across Indian topographies, the work is gaining momentum. 

Currently, India has 98 of its wetlands designated as Ramsar sites, with the Chhari-Dhand wetland in Gujarat and Patna Bird Sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh being the latest frontiers in the lineage, declared as Ramsar sites in 2026. 

But the goal of the wetland mitrasisn’t just to have the water bodies ‘Ramsar’ tagged, but also to ensure that every wetland warrants the same level of protection and respect. And they don’t mind going miles to make this happen. Literally. In 2008, one wetland mitra— Janardhan R (55) from Karnataka’s Doddaballapura, then a farmer — participated in a 150-km awareness walk from Nandi Hills in Doddaballapura to Sangama in Kanakapura, alongside a group of citizens and organisations, to highlight the importance of Arkavathy river conservation.

This underscores how wetland mitrasplay a vital role in the conservation and management of wetlands, beyond Ramsar sites or wildlife sanctuaries. Peri-urban, urban, and rural wetlands, which face increasing development pressures, particularly benefit from the attention and efforts of wetland mitras. Their contributions are making a positive impact on wetlands across India.

This wasn’t the first time Janardhan was advocating for a water body. As a kere mitra (kere translates to lake in Kannada), he has led wetland health assessments in nearly 40 wetlands in the Arkavathy basin and trained other mitrasto monitor wetland health through water testing, bird surveys, catchment surveys, and has actively participated in conducting awareness programmes in schools in the Arkavathy basin to champion the cause of wetland conservation. 

Janardhan was part of the committee that received the Water Sustainability Awards 2021 hosted by TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute), IWA (International Water Association), and the Ministry of Jal Shakti for their efforts towards rejuvenating the Bashettihalli wetland in 2019 — a three-year-long project that witnessed the restoration of the wetland through nature based solutions resulting in removal of 1,90,000 cubic meters of silt and deweeding. The 5 square km catchment area was restored through the plantation of over 1000 native saplings.

Today, even after five years of restoration actions, the wetland is healthy, and the air around Bashettihalli is filled with the score of birds, singing praises of the restoration efforts. 

Janardhan wants to keep the circle of good going. And one way to do this is to target children. His lectures at Doddaballapura schools are a medley of activities, picture discussions, and debates to emphasise the importance of the water bodies. 

Reasoning the shift in people’s mentality towards wetland protection, he says, “The dependency of people on lakes has gone down. There was a time they would depend entirely on it for the water and irrigation. Now that they have other sources. But we try explaining to them that the healthier the lake is it will benefit them.” 

By speaking science in the language of everyday gains and losses, Janardhan tries to emphasise the importance of the wetland. 

Through a structured curriculum formulated by WWF-India, children are becoming cognisant of their natural heritage. As Amit shares, “When a person from a community talks about a cause, it has more impact than when an outsider talks about it. Janardhan is our interface, recognised as a champion for lakes.” 

Going beyond the protection of wetlands

Between 1940 and 2014, India lost about one-third of its wetlands to urbanisation, a study by non-government organisation Wetlands International South Asia (WISA) has found. Meanwhile, a study published in Nature(2023) suggests that India may have had 61.3 million hectares of natural wetlands in 1,700, which nearly halved to 37.2 million hectares by 2020. 

Protecting the wetlands is paramount. And while the threat to them is often external (human activities), sometimes it lies in its depths. Take, for instance, the Aril River in Uttar Pradesh, which is bursting at the seams with water hyacinth. 

As farmer Tejpal Singh (81) explains, the free-floating perennial weeds block out sunlight and crowd out native species. It needs to be removed. “Whenever it accumulates on the surface of the water, the birds stop coming to the lake, and the organisms in the water find it tough to survive. So, we must clean the water body frequently so that the oxygen levels can increase.” 

WWF-India shares that the removal of hyacinth, along with other conservation methods, which included restoration of hydrological connectivity, has brought improved health to the wetland, which is now thriving with biodiversity. The wetland is also now contributing hydrologically to the flows in the river Aril, during the monsoon period, and supporting the base through groundwater recharge, during the off-monsoon season, thus contributing to improved river health. 

But removing the water hyacinth isn’t always easy. Nature conspires against the farmers in the form of snakes, insects, and other fauna that they have to brave so that they can remove the water hyacinth using nets. 

While Tejpal finds it tough to put an estimate on the tons of water hyacinth collected, he says it’s a lot and shares that they don’t let it go to waste. 

“We make a compost out of it and use it in agriculture. We’ve seen the crop productivity increase when we do this,” he shares. And so these farmers persist in their efforts. For Tejpal, venturing into the wetland comes with pinpricks of déjà vu. These wetlands carry memory, reminders of a time when they sustained the community and shaped everyday life. Protecting them means safeguarding a heritage that has shaped generations of the community.

All pictures courtesy WWF-India

Sources

'Beas river in Punjab among three wetlands picked as Ramsar sites': by Harpreet Bajwa, Published on 20 January 2020. 

India's Wetlands of International Importance.

'India’s disappearing wetlands are an early warning sign of drastic biodiversity loss': by Simrin Sirur, Published on 18 October 2024.

'India lost one-third of its natural wetlands in four decades, reveals study': by Badri Chatterjee, Published on 31 January 2020. 

'There’s a pressing need for a dedicated and broad-based national wetlands inventory programme': by Ritesh Kumar, Published on 31 January 2025. 

'Bashettihalli Wetland and its catchment ready to catch rains': by WWF-India, Published on 1 July 2019.

'Wetlands and our world', Published by WWF-India. 

'Annotated List of Wetlands of International Importance', Published by Ramsar Sites Information Service.

'Reintroduced gharials thriving in Beas reserve: experts': by Vikas Vasudeva, Published on 18 December 2021. 

Water Champion Winners 2021-2022.

'Conserving wetlands biodiversity: Bending the biodiversity loss curve', Published by Wetlands International South Asia on 21 May 2020. 

'Revitalising the Wetlands of India', Published by India Water Foundation in August 2025.