Kolkata: ‘Sustainable living’, ‘climate resilience’, ‘circular economy’ – buzzwords such as these have become common in many seminars on urban space utilisation. However, the story of the wetlands on the eastern periphery of Kolkata brings them to reality.
While these wetlands have been part of the life of the city for almost a hundred years, their significance and relevance to the city drew widespread attention at the same time when the UN Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992.
The following timeline describes events as they unfolded around the Kolkata wetlands about the same time as the conference:
September 1992: A public interest litigation (PIL) moved by the NGO, People United for Better Living in Kolkata (PUBLIC), in the Calcutta high court resulted in an order granting legal protection to the 25,000-acre expanse recognised as the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW). The PIL aimed to halt the state’s allocation of 227 acres within the wetlands for a proposed World Trade Centre by an NRI.
August 2002. Ten years later, the East Kolkata Wetlands were designated a Ramsar site, making the Government of India a party to an international network committed to wetlands conservation.
March 2006. Fourteen years later, the Government of West Bengal passed the East Kolkata Wetlands (Conservation & Management) Act, establishing the East Kolkata Wetlands Management Authority (EKWMA), responsible for the management and conservation of the wetlands. This was the first instance of a major piece of environmental legislation being passed by a state in India.
February 2021. Almost 30 years after the high court order, the EKWMA published an “Integrated Management Plan of East Kolkata Wetlands, 2021-2026,” declaring the goal “to maintain East Kolkata Wetlands in a healthy condition to enable delivery of its full range of ecosystem services and sustain biological diversity values.”
In these 30 years, the East Kolkata Wetlands have lost 36% of their total area – from 65,300 sq. km in 1991 down to 42,000 sq. km in 2021.
What Justice Umesh Banerjee’s 1992 judgment described as “a bounty of nature” has slowly and steadily been allowed to be gnawed away.
Remotely sensed data and ground-level field observations show that there are three reasons for the shrinkage of Kolkata’s wetlands: human encroachment (“wetland hunting” by land developers and real estate agents, as one group of researchers described it), eutrophication and transformation of wetlands into fishing ponds.
The government’s own Integrated Plan shows that the maximum land use transformation from 2000 to 2020 was about 1,700 hectares allocated for fish farming, followed by approximately 1,000 hectares going into new settlements. The area being used for dumping solid waste has doubled to 90 hectares.
But why do these changes in land use pattern in the east Kolkata wetlands matter? There are two reasons: the services the wetlands provide to the city of Kolkata, and what they do for nature, and therefore, our future generations.
Also read: Explained: What Are Wetlands and Why Are They Important?
Services for the city
The east Kolkata wetlands are the world’s largest peri-urban natural waste recovery system. Because of the west-to-east gradient of the land away from the river Hooghly, gravity facilitates the city’s sewage and rainwater to drain/be pumped into the wetlands, where an ingenious, totally home-invented system of interconnected shallow holding ponds allows sunlight to “process” the sewage and algae to bloom.
Villagers living in the wetlands farm fish in these ponds, encouraging them to feed on the sewage-promoted algae. Around 1,000 litres of sewage water discharged by the city every day get converted by nature to food for the 20,000 million tonnes (MT) of fish annually consumed by Kolkata. And the same happens with vegetables. According to the state government, the east Kolkata wetlands produce 50,000MT of vegetables with the monsoon runoff and the sewage effluent discharge from the fish farms. Such nature-friendly use has enabled these wetlands to earn and retain the epithet of “wise use wetlands” from Ramsar.
The spinoff effects of this nature’s bounty are substantial: an estimated Rs 500 crore is saved annually because of this natural sewage treatment system. In addition, the productive activity – fish and vegetable farming – creates livelihoods and boosts the city’s economy. An estimated 50,000 people, the poorest of the poor, are dependent on producing and bringing to market the fish, agricultural and horticultural output of these wetlands.
The east Kolkata wetlands are also vital for the environmental health of the city. They help reduce pollution by acting as a carbon sink.
Research suggests that as much as 60% of carbon in wastewater gets sequestered by the wetlands. In his seminal order (a reminder – this was more than 30 years ago), Justice Banerjee pointed out that 1 sq.m. of surface water produced almost 24 grams of oxygen per minute, compared to an individual’s consumption of 2.1 grams of oxygen per minute. Kolkata’s Air Quality Index would certainly read much worse if it was not for the beneficial role played by the wetlands.
Another important service that the wetlands provide the city relates to flood control.
The natural depression between the city and the Kulti estuary to the southeast enhances the area’s water holding capacity enormously and helps attenuate floods. This natural buffer also serves as a potential safeguard against storm surges and contributes significantly to Kolkata’s climate resilience as the frequency and severity of extreme climate events increases.
In sum, the east Kolkata wetlands provide the city a natural waste recovery system, enable significant economic activity that is fossil-free, reduce air pollution by capturing carbon and make the city more climate resilient.
And yet, the wetlands have been allowed to shrink by almost 40%.
Also read: India Gets 15 More Ramsar Wetlands. Here’s Why That Could Help.
Services for nature
A striking aspect of the 1992 judgment of Justice Banerjee is the detail it goes into in describing what the wetlands of east Kolkata do for nature. The list includes species of algae, fern, monocots, dicots, going on to the species of summer birds, resident and migratory (from Siberia and East Europe). It goes on to refer to research conducted by the then Joint Director of the Zoological Survey of India (and published by the government of West Bengal) that “Kolkata within its limit exhibits at least seven to ten species of mammals, 200 species of birds, 15 species of reptiles, 13 species of amphibians and 40 species of butterflies.”
The 2021-2026 Management Plan points out that the marsh mongoose, endemic to the wetlands, is included in Schedule II of the Indian Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
These numbers and other measures of biodiversity have altered drastically over the years. The Management Plan notes that of the 248 species of birds found by the Zoological Survey of India in the first such survey in 1964-69, only 162 were “variably noted” during the last 30 years.
The State’s own document (the 2021-2026 Plan) admits that large birds (such as the Openbill Stork and Spoonbill) and birds of prey, such as Brahminy Kite and Pallas’s Fishing Eagle, “which used to be common in the recent past are now no longer seen.”
And yet, the wetlands have been allowed to shrink by almost 40%.
Also read: Urban Wetlands Are Not Wastelands, They Are Essential for Climate Resilient Cities
Government inaction
The single, dominant reason for Kolkata losing large sections of its vital wetlands is government inaction.
The 1992 order not only injuncted the state from reclaiming any further wetland, prohibiting it from “granting any permission…for changing the use of the land”, it “further directed (the State) to maintain the nature and character of the wetlands in their present form and to stop all encroachment of the wetland area…” Other than setting up the East Kolkata Wetlands Management Authority, the government of West Bengal has pretty much ignored the order.
Violations are rampant and range from filling up of waterbodies/agricultural land and illegal construction to unauthorised commercial activity, such as operating a ready-mix plant. The website of the East Kolkata Wetlands Management Authority claims that 358 cases have been filed against violations in the 15 years since 2007. However, deterrent and/or penal action has been negligible: just two demolition orders are listed on the site. One demolition (in March 2022) again required a PIL by PUBLIC in the Calcutta high court before the state government took action.
The state’s inaction can be attributed primarily to three reasons: absence of political commitment, low level of community engagement, and market forces.
The absence of political commitment follows from the fact that wetlands conservation does not win votes. Just as vehicles older than 15 years are still plying the streets of Kolkata despite their being banned by court order, violations on the wetlands are allowed with token FIRs being filed. The lack of commitment is reflected in poor funding – the Environment Department was allocated just 0.0003% of the state’s budget for 2024-25!
Poor funding starves the Management Authority of resources, including staff, which leads to unmonitored encroachment and continuing inaction.
But resources aside, the fact that to date even the boundaries of the wetlands have yet to be fully demarcated is a sad testimony to the lack of political commitment on the part of the government. Without demarcation, it is open season for wetland hunters.
The lack of political commitment is also reflected in the extremely low level of community engagement undertaken by the government.
In 2012, reacting with shock to the brazen filling up of a water body in the wetlands, the then Chief Technical Officer of the EKWMA said, “There is need for resistance from locals.”
But if the wetlands are to be protected by locals, minimal effort needs to be made to communicate to them why the wetlands are important and how land use conversion could potentially harm the community itself. Such minimal communication has been lacking and the state has made virtually no effort whatsoever to generate local interest or participation in wetlands conservation.
It was only in November 2023, 31 years after the order by Justice Banerjee, that the state’s environment department was reported as having put up boards on the periphery of the wetlands informing people that “the East Kolkata wetlands is a wetland of international importance. It is our pride. We must conserve it.”
Similarly, despite the educational and ecotourism opportunities offered by the wetlands, the state seems to be unconcerned about providing even basic facilities, such as a visitor centre and homestay arrangements that have been promoted successfully by other states.
In contrast to the relative inaction witnessed with respect to conservation and communication efforts, agencies of the state appear to work with considerable enthusiasm in priming the property market around the wetlands.
Early in March 2024, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation sanctioned Rs 4.5 crore to “upgrade and strengthen the existing bituminous road stretch” between two points in the wetlands ostensibly “for better transport and communication”. This shortcut, it was gleefully reported, was the state’s response to areas in this part of the region “becoming one of the most lucrative zones in the city for developing real estate”, euphoria that is borne out well by a glance at prices for flats in the many high-rises that have come up in and around the East Kolkata Township. Their USP – an unencumbered view of the green expanse of east Kolkata wetlands.
The man who described the east Kolkata wetlands as “nature’s bounty” also stated in his 1992 order, “Nature will not tolerate us after a certain degree of its destruction…Can the present day society afford to have such a state…”
It remains for Kolkata to decide whether this was a rhetoric or prophecy.
Bonani Kakkar is founder-president of People United for Better Living in Kolkata (PUBLIC). Pradeep Kakkar is founder-member of PUBLIC.
