Ahmedabad: Khijadia Wildlife Sanctuary, freshwater wetland in the Jamnagar district, was included as a ramsar site on the day of world wetlands on Wednesday.
With this, Gujarat now has four Ramsar sites.
Along with Khijadia, India also added Bakhira wildlife asylum at Uttar Pradesh as a Ramsar site.
Khijadiya Sanctuary is unique, has fresh water lake, salt and freshwater marshlands.
This is spread in the 6.05 km area.
It was formed after the creation of Bund (Dike) in 1920 to protect agricultural land from salt water ingress.
It provides habitat for more than 310 species of birds, including 125 waterbirds; More than 165,000 each waters have been calculated.
This site also regularly supports more than 1% of the Southeast and Southeast Asian population from Dalmatian Pelican, more than 2% greylag goose and more than 20% of common cranes.
The famous Ornithologist, Salim Ali, reportedly saw 104 species during a day’s visit in 1984.
Uttar Pradesh has 10 Ramsar sites while Punjab has six international wetlands that are important internationally.
Ramsar Convention is an international agreement for conservation and wise wetland use.
Named after the city of Iran Ramsar, in the Kaspian Sea, where the agreement was signed on February 2, 1971.
The Convention came into force in India on February 1, 1982.
Experts felt that Gujarat, who had added three sites to the list within one year, had The potential to add more ramsar sites is more to the list when they meet some of the main criteria to qualify.
Nal Sarovar Bird Sanctuary, The Thol Wildlife Sanctuary and Wadhwana Wetland are other Ramsar sites in the state.
The last two were included in April last year.
For sites to qualify for Ramsar, it must fulfill one of the many criteria.
“One criterion is about bird diversity where the site regularly supports an average population of 20,000 birds in the migration season.
Another rule is that the site must support at least one percent of the species population of each bio-geographical area.
Gujarat at least 30 sites like that Meet one of these two criteria, “said Pemaeliharsa Pemansarya, a scientist with natural history (BNHS) bombings who have studied wetlands.
They included six in Porbander, two at Kutch and around 8 in Marine National Park near Jamnagar, he added.
Of the approximately 25 Ramsar sites in the country in 2012, India almost doubled in the past decade, with a total of up to 49.
In Gujarat, three Ramsar sites have been added in a year.
At Uttar Pradesh, Sanctuary Wildlife Bakira was added to the latest Ramsar site on Wednesday.
With the longest coastline in the country, Gujarat wetlands are strategically located on Central Asian flying roads that draw a large number of shorebirds and provide cessation of millions of birds every year.
“Wetlands cover around 6.4% of world geographical territory while 4.63% of land land areas are in India.
Gujarat is very rich in wetlands and covers 17.56% of its geographical area and consists of 22.7% wetlands in India .
There are eight protected wetlands.
Gujarat developed and managed by the Ministry of Forestry, “said AP Singh, head of the main additional forest, Gujarat.