Singer Anima Choudhury Urges People to Save 'Deepor Beel'

Guwahati, June 20, 2019:

Noted Assamese singer Anima Choudhury has joined Inside Northeast in their bid to preserve Assam's lone Ramsar site, the 'Deepor Beel'.

Expressing concern due to the current threats faced by the wetland, she has said that earlier the 'Deepor Beel' was a beautiful place to visit, but with time, it has gotten polluted. "We must preserve the Beel", Anima Choudhury added.

It may be mentioned that the ‘Deepor Beel’ has become a classic example of how wetlands are abused due to clashes of multiple interest.

Although a protected site under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, 1971, continuous encroachment reduced this wetland to one fourth of its original size.

To make things worse, the Guwahati Municipal Corporation had chosen this Ramsar site to be the city’s municipal garbage dumping site! Degradation of this important water body started heavily with dumping of waste by the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) in close proximity of the water body since 2006, flouting all norms of municipal solid waste rules.

The death of Greater Adjutant Storks in the vicinity of Deepar beel, tells the story of how the GMC and the sheer apathy of the state forest department has turned this important bird area turn into a danger zone for the globally threatened species!

Deepor, as the very name suggests, is a traditional refuge of the elephant and has been protected as a wildlife sanctuary. The sanctuary, in order to remain alive and perform some definite ecosystem services, needs more a conservational approach. However, the new government policies seem to ride over this very fact. The Guwahati smart city mission envisages Deepar beel as a water park. It has been reported that a high level meeting chaired by the state Chief Minister recently has come up with plans of constricting the protected area boundaries of the Sanctuary to its half!

Continuous encroachment has already reduced this once 4,000 hectare (ha) wetland shrunk into less than 500 ha area! The focus of the government should be to conserve the wetland ecosystem of this wildlife sanctuary rather then turning it to a recreational park with the sole intention of revenue generation!

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