With decreasing discharges into the sea, India’s rivers are dying. Reduced outflows have led to untold damage to the fragile ecology and biodiversity of the Indian river systems.
Environment experts attending the 11th Conference of Parties (CoP-11) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity warn that India will lose its mega biodiversity tag if the river systems are not restored immediately.
Mr Himanshu Thakkar and Ms Parineeta Dandekar of the South Asia Network on dams, rivers and people, and other activists pointed out that dams, both big and small, had upset life forms living in the fresh water ecology. They quoted the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, which says that there is 30 per cent reduction in nutrients reaching the sea in the last 50 years.
“India is considered a mega diverse country in the context of freshwater biodiversity. New freshwater species continue to be discovered at a rapid rate. Also, millions of people depend on the riverine biodiversity and rivers for their needs and livelihoods. Hundreds of community conserved fish reserves exist across the country,” they said, adding that this riverine ecology is fast eroding now.
The small and mega dams are destroying the fresh water diversity, they said adding that threats from hydropower projects was so serious that “free flowing, biodiversity rich rivers are today India’s most threatened species”. “None of the conservation laws have been of much help for rivers and related biodiversity. There has not been any credible enviro-socio-cultural impact assessment of hydro-projects, considering riverine biodiversity,” they pointed out.
Most of those impacted upstream and downstream, particularly if not in the direct submergence zone, are not even considered as areas affected or project affected for compensation or rehabilitation.