Asan Conservation Reserve

Why in NEWS ?

• Asan Conservation Reserve has become Uttarakhand's first Ramsar site, making it a ‘Wetland of International Importance', announced the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

About

• Ramsar declares Asan Conservation Reserve as a site of international importance.
• With this, the number of Ramsar sites in India goes up to 38, the highest in South Asia and Uttarakhand gets its first Ramsar site.
• Asan Conservation Reserve cleared five out of the nine criteria needed to be declared as a Ramsar site and get identified as a Wetland of International Importance.
• It cleared the category on species and ecological communities, one on water-birds and another on fish.
• The criteria cleared by Asan Conservation Reserve to get Ramsar site tag include that it supports vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered species, it supports populations of plant and/or animal species important for maintaining the biological diversity, it supports plant and/or animal species at a critical stage in their life cycles and it is an important source of food for fishes, spawning ground, nursery and/or migration path on which fish stocks, either within the wetland or elsewhere, depend.

Ramsar Convention on Wetlands

• Ramsar Convention on Wetlands is an intergovernmental treaty adopted on February 2, 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar, on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea.
• The name of the Convention is usually written "Convention on Wetlands".
• The Convention on Wetlands came into force for India on February 1, 1982.
• Those wetlands which are of international importance are declared as Ramsar sites.

Asan Wetland Conservation Reserve (AWCR)

• It is located on the banks of Yamuna river near Dehradun district in Garhwal region of the Himalayan state.
• It is situated at the confluence of the rivers Yamuna and Asan and forms an important transition zone between riverine and forest ecosystems.
• The Asan Barrage (A barrage is a type of low-head, diversion dam) in the Uttarakhand-Himachal Pradesh border region in Doon Valley, (Dehradun District), northern India, situated at the confluence of the Eastern Yamuna Canal and the Asan River.
• Spread across 4.44 sq km area, Asan is home to many rare and endangered species and receives about 40 migratory species, including Rudy Shelduck, Common coot, Gadwall, Kingfisher, Indian cormorant, Baer's pochard, Northern pintail, Bar-headed goose.
• Many endangered birds are found here and some even migrate to the Reserve, making it an ecologically important site.