The State government on Thursday urged the Madras High Court to grant four weeks’ time for issuing a draft notification to notify 100 wetlands spread across the State under the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules of 2017.
Appearing before the first Division Bench of Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy, Additional Advocate General J. Ravindran said the draft notification would thereafter be put in the public domain for 60 days. After completion of the public consultation process, the final notification would be issued, he said, pointing out that the State government had also sent proposals to the Centre to declare 13 wetlands in the State as protected sites under the Ramsar Convention.
The proposed 13 wetlands included Koonthankulam, Chitrangudi, Kanjirankulam, Vaduvur, Udayamarthandapuram, Vellode, Vendanthangal and Karikili bird sanctuaries situated in Tirunelveli, Ramanathapuram, Tiruvarur, Erode and Chengalpattu districts.
Further, the Vembanur wetland, Suchindram-Theroor wetland complex, Pallikaranai marsh, Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve and Pichavaram Mangrove in Kanniyakumari, Chennai and Ramanathapuram districts too had been recommended as Ramsar sites.
The proposals were now pending with the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, the AAG said. He also said at present, only the Point Calimere Wetland Complex had been declared as a Ramsar site in Tamil Nadu, and that too, in 2002.
The submissions were during the hearing of a suo motu public interest litigation petition taken up by the court in 2017, as per Supreme Court directions, to protect the wetlands. After hearing him on the virtual mode, the judges adjourned the matter for hearing in physical mode.
