12 October 2020.
Introduction:
On the occasion of World Migratory Day on 10th October 2020, Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar announced that India has launched a national action plan for the conservation of migratory birds along with the Central Asian Flyway.
Highlights:
- Saving migratory bird is saving the wetlands and terrestrial habitats and saving of an ecosystem, benefitting communities dependent on wetlands.
- India would be the nerve centre for Central Asian Flyway activities in the future. I
- India hosted the #CMSCOP13 in Feb 2020 and is now the president of @UN @BonnConvention till 2022, which deals with migratory species of animals.
- There are 9 flyways in the world.
- The central Asian flyway is one among them. It encompasses migration routes over 30 countries.
- It includes breeding Grounds of Russia, Maldives, west and South Asia, British Indian Ocean Territory.
- The fly away is important to India because it provides critical stop over sites to over 90 percentage of the birds migrating in this route.
The Plan:
- The plan was launched to be implemented between 2018 and 2023.
- The overall goal of the plan is to reduce population decline of migratory birds and to secure their habitat.
- The short-term goal of the plan is to stop the decline in population by 2027.
- The plan is to be implemented by the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change.
- A status report of the plan implementation is to be published by the Ministry every two years.
- The plan aims to conserve the migratory birds and their habitats within the agenda of Sustainable Development Goals.
- It draws upon the five major goals of conservation of migratory species strategic plan 2015 to 2023.
Key Points of the plan
In order to achieve its objectives, the plan has been structured in the following six interrelated components
- Species conservation
- Habitat conservation and sustainable management
- Communication and outreach
- Capacity development
- Research and knowledge base development
- International cooperation
Aim of the plan
- to reduce pressure on critical habitats
- to stop the decline of migratory birds and reverse the scenario
- to avoid threats to habitats
- to support transform boundary cooperation
- to improve database