The wetland wise use stands out as the longest-established example among intergovernmental processes of the application of the ecosystem approaches for the conservation and sustainable development of natural resources.
The concept identifies the critical linkages between people and the sustainable development of natural resources and encourages community engagement and transparency in negotiating conservation-development trade-offs between different sectors and stakeholders and determining equitable outcomes for wetlands conservation. Wise use is the central tenet of wetlands conservation and management. As a signatory to the Ramsar Convention, India is committed to ensuring the wise use of all wetlands in her territory. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change’s (MoEF&CC) flagship programme on wetlands, the National Plan for Conservation of Aquatic Ecosystems (NPCA), recommends that the management of each wetland is guided by an Integrated Management Plan (IMP), which describes strategies and actions for achieving wise use.
Despite the centrality of the wise-use concept, vagueness remains in the meaning of the wise use term and its application in wetland management. The document ‘Wetland Wise Use- An implementation framework aims to clarify the term and provides an implementation framework for achieving wetland wise use for wetlands in India.
