25 Aug 2020
New Delhi: Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanamar and Indian have decide to coordinate their efforts for conservation of river Dolphins, a unique species found mainly in rivers of Asia and South America, which are vanishing rapidly.
Their experts shared their experinece in the conservation of the species at a webinar here.
Sunderban delta is an unique ecological space where Gangetic as well as Irrawaddy dolphin are present, spread over India as well as Bangladesh. The conference gave unique opportunity to share experience on the dolphins. It was also supplemented by Myanmar and Chilika Lake authority in context of Irrawaddy Dolphin.
Gangetic Dolphin, the national aquatic animal of India has been declared endangered by International Union for the Conservation of Nature. This webinar was organised to discuss the future strategy to conserve and revive these Dolphins with regional cooperation.
Dr. B. K. Das, Director, ICAR-CIFRI said, “These animals do not realise boundaries and have tried to find habitat wherever possible. Hence, regional cooperation is very important in conserving them.”
Experts participating in the webinar said that fishery conservation efforts under Namami Gange through CIFRI would improve prey base in dolphin habitat leading to enhanced dolphin population.
Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, Director General, Namami Gange shared his experiences on dolphin conservation linking its importance in the rejuvenation of Ganga. Continuous efforts of Namami Gange to bring Dolphin conservation to national attention have resulted in announcement of “Project Dolphin” by Prime Ministry under MoEF. This project will be in-line with “Project Tiger” which has successfully helped in increasing tiger population, he said.
However, the most important thing to focus now on is community participation along with scientific interventions. Namami Gange has given importance to biodiversity and ecological improvement along with pollution abatement and took up projects for improvement of fisheries with CIFRI and for biodiversity conservation with WII. Under this framework, this is a first of its kind occasion where the fishery sector is leading dolphin conservation discourse, he said.
Under this strategy cooordinated approach would be adopted for synergising transboundary efforts & develop a regional program, and emphsis would be given on livelihood improvement of fishermen to help them join conservation efforts.
Small habitats in North East Rivers would be studied for local propagation or translocation.
The programme would apply latest under water acoustic methodology to be applied for dolphin censes.
–India News Stream