Flamingos return to Panje wetland in Uran, greens elated

Wildlife enthusiast Parag Gharat posted the pictures celebrating the sighting of over 300 flamingos at the wetland

Flamingos have begun to return to the 289 hectare wetland at Panje in Uran area of Maharashtra.

Wildlife enthusiast Parag Gharat posted the pictures celebrating the sighting of over 300 flamingos at the wetland which often goes due to the blocking of intertidal water by vested interests who want the water body to remain dry, NatConnect Foundation said.

But to the relief of environmentalists, the State government has recently listed Panje as one of the 564 wetlands listed and documented by a Chennai based research institute.

It is now the responsibility of CIDCO, Raigad district collector to ensure that the water inlets at Panje are never choked, NatConnect director B N Kumar said.

Vanashakti and Sagar Shakti have been fighting a legal battle at Bombay High Court to save the wetland and the biodiversity of ecologically fragile Uran.

The bone of contention for the environmentalists is that the wetland has been allegedly wrongly leased out to NMSEZ (now NMIIA) of which the environmentalists claim that CIDCO itself is a 26 per cent stake holder.

Nandakumar Pawar of Sagar Shakti asked: who will have a heart to bury such a beautiful, rich biodiversity?.The maintenance of this and other intertidal wetlands will ensure availability of fish in large numbers which in turn support the local community, he pointed out.

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