Explanation:

Menar bird village in Udaipur district is set to be notified as Rajasthan's new wetland.

The “bird village” has been recognized as one following community-driven conservation efforts.

This will pave the way for getting the Ramsar site status for this rural heartland of the Mewar region.

Wetlands are ecosystems saturated with water, either seasonally or permanently.

They include mangroves, marshes, rivers, lakes, deltas, floodplains and flooded forests, rice-fields, coral reefs, marine areas no deeper than 6 meters at low tide, as well as human-made wetlands such as waste-water treatment ponds and reservoirs.

Wetlands are a critical part of our natural environment. They mitigate floods, protect coastlines and build community resilience to disasters, reduce the impacts of floods, absorb pollutants and improve water quality.

Wetlands are critical to human and planet life. More than 1 billion people depend on them for a living and 40% of the world’s species live and breed in wetlands.

They are a vital source for food, raw materials, genetic resources for medicines, and hydropower.

30% of land-based carbon is stored in peatlands.

Peatlands are a type of wetlands. It refers to the peat soil and the wetland habitat growing on its surface. In some areas, year-round waterlogged conditions slow the process of plant decomposition to such an extent that dead plants accumulate to form peat. Over millennia this material builds up and becomes several metres thick.

Peatlands occur in almost every country on Earth, currently covering 3% of the global land surface.

In 2017, the world’s largest tropical peatland was discovered beneath the forests of the Congo Basin in 2017.