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Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Shri Bhupender Yadav announced on 3 August 2026 the designation of Glaw Lake in Arunachal Pradesh as India's 101st Ramsar Site.
It is Arunachal Pradesh's first Ramsar Site — a high-altitude freshwater lake in the Wakro Circle of Lohit district, lying within the Kamlang Tiger Reserve and Wildlife Sanctuary in the Eastern Himalayas.
India's Ramsar network has grown from 26 sites in 2014 to 101, the Minister said, describing the designation as a step for biodiversity conservation, water and climate security and sustainable livelihoods.
The wetland and its catchment support more than 150 tree species and 49 orchid species.
Glaw Lake lies in the Wakro Circle of Lohit district in eastern Arunachal Pradesh, inside the Kamlang Tiger Reserve and Wildlife Sanctuary. This is Eastern Himalayan terrain — a densely forested landscape that forms part of one of the world's recognised biodiversity hotspots, drained by the Lohit, a major tributary that joins the Brahmaputra system in Assam. The lake sits at roughly 1,168 metres, which places it well above the floodplain wetlands that dominate India's Ramsar list and makes it a different ecological type from the coastal lagoons of Tamil Nadu and Odisha or the oxbow lakes of the Gangetic plain. Its designation gives the North East another entry alongside Loktak Lake in Manipur, Deepor Beel in Assam and Rudrasagar in Tripura — and gives Arunachal Pradesh, the largest north-eastern state by area, its first.
The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance — universally called the Ramsar Convention after the Iranian city where it was signed on 2 February 1971 — is the oldest of the modern multilateral environmental treaties and the only one dedicated to a single ecosystem type. It came into force on 21 December 1975 and India acceded on 1 February 1982. Its central obligation is not protection in the sense of a national park: it is 'wise use', defined as maintaining the ecological character of a wetland through sustainable use within the ecosystem approach. A Ramsar site can therefore have people fishing, grazing and farming in it, provided the wetland's ecological character holds. Designation does not create a new legal regime of its own inside India. It is a commitment made by the Union Government under the treaty, delivered domestically through existing law — chiefly the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017, notified under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, which prohibit certain activities in notified wetlands and place management responsibility with State Wetlands Authorities under the advisory oversight of a National Wetland Committee. In Glaw Lake's case a second and stronger layer already applies, because the lake lies inside the Kamlang Tiger Reserve and Wildlife Sanctuary and is therefore protected under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. The Convention's own enforcement instrument is reputational. The Montreux Record is a register of listed sites where adverse ecological change has occurred, is occurring or is likely to occur — placement on it is a formal signal that a site needs priority attention. India has two entries on it: Keoladeo National Park in Rajasthan and Loktak Lake in Manipur.
Simple Analogy: A Ramsar listing is closer to a heritage citation than to a fence: it commits the country to keeping the place recognisably itself, and the Montreux Record is the note in the file saying the commitment is slipping.
Provide the domestic regulatory framework for identifying, notifying and managing wetlands
Key: Notified under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, replacing the 2010 Rules; they shifted primary responsibility from a central authority to State Wetlands Authorities, created a digital wetland inventory and left the National Wetland Committee an advisory role guiding integrated management on the wise-use principle and reviewing progress at Ramsar sites
Promote optimal use of wetlands, enhance biodiversity and carbon stock, and generate income for local communities through nature tourism at Ramsar sites
Key: Announced in the Union Budget 2023-24 and implemented over three years; the pilot phase covered five wetlands — Sultanpur National Park in Haryana, Bhitarkanika Mangroves and Chilika Lake in Odisha, and Sirpur and Yashwant Sagar in Madhya Pradesh
Recognise cities that safeguard their urban wetlands and integrate them into planning
Key: A voluntary accreditation under the Ramsar Convention, valid for six years; Indore and Udaipur became India's first accredited wetland cities, joining a global list of 31
Protect the habitat within which Glaw Lake sits
Key: The lake lies inside the Kamlang Tiger Reserve and Wildlife Sanctuary, so the surrounding landscape already carries protected-area status independent of the Ramsar designation
Glaw Lake's catchment, with over 150 tree species and 49 orchid species, sits in one of the global biodiversity hotspots that overlap Indian territory — the standard link between a site designation and hotspot geography
The lake lies within the Kamlang Tiger Reserve, so a Ramsar designation and a tiger reserve notification now cover the same landscape under two different legal regimes
Ramsar is one of the biodiversity-related conventions that report alongside the CBD; wetland targets feed into national biodiversity commitments
The Minister framed the designation in terms of water and climate security — wetlands function as carbon stores and flood buffers, which is the argument that moved them from a conservation to an adaptation agenda
Arunachal Pradesh receiving its first Ramsar site extends a pattern of conservation designations concentrating in the North East, where Loktak, Deepor Beel and Rudrasagar already feature
GS Paper 3 > Environment > Conservation, Biodiversity and International Environmental Agreements
General Awareness > Environment and Current Affairs
General Awareness > Environment and Geography
With reference to a conservation organization called 'Wetlands International', which of the following statements is/are correct? 1. It is an intergovernmental organization formed by the countries which are signatories to Ramsar Convention. 2. It works at the field level to develop and mobilize knowledge, and use the practical experience to advocate for better policies. Select the correct answer using the code given below.
Answer: 2 only
Ramsar sites appear in UPSC Prelims most years and in nearly every SSC and Railway environment section
A wetland designated as being of international importance under the Convention on Wetlands signed at Ramsar, Iran in 1971
The Ramsar Convention's central principle — maintaining the ecological character of a wetland through sustainable use within the ecosystem approach, rather than excluding human activity
A register of Ramsar sites where adverse ecological change has occurred, is occurring or is likely to occur, marking them for priority attention
A voluntary Ramsar accreditation for cities that conserve their urban wetlands, valid for six years; Indore and Udaipur are India's first