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On #WorldWetlandsDay here's a story about one of the most unique #wetland system in the world - The East #Kolkata #Wetlands, a 125 sq. km vast lattice of fishponds & farmlands which, each day, converts 750 million litres of sewage & wastewater into fish & fresh produce.
In a miraculous act of #urban alchemy, an estimated 50,000 people, fisherfolk & vegetable farmers, use their #ecological #knowledge to convert #sewage & #wastewater into 10,000 metric tonnes of #fish and 50,000 tonnes of vegetables each year.
The #wetlands have profound #ecological & economic impacts; they foster #biodiversity - hosting more than 65 types of birds, dozens of reptiles & amphibians,& 16 species of mammals. It is also estimated to hoover up 60% of the carbon dioxide from Kolkata's air and sequester it.
30 years ago, a sanitation engineer explored this a vast network of #wetlands on the city’s eastern fringe & spent his entire life unpacking how the #urban #poor broke down the city’s #sewage with the help of sunshine and oxygen, to produce food for fish https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/ecologist-of-the-poor-man-who-is-fighting-to-conserve-east-kolkata-wetlands/story-admvS9TGIk0MpW6V18UChN.html
The late Dr. Dhrubajyoti Ghosh not only understood the criticality of the #wetland system but he also wanted it recognised as a site for generation of theory from the Global South. https://scroll.in/article/869250/dhrubajyoti-ghosh-saviour-of-the-east-kolkata-wetlands-believed-in-people-and-not-policies
The East Kolkata #Wetlands face many threats, most of it from the city's real estate that seeks to convert this #ecological #heritage into concrete highrises. The fishworkers & farmers have fought this "accumulation by dispossession" tooth & nail. https://scroll.in/article/875561/counterview-research-on-the-east-kolkata-wetlands-that-ignores-its-users-threatens-its-survival
We celebrated this enduring intimacy between fisherfolk and the East #Kolkata #Wetlands in our recent piece in @1843mag. https://www.economist.com/1843/2021/01/13/where-theres-muck-theres-brass-making-money-from-sewage-in-kolkata
So on #WorldWetlandsDay a reminder that political promises to protect the East #Kolkata #Wetlands have to be kept. @MamataOfficial
