Revisiting East Kolkata Wetlands: Globality of the Locals

Background: The East Kolkata Wetlands system has become a research trove. Describing a little known wetland as a tutorial ecosystem for learning wetland wise use and thereafter getting it included in the Ramsar List of Wetlands was good. It took me about 20 years. But the subsequent lesson of how feeble is the strength of existing wetland conservation tools including the one of the Ramsar Bureau, has been much more absorbing and that needed to be revisited. Revisiting started with re-familiarisation. Familiarisation is the tool where perception is the task. No matter how deep the extent of perception research aimed at, the primary tool that the researcher must carry is ‘familiarisation’. How do you start knowing a language? By knowing the alphabets. How do you start knowing about the ecosystem? Start familiarising yourself with the ecosystem. This is an unalterable roadmap to learn about ecosystems. And that is how we begin to learn Ecology.

Place of Study: East Kolkata Wetlands, West Bengal, India.

Discussion: The work that we have taken up now begins with the study of perception of the East Kolkata Wetlands ecosystem residents and how the real estate lobby looks at them, thinks about them and finally attempts to destroy them. We have got results which in many cases have been surprising if not stunning. We also know that the route to conserve a threatened wetland is much more complex, more non-linear and needs to be inclusive in content. I have initiated research focusing on wastewater as commons. This has not been done before. The reason for no available research in wastewater as commons is straightforward. Municipal wastewater is always seen as a pollutant and never understood as a resource as it is, without treatment. It has been the worldview of the enlightened fishermen and the fish producers in the East Kolkata Wetlands, who saw wastewater as resource and used it in their ponds to grow fish. This unique phenomenon has turned wastewater as commons. However, I will call it a localised commons, and not to be considered as global commons. We are not even in a position to list our lessons learnt because we continue to doubt ourselves. Or maybe this happens to be our first lesson: To look at the phenomenon of ‘certainty’ differently. In an ecosystem very few things can be said to be certain. Most things that happen are unpredictable and non-linear in the span of time.