CHENNAI: After taking a policy decision to hand over 150 hectares of land in Pallikaranai to the forest department, the state government will take steps to acquire patches of land in the northern and south-eastern parts of the marsh, measuring about 127 hectares, to protect one of the last remaining ecosystems in the city from becoming an open dumpyard.

Spread over 5,000 hectares at the time of Independence, nearly 90% of the marshland was lost as Chennai city expanded. In 2002, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, alarmed at the rate at which the marshland was shrinking, commissioned a study to find out the area of the marsh, its habitat quality and suggested interventional methods.

The survey revealed the presence of 275 species of flora and over 100 bird species in the marsh. In late 2005, the government constituted a high-level committee to look into the matter and the next summer the locals formed an environment committee to protect the wetland.

The first real effort to protect the marshland came on April 9, 2007, when the state declared 317 hectares of the marsh as a reserve forest. The Kancheepuram district authorities handed over the land to the forest department. But scientists and researchers involved in the protection of the marsh argued that an additional 150 hecatres on both sides of the Thoraipakkam-Tambaram road bisecting the marsh should also be declared a reserve forest area as birds, especially several varieties of ducks, came there for feeding.

“It’s a miracle that the birds still visit the marsh despite the non-stop dumping by the city corporation,” says Ranjit Daniels, an ornithologist who conducted the first scientific bird census in the state last month. According to official statistics, the dumpyard, in the absence of source segregation of waste, is eating into four hectares of marshland every year.

Afraid that the growing garbage mounds will obstruct flow of water from north to south, the government has now directed the civic body to hand over the 150 hectares to the forest department.

Peoples’ participation, sustained media support and a responsive government has been the hallmark of the save Pallikaranai campaign, a rare success story in protecting an ecologically-sensitive environment despite urban pressures. Not many know that the marsh extends up to Sholinganallur Road, says Jayashree Vencatesan of Care Earth. “Over 100 hecatres on the northern side of the marsh (adjacent to Velachery-Tambaram road) and another patch on the south-east should be merged with the reserve forest to protect the marsh in its totality,” says Jayashree.

Senior forest officials said there was a proposal to turn the Pallikaranai marsh into a wetland centre by networking with international agencies to attract funds for its protection and restoration.