Chilika Lake (Ramsar Wetland Site)

Chilika Lake is a brackish-water coastal lagoon spread across the Puri, Khordha, and Ganjam districts of Odisha on the eastern seaboard of the Indian peninsula, separated from the Bay of Bengal by a narrow sandy ridge. It holds the distinction of being the first Indian wetland inscribed on the List of Wetlands of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as Waterfowl Habitat, signed at Ramsar, Iran, on 2 February 1971. India acceded to the Convention in 1981 and designated Chilika as Ramsar Site No. 229 on 1 October 1981, alongside Keoladeo National Park in Rajasthan. The lagoon's legal protection framework derives domestically from the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, and the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017, which operationalise India's Ramsar commitments and prescribe the regulation of activities within notified wetlands.

The Ramsar designation process under which Chilika was listed requires a Contracting Party to identify wetlands meeting at least one of the nine Ramsar Criteria—covering representative wetland types, support for vulnerable species, and waterfowl populations exceeding 20,000 individuals or one per cent of a biogeographic population. Chilika qualifies on multiple criteria as Asia's largest brackish-water lagoon and the largest wintering ground for migratory waterfowl on the Indian subcontinent, hosting upwards of one million birds in peak season. Once designated, the Party assumes obligations under Article 3.1 of the Convention to formulate and implement planning to promote conservation and wise use, and under Article 3.2 to report changes in ecological character to the Ramsar Secretariat. National implementation flows through the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change as the administrative authority.

A distinctive procedural feature of Chilika's history is its placement on, and subsequent removal from, the Montreux Record—the register maintained under the Convention listing Ramsar sites where changes in ecological character have occurred, are occurring, or are likely to occur. Chilika was entered onto the Montreux Record in 1993 following heavy siltation, the choking of its mouth to the sea, declining salinity, weed proliferation, and falling fish yields that threatened the livelihoods of fishing communities. The Chilika Development Authority, established by the Government of Odisha in 1992, undertook a hydrological intervention in September 2000 to open a new mouth to the Bay of Bengal, restoring tidal exchange and salinity gradients. On the strength of this recovery, Chilika was removed from the Montreux Record in 2002 and received the Ramsar Wetland Conservation Award the same year, a sequence frequently cited as a global model of wetland restoration.

The lagoon is the principal habitat in India for the Irrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris), a near-threatened cetacean censused annually by the Chilika Development Authority, with the population concentrated around the Satapada region. Contemporary management is coordinated from Bhubaneswar through the Odisha state administration and the Chilika Development Authority, with the National Wetland Conservation Programme and, latterly, the National Plan for Conservation of Aquatic Ecosystems providing central funding. As of recent assessments the lagoon supports the livelihoods of more than 150,000 fishers across some 132 villages, and tourism centred on dolphin sighting and birdwatching at Nalabana Bird Sanctuary—a notified sanctuary island within the lagoon under the Wildlife (Protection) Act.

Chilika is frequently conflated with other Indian wetland categories, and the practitioner must distinguish it precisely. Unlike a National Park or Wildlife Sanctuary, which are protected-area designations under domestic law, a Ramsar Site is an international designation that does not by itself confer a domestic legal status—Nalabana within Chilika carries the sanctuary status, while the Ramsar label attaches to the lagoon system as a whole. Chilika should also be distinguished from a Biosphere Reserve under the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme and from a World Heritage Site under the 1972 World Heritage Convention; the three regimes are administratively separate. It differs further from Loktak Lake in Manipur, another Ramsar site that remains on the Montreux Record, illustrating that designation and ecological health are not equivalent.

Edge cases and controversies persist. Encroachment by illegal prawn-culture gheris (enclosures), conflicts between traditional fisher cooperatives and commercial aquaculture interests, and recurrent siltation from the Mahanadi distributaries continue to pressure the lagoon's ecological character. The 1994 Supreme Court of India intervention in litigation concerning prawn aquaculture, and subsequent High Court directions, reflect the unresolved tension between conservation mandates and livelihood economics. India's expanding Ramsar portfolio—exceeding 80 designated sites by the mid-2020s, the largest network in Asia—has renewed scrutiny of whether designation translates into effective management, with Chilika held up as the benchmark against which weaker performers are measured.

For the working practitioner—particularly the UPSC aspirant addressing GS Paper III environment questions, or the policy researcher analysing wetland governance—Chilika is the canonical Indian case study linking international environmental law to domestic implementation outcomes. It demonstrates the full Ramsar lifecycle: designation, ecological degradation, Montreux Record listing, restorative intervention, and de-listing. Its narrative integrates hydrology, fisheries economics, migratory ornithology, cetacean conservation, and the federal interplay between the Union Ministry and a state-level development authority, making it indispensable to any examination of how India operationalises multilateral environmental commitments.