On the water front

She just became the first Indian to win a Ramsar award. She won it for helping restore and protect over 40 wetlands in Tamil Nadu. More than data and passion, she says, this work takes patience. 'You can't expect results overnight, when you work in conservation'

- Natasha Rego

She was 35 when she first set eyes on the Pallikarani Marsh. About 20 km from the centre of Chennai, the wetland wasn't much to look at. Construction debris and garbage had been dumped here; sewage was being released into the area untreated. Large parts had been encroached upon.

"At the time, the marshes didn't even have a name," says Jayshree Vencatesan, 59. The area was referred to as "kazhuveli", Tamil for "a place that drains". This was a traditional form of land classification, even in government documents.

Vencatesan, who had just completed a PhD at the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, knew the marshes were more than that. She had just received a grant of Rs 32,000 from the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, to map the wetland's possible boundaries and explore the biodiversity it still supported.

She was determined to use this opportunity to build a larger argument.

As she did.

Her study, conducted in 2001-02, revealed a still-rich biodiversity of birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects and plants. It showed how what was left of the marshes was still protecting the region by absorbing large volumes of floodwater.

Cleared, restored and protected, she was about to argue, it could do much more.

It would take about six years of advocacy to get the state government to see things the same way. Through those years, she filed paperwork, gathered evidence, compiled reports, and knocked on every door available for a cause of this kind.

She became known as someone who simply turned up and refused to leave, until the right person heard her out. Amid it all, she gave the marshes a name, in her filings: Pallikarani, after a neighbouring village.