India's leadership of the Central Asian Flyway initiative demands domestic coherence in habitat protection. Discuss.

India provides critical stopover sites to over 90% of the bird species that use the Central Asian Flyway (CAF) [1]. India also hosts the CAF Coordinating Unit [2]. Its standing abroad therefore depends on protecting those stopovers at home, and there the record is uneven.

India's leadership of the CAF

• Institutional anchor: India hosts the CAF Coordinating Unit, formally set up under CMS Resolution 14.13 at COP14 (2024) [2].
• Diplomatic convenor: India hosted CMS COP13 at Gandhinagar (2020) [4] and convened a meeting of CAF range countries in 2021 [3].
• Policy template: The National Action Plan (NAP) on CAF, 2018–2023 has six components, including habitat conservation and international cooperation [1].

Gaps in domestic coherence

• Mapping blind spot: The NAP depends on the CRZ Notification 2011 to protect coastal wetlands [1]. Mudflats left off coastal zone management plans fall outside that protection. At Kovalam–Nemmeli near Chennai, dredging and bund work for the Mamallan reservoir reportedly damaged such unmapped mudflats [5].
• Infrastructure before screening: A survey at that site counted about 3,500 waterbirds of 51 species, 25 of them CMS-protected [5]. The works went ahead without any prior check of bird use.
• Centre–state disconnect: NAP actions are to be led by state wildlife divisions [1]. The water and coastal agencies that carry out projects sit outside this chain.
• Volunteer-dependent monitoring: The site's value was recorded by naturalists, not by an official appraisal [5].
• Plan lapse: The NAP period ended in 2023 [1], so the domestic framework needs renewal.

Way forward

• Demarcate wetlands and enter them in land-use records, as NAP action 2.2 already proposes [1]. Extend this to active coastal mudflats.
• Count wetland water needs in water-use plans (NAP action 2.3) [1]. Schedule works outside the August–September migration window [5].
• Renew the NAP with mandatory flyway screening for state projects, and use the Coordinating Unit to monitor key sites [2].

India's CAF leadership rests on real institutions, but a flyway is only as strong as its weakest stopover. If the NAP's own tools are applied to state projects and unmapped mudflats, India can meet both its water needs and its flyway duties. That would honour Article 48A and SDG 15, and give its global leadership a firm domestic base.